The proposal, championed by NZ First, to hold a binding nationwide referendum — most recently tied to the 2026 election — on whether to retain or abolish dedicated Māori seats in Parliament and Māori wards in local government.
How the framings classify across 11 articles. Each framing is labelled by a small AI stance classifier; see the methodology page for details.
Up to 12 framings across outlets and orientations — each a short phrase the extractor generated to characterise the piece's editorial angle (not a quote). Filter by lean to see how each bloc is spinning the story; click through to read the original.
a democratic test of public will
Michael Laws: Winston Peters helped give New Zealanders a voice. We must protect it.Lobby groups, unions, think tanks and industry bodies whose own releases or whose people’s media appearances touched this topic over the last 12 months. Owned = their own press releases; earned = their people quoted across radio, press & commentary. A card carried in both — with the release coming first — is the agenda-setting signal. Co-occurrence isn’t proof a group drove the coverage.
democratic reform for equitable representation
Stacked weekly counts; colour by lean. “n/a” covers government and iwi-Māori sources where lean isn't applicable.
How this topic has been named, week by week. A new alias winning out is usually a framing shift.
How the news corpus has covered this same topic over the last 12 weeks. 4 articles from RNZ, Stuff, NZ Herald, ODT, 1News, Newsroom and The Spinoff. Click through to the press view for the full panel.
Social-media signal on the same topic, drawn from the social lens. Engagement is likes + 2×shares + 3×replies, the same weighting used across the digest cards. View on /social →
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