THE MĀORI ROLL CALL

Whānau Ora - The Māori Roll Call (Case Study) | Campaign 1. Background In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori have the right to choose between enrolling on the general electoral roll or the Māori roll. The number of people enrolled on the Māori roll directly determines how many Māori electorates — and therefore guaranteed Māori seats — exist in Parliament. At the time of the campaign, Māori communities were facing renewed concern about government actions perceived as undermining decades of progress, including changes to Māori naming across public institutions, cuts to Māori health funding, and proposed changes affecting Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the country’s founding agreement. Trust in government-led civic systems was at a historic low. Despite the importance of the Māori roll, many eligible Māori remained on the general roll or were not enrolled at all. Existing communications around enrolment were bureaucratic, institutional, and disconnected from lived Māori experience — reinforcing mistrust and confusion rather than action. Whānau Ora, a Māori organisation embedded in communities across the country, identified a critical opportunity: to mobilise Māori enrolment through trusted relationships rather than top-down messaging. The challenge was not awareness, but action — to make a complex civic process feel human, urgent, and meaningful. Māori Roll Call was created to reframe enrolment not as paperwork, but as a collective act of care, responsibility, and self-determination — one that would protect Māori representation for future generations at a pivotal moment in time. 2. Creative Idea Māori Roll Call turned enrolment into a public act of visibility. Instead of telling Māori why the Māori roll mattered, the campaign simply showed who was already on it — name by name. The idea was rooted in a powerful cultural truth: names matter. They carry whakapapa, identity, and belonging. By reading real Māori names aloud, the campaign transformed an invisible bureaucratic system into something human, audible, and collective. The roll call format reframed enrolment as participation in a growing movement. Each name added weight, momentum, and meaning — making the impact of individual action immediately visible. By removing institutional language and replacing it with Māori voices, Māori symbols, and Māori values, the idea crossed the boundary between civic process and cultural expression. It replaced persuasion with presence, and messaging with representation. Māori Roll Call didn’t ask people to believe in a system. It asked them to see themselves — and their future — already inside it. 3. Insights & Strategy Māori mistrust of government systems is rooted in generations of colonisation and exclusion. Electoral messaging delivered through Crown institutions often feels cold, confusing, and disconnected from lived Māori realities — creating a dual barrier of low trust and low clarity. At the same time, Māori communities are deeply relational. Influence travels through whānau networks, familiar faces, and shared purpose. When messages are carried by trusted Māori voices, they feel safer, more relevant, and more urgent. The key insight was that enrolment would only increase if it stopped feeling like an administrative task and started feeling like a collective act of Māori power. The strategy reframed the Māori roll as a shared decision made for future generations. Instead of focusing on process, it focused on consequence: more names on the Māori roll means more Māori seats in Parliament. To build momentum, participation was made visible and contagious. Real names, read aloud and published live, turned individual action into social proof. Seeing the roll grow made enrolment feel already underway — something you joined, not something you considered alone. By shifting the centre from institutions to relationships, Māori Roll Call transformed civic engagement into an act of care, responsibility, and self-determination — a simple action that says: we are here, we count, and we decide. Credits: - Client: Whānau Ora - Agency: Motion Sickness / Auckland - Production Company: Loupe - Music / Sound Production Company: Liquid Studios