The Politics of Presence: Political Representation and New Zealand’S Asian Members of Parliament
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THE POLITICS OF PRESENCE: POLITICAL REPRESENTATION AND NEW ZEALAND’S ASIAN MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT By Seonah Choi A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science at Victoria University of Wellington 2014 2 Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 4 List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... 5 Definitions ............................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter I: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 8 Chapter II: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 11 2.1 Representative Democracy ........................................................................................ 11 2.2 Theories of Political Representation .......................................................................... 12 2.3 Theories of Minority Representation ......................................................................... 27 2.4 Formulating a Framework ......................................................................................... 29 Chapter III: Electoral Reform in New Zealand: First-Past-the-Post to Mixed Member Proportional ......................................................................................................................... 31 Chapter IV: Asian-New Zealanders .................................................................................... 37 Chapter V: New Zealand’s Asian Members of Parliament ................................................. 41 5.1 Biographies ................................................................................................................ 41 Chapter VI: Themes from Interview Data ........................................................................... 47 6.1 Research Methodology .............................................................................................. 47 Chapter VII: Discussion ...................................................................................................... 66 Chapter VIII: Conclusion .................................................................................................... 71 Appendices .......................................................................................................................... 73 Appendix 1: Definition of the Asian ethnicity by geographic origin ............................... 73 Appendix 2: Growth in New Zealand’s Asian population, 1991-2006 ............................ 73 Appendix 3: Growth in major ethnic groups in New Zealand, 1996-2006 ...................... 74 Appendix 4: Members of Parliament identifying as Māori, Pacific peoples or Asian 1984-2008, and Māori, Pacific peoples or Asian share of the total population ............. 74 Appendix 5: Electoral Commission on the four alternative voting systems at the 2011 Referendum on the Voting System ................................................................................... 75 Appendix 6: Interview information provided to participants .......................................... 77 Appendix 7: Interview sample questions ......................................................................... 81 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 83 3 Abstract In New Zealand, existing studies relating to the political representation of the country’s minority groups are largely confined to that of women and the Māori population. Unsurprisingly then, the representation of Asian-New Zealanders is an area that has been mostly overlooked to date. However, the numerous indicators that allude to the group’s growing social and demographic presence also suggests it is of increasing importance that they are included in New Zealand’s political narrative. This thesis seeks to address the gap by undertaking a case study of current and former Asian-New Zealand members of Parliament, in an attempt to establish their representative role. The complexities of this undertaking are readily recognised. The theoretical component of this thesis draws on a number of concepts from under the umbrella of political representation. Similarly, the primary data gathered from a series of extensive interviews with the intention of supplementing the aforementioned literature review is subject to other factors, including but not limited to political structure and individual perception. In spite of the expansive and subjective area of focus, and while only intended to be an exploratory (rather than exhaustive) work, it is hoped that this thesis will make a meaningful contribution to an understudied field in New Zealand political studies. 4 Acknowledgements I wish to thank all of those without whom this thesis would not have been possible. Foremost, my gratitude goes to my supervisor Professor Stephen Levine. Your benevolent guidance is not limited just to this thesis; thank you for your advice and encouragement – although perhaps I should be thanking you most for your patience. I am also grateful to the University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences for the provision of a research grant which enabled me to carry out the fieldwork involved in the composition of this thesis. I thank my friends and family for their support. I reserve my last expression of thanks for the individuals who participated in this thesis – for your time, your insight and most importantly your experiences, for without them this thesis would truly not have been possible. 5 List of Tables Table 1: Results for the 2011 Referendum on the Voting System on 10 December 2011 (Part A)……...……………………………………………………………………………..35 Table 2: Results for the 2011 Referendum on the Voting System on 10 December 2011 (Part B)……...……………………………………………………………………………..36 6 Definitions Asian The definition of “Asian” as referred to throughout this thesis is based on the categories used in the New Zealand census, which has been developed by Statistics New Zealand: “This group is made up of people with origins in the Asian continent from Afghanistan in the west to Japan in the east and from China in the north to Indonesia in the south” (as cited in Ministry of Health, 2012). This definition can differ from the classification used in other countries such as the United Kingdom or Australia. Ethnicity In its analysis of the New Zealand population, the country’s national statistical office, Statistics New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand, 2005b) regards “ethnicity” as an individual’s self-perceived, present-day cultural affiliations to an ethnic group. It differs from other related terms: race is a biological and ascribed characteristic, while ancestry is biological and historical, and citizenship refers to a legal status (Spoonley, 1993). Among the common traits that are regarded as contributing to an individual’s identification with a particular ethnic group include religion, language, shared experiences, and common geographic or ancestral origin. Throughout this paper, references will be made to the ethnicities of selected individuals. Given the aforementioned self-prescriptive nature of ethnicity, these references are assumptions that have been made based on public statements made by the individuals involved. Furthermore, in consideration of this paper’s focus on Asian individuals, it seems necessary to circumscribe this ethnicity in particular. The subsequent effort, derived from classifications made by government agencies including the Department of Labour (Badkar & Tuya, 2010) and Statistics New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand, 2005a), has identified the Asian ethnicity as one that can be most easily conveyed in geographic terms. Appendix 1 illustrates the “Asian” regions of origin or association that this paper assumes, and while largely in accordance with the general colloquial understanding, it is not intended to be exhaustive nor conclusive. 7 Minority In employing the term “minority,” this paper acknowledges the controversial connotations associated with the term. For example, Jennifer Jackson Preece (2005) evokes issues of both institutional and cultural identity and legality in her classification of minorities as a group of people who do not belong to a political community: “Minorities are political outsiders whose identities do not fit the criteria defining legitimacy and membership in the political community on whose territory they reside” (p. 9). Hence, for clarity, this paper refers only to ethnic minorities that have been identified by a numerical criterion in the subsequent usage of the term. 8 Chapter I: Introduction Comprising 9.2 per cent of the country’s total population as of 2006, the Asian ethnic group is the third largest discrete ethnic group in New Zealand after European and Māori (Statistics New Zealand, 2006). Between 2001 and 2006, the group saw an increase of almost 50 per cent, from just under 240,000 to nearly 360,000. Based on recent demographic projections, it is anticipated that Asian-New Zealanders will make up 15.8 per cent of the population by 2026, at an annual growth rate faster than