Political reform also on the agenda

Political reform enthusiast Teina Mackenzie attended the community visioning meeting with the Puaikura community convened by the Koutu Nui on Thursday night at Calvary Hall. At the end of the Puaikura meeting, Koutu Nui president, Te Tika Mataiapo introduced Teina and invited her to tell the community about her petition for political reform.
Teina is a Cook Islander and apologized for having to speak in English as she was brought up overseas but returned with her family some 15 years ago and she and her partner, Henry Hoff are bringing up their six children to speak Maori. She loves the life in the Cook Islands but as a parent of young children, she is well aware of the future challenges of providing good livelihoods for them so that when they grow up, they too will choose to live in the Cook Islands.
However, living here has challenges and after hearing the Economic Development Taskforce at one of their closed meetings, Teina said she has focused on political reform including reducing the number of politicians and making them accountable to more people beyond just their own electorates.
Reform suggestions are to completely change the electoral system from MPs chosen by their own electorates to include a list of MPs with candidates drawn from all over the Cook Islands. This is not dissimilar to the new MMP system introduced to New Zealand perhaps a decade or so ago and has worked reasonably well.
Other radical changes to the political system would to be have the Prime Minister chosen directly by the entire country by means of the list system and the list candidate who has the most support (51% or more) will be the PM. The proposal is to reduce the number of seats
from 24 to 19 and to have the electorate MP also act as Mayor.
Teina said she has had many people calling her to offer their support for her petition but there are certain matters which need fine tuning to make a petition to Parliament work and she intends to attend all three Vaka meetings called by the Koutu Nui.
Comment on the suggested political reforms are that perhaps having the list system would make MPs answerable to the whole community and not just their own electorates by which political survival is uppermost to the detriment of the national concerns.
Electoral changes are definitely needed, but the form of those changes need tweaking with some saying the numbers are still way too high and that just a handful of good people could run the country. Judging from the reaction in Mauke to the proposed electoral reforms, the concept of having the MP double as the Mayor does not appeal with them saying it would mean the office holder would be wearing two hats. This is of special concern in the outer islands where feelings can run high and if their local representative was unfavourable to their cause, who are they supposed to appeal to?
Others are wary and say reducing the numbers will concentrate power in a handful of people who may not be interested in hearing their concerns as has happened with Sunday flights where the way of life of an island has been put lower on the scale of importance than generating revenue from tourism.