Pitched as a question of equal citizenship and national unity for all New Zealanders, NZ First wants voters — not Parliament alone — to decide whether the seven dedicated Māori parliamentary seats should continue.

The Policy: NZ First Māori Seats Referendum Policy — February 2026 →

What it does:

• Commits NZ First to campaign at the 2026 election for a binding national referendum on whether separate Māori electorates should keep existing. Leader Winston Peters announced the renewed push on 12 February 2026, per RNZ.
• Targets the seven current Māori seats — first created in 1867 (originally four) and now sitting alongside 65 general electorates. The number is set by a formula tied to how many voters of Māori descent enrol on the separate Māori roll, which held 303,343 voters as at 31 May 2026; roughly half of eligible Māori choose that roll rather than the general roll.
• Proposes a member's bill to run the vote alongside the November 2026 general election at no extra cost, asking a single yes/no question — "Should there be separate Māori seats in the New Zealand Parliament?" NZ First frames it as seeking "a true mandate from the people" rather than a decision made unilaterally by MPs.
• Rests on the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System, which recommended abolishing the Māori seats once a proportional (MMP) voting system was adopted — advice Parliament did not act on when MMP began in 1996.

The result:

The policy is a pledge, not yet enacted, and faces steep hurdles. As a member's bill it would need to be drawn from the ballot or adopted by the government, and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has kept his distance, saying a referendum has not been discussed by National and that the party is focused on "fixing the basics." Coalition partner ACT, via Brooke van Velden, supports ending the seats but prefers to legislate rather than hold a referendum, so there is no agreed coalition path. Peters argues Māori are already well represented under MMP and points to Te Pāti Māori — which holds six of the seven Māori seats — citing its conduct in Parliament as a reason the seats should go. Critics reject the premise sharply: Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi calls it "race baiting" aimed at NZ First's base and defends the seats as a distinct Māori voice in Parliament, while Labour's Kieran McAnulty dismisses it as a cynical bid for cheap votes and says Māori should decide the seats' future. Commentators also note Peters made a Māori-seats referendum a "bottom line" in 2017, then dropped it during coalition talks with Labour.

The impacts to watch:

• Because voters of Māori descent are about 14.8% of the voting-age population, a national referendum would be decided largely by non-Māori voters — meaning the seats could be removed even if most Māori wanted to keep them, as The Spinoff notes.
• A recent analogue cuts both ways: at the October 2025 Māori wards referendums — forced by the National-led government's 2024 law — 24 of 42 councils voted to remove their Māori wards, yet nationally a narrow majority voted to keep them (542,134, or 50.25%, versus 467,923 to remove), showing how council-by-council and nationwide results can diverge.
• The existence of general electorates is entrenched in law (needing a 75% parliamentary majority or a referendum to change), but the Māori seats are not — a legal asymmetry the Greens want to fix by entrenching the Māori seats too.
• Whether the issue becomes a defining 2026 campaign flashpoint, as the Treaty Principles Bill did, putting pressure on National's coalition management.