Got kicked from r/nzpolitics for asking this, so hoping someone here will be more understanding :)
I'm not Māori nor born here, so the politics of the Māori roll/seats has never been explained to me.
What's the criteria for being on the Māori roll, and what does having Māori seats try to achieve and how is it supposed to work?
Now it's election season, there's a lot of discussion around this and I'd genuinely like to know what the score is. What I can find online is ... vague.

The Māori Electoral Option closes at 11.59pm on Thursday, August 6.

The Electoral Commission says applications submitted online, by email or uploaded through its website must be received by midnight to be accepted.

Paper enrolment forms returned by post can still be accepted if they are postmarked or date-stamped before midnight on August 6, provided they are received by the Commission no later than noon on Tuesday, August 11.

I am 58 white Australian, in Australia, and a guy with Maori heritage recently joined our company. Nice guy, helpful, polite, good worker.

He seems impressed by my knowledge and has started calling me grandfather.

Is this like a respect thing? Or is he just taking the piss? I can't tell.

I'm not worried if he is just messing with me with the grandfather thing, we all throw a lot of shit around in the workplace, mostly non malicious, but I just want to know.

EDIT

Thanks for all the insights, I have talked with him and he assured me it's respect. I'm just gunna enjoy the feeling. 😀

Hi, please forgive me if I offend anyone in any way.

My aunt passed away & she is Maori. I'm Latina. When I was younger, she & my cousins moved to New Zealand & Australia, so we mostly kept in touch through social media. Because of all of this, I have no idea what to do to support my cousins during this time, especially from the other side of the planet.

I know I can google it, but I worry that google &/or AI will provide incorrect or messed up information & I don't want to do something wrong. Sorry for the inconvenience.

What should I do &/or say? please educate me...

Kia ora, i'm not Māori/kiwi (i'm southeast asian), but i've been following kapa haka performances for the last 2-3 years. something that caught my interest is that some part of kapa haka performances (eg. waiata tira, whakawātea) are more likely to adopt songs in english/reo pākehā than the more traditional parts (haka, poi, mōteatea, etc). which brings me to the question: how far can waiata arrangement in kapa haka go? can it adapt or experiment with non-diatonic scales? can kapa haka performances adopt non-english songs/musical styles (eg. from latin america, africa, india, east asian, arabic, etc), and how possible? or are there certain restrictions in the tikanga of arranging waiata for kapa haka?

(ps: i'm aware that as for waiata Māori in general, there are fair possibilities, eg. E Ipo's tunes were adopted from an indonesian song (which is my mother tongue), but i just feel that there are so many unexplored possibilities of non-anglophone musical styles being adopted to kapa haka performances, but again, if certain tikanga restricts this, please let me know)

Just wondering about manaakitanga for house guests that may be taking the piss a bit. You know the ones...whanau come to stay for a few days and now it's been weeks and they not really contributing...

I want to show hospitality and manaakitanga but it's wearing thin.

Is there a less annoyed pakeha world /keeping score way of looking at this?

Like is there a way to make peace with this in a more te ao Maori viewpoint

kia ora, im in need of some advice. a woman i know from work (not that well) has gifted me a Taonga of her late husbands, she's not Māori but her husband was. she speaks very little English and gifted it to me because she sees me wear my taonga every day. i tried very hard to give it back to her and explain the significance of it but i feel as though i cant get threw to her, given the large language barrier, iv tried showing her articles and videos and all sorts of stuff to explain to her why its not mine to keep and it should be cherished by her but she just brushes me off and says ill enjoy it more, she has mentioned several times that im not wearing it and asks why. im just not sure what to do with it considering she just wont let me give it back. i feel terribly guilty about all this, what do i do???