Well-known Waihekean Margaret Mills had to wait until she was 22 before she could vote. In the general election of 1949, the voting age was 21, and she was only 20. (It wasn’t until 1969 that the voting age was lowered – and then, only by a year; eighteen-year-olds couldn’t vote until 1974.)
The election in 1951, Margaret’s first, was brought forward – the dockworker’s dispute was raging, and Prime Minister Sidney Holland wanted a mandate to deal harshly to the strikers. He was also shamelessly using the dispute to distract voters from soaring post-war inflation, significantly worse (I know, it’s hard to believe) than it is today.
In those days, the number of seats was 80, as it had been since 1902, and there were only four Māori seats – not nearly enough for equal representation.
In 1951, Margaret’s first election, Māori voters voted alongside Pākehā for the first time. Before this, voters on the Māori roll had to vote on a different day.
It took Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) to lift the numbers of Māori members of parliament to fairer levels – from eight in 1993 to 17 in 1996, the first MMP election. By 2023, the election returned 28 Māori MPs.
Back in 1951, there were really only two parties in the race. Although the Communist Party did field four candidates, it was an īnanga compared to the Labour and National tohorā (whales).
Holland’s snap election gambit worked, and he won his mandate – a thumping victory for National, with 54 percent of the popular vote.
In her memoir Anecdotage, Margaret remembers the 1950s as a time when it was still considered ‘unusual’ for women to vote. Even her husband John disapproved.
“1957. Monday morning. I told John over breakfast that a friend would look after the kids [on Saturday] while I went to vote,” she writes. “John looked up sharply and said ‘You vote? Mum doesn’t vote.’
‘Doesn’t she? I’m surprised to hear that. I thought everybody voted.’
‘Why do you want to vote? You know you don’t have to.’
‘Women have had the vote for 60 years and had to fight for it. I’m a woman and I vote because I can and I want to. End of story.’
‘I don’t think so.’ And he stomped off to work.”
John spent every morning for a week trying to talk Margaret out of voting, without success. His wife had a keen interest in politics, and she went on to vote that year, and in every general election since – 1960, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020, 2023.
That’s a lot of elections. I phoned her to double check.
“Margaret, have you voted in every election in your life? Every single one? I’m writing an editorial.”
“That’s the silliest question.”
“I take it that’s a ‘yes’?”
“When I voted last week, it was the 26th time.”
Most of us get 20 chances to vote in a general election throughout our lives. Has Margaret voted more times than anyone else on Waiheke? In Auckland?
Many years ago Margaret wrote an acidic poem about elections, worth reprinting here. Because we could do with a laugh.
• Jenny Nicholls
