“People like David Seymour like to frame what we’re doing as selecting medical students based on race. No, that’s actually the issue we’re trying to correct — historically our admissions processes have selected an overwhelmingly Pākehā student cohort.” — Professor Papaarangi Reid.
“For Te Awa Tupua to be more than a bicultural compromise, it must become a platform for the genuine exercise of Māori authority over ancestral lands and waters.” — Hemopereki Hoani Simon.
“If those poisoned men can keep standing up for their people and lands while sick and tired, the rest of us can stand with them.” — Catherine Delahunty on the continuing fight for redress by sawmill workers exposed to PCP.
“We all want children to be safe online. But when policy responses focus primarily on prohibition, we need to ask whether we’re addressing the causes of harm, or simply treating the symptoms.” — Dr Jean M Uasike Allen.
“So often, Māori know what’s happening on the whenua or moana long before agencies do. This means their mātauranga, expertise and leadership are critical to our preparedness, response, and recovery.” — Nadine Hura on the need for an Indigenous approach to bird flu.
“Cultural safety is actually an optimistic idea. It assumes that we can learn about one another, that doctors can examine their assumptions and change, that patients can teach us, and that encountering another way of seeing the world will open our eyes and our minds.” — Dr Orna McGinn.
“Rather than chasing the need to belong through assimilation and engaging in the ‘model minority’ myth, we migrants can choose ‘unbelonging’. To unbelong is to deliberately reject the terms by which the settler state offers inclusion.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
“Pacific peoples are now predominantly urban, and our youthful age profile positions us as a critical part of the future workforce, tax base, and leadership pipeline.” — Fonoiā Jemaima Tiatia-Siau and Seiuli Angel Timali Tiatia-Siau.
“Mandarin-speaking communities are so familiar with Winston, we have nicknamed him 'Lao Pi'. Lao Pi is like that grumpy neighbour everyone knows is a problem. Except he’s not a random neighbour. He is the foreign affairs minister and former deputy prime minister.” — Mengzhu Fu.
"It is not impolite to name racism, to document it, or to organise against it. What is impolite is telling a New Zealander of 30 years to go home. What is indecent is a cabinet that shelters him." — Mohan Dutta.
“When the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill was resoundingly defeated at its second reading in parliament, it seemed like Te Tiriti was safe. It was not.” — Jack Potaka.
“The gap between the government’s insincere words and its willingness to take real action mirrors the coalition’s approach to Māori.” — John Hobbs on New Zealand’s inaction on Gaza.
“The fear of Māori having a place at the table outweighed both the evidence and the truth about what the law actually did.” — Environmental planner Tina Porou on the government’s decision to remove Mana Whakahono ā-Rohe.
“Does the state belong only to those Māori who are willing to minimise their culture, and to think and reason in public life according to someone else’s culture?” — Dominic O’Sullivan.
“There are unanswered calls, missed whānau events, eyes that aren't quite present anymore, and excuses that no longer make sense but are accepted because the alternative is too hard to face.” — Kingi Snelgar on the insidious creep of meth addiction.
“It is time to abandon a European-style ‘lock it or lose it’ approach to conservation.” — Elizabeth Macpherson and David Jefferson.
“Māori do grieving and supporting whānau and death better than any other culture that I know. But we don't, as whānau, engage in the planning side of things to make the rest of it easier.” — Julie Herewini, author of ‘He Aroha Te Aroha’.
“China’s missile test came just days after the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear test in the Marshall Islands, when the US dropped a warhead into the lagoon of Bikini Atoll on July 1, 1946 — an event locals describe as ‘the day the sun exploded.’” — Jamie Tahana.
“It’s clear that the justifications for the bill don’t have any real basis, and that it would have significant impacts on New Zealand’s constitutional conventions, protected rights, and international obligations.” — Laura MacKay on the government’s attempts to shut down Mike Smith’s court case.
“Over the years, the questions have ranged from ‘Why do we need a Māori cultural liaison person at our workplace?’ to ‘How do we have hard conversations with colleagues to do better?’” — Atakohu Middleton on the questions people put in the Too-Hard Basket.
"It is unacceptable that a minister of the Crown should treat Tribunal findings with such off-hand indifference. The Tribunal's constitutional functions impose reciprocal obligations on the Crown to act honourably in its dealings with the Tribunal." — Professor Philip Joseph KC.
“The enduring question is not what the Treaty may have meant at any one moment in time, but how faithfully its promise of dual authorities and mutual social and economic obligation can be realised in each successive generation.” — Morgan Godfery.
“Don’t muck around with strategic voting, technicalities, overhangs, and narrow margins. The best shot at change comes from a clear voter mandate.” — Lisa Te Morenga.
“The Crown cannot easily look a High Court judge in the eye and argue that statutory Treaty obligations are vague, unworkable, or a threat to democratic certainty when the executive branch has formally executed international documents telling the UK and EU the exact opposite.” — Nicola Hoobin.
“It’s the most damaging collection of legislative Treaty proposals I’ve seen in my career, breaching Te Tiriti on a scale and breadth that we haven’t yet witnessed in our lifetimes.” — Carwyn Jones.
“Until last week, I’d spent 30 years on the Māori electoral roll. A couple of things have happened that make me believe that switching back to the general roll is an opportunity to make better use of my vote.” — Katrina Smit.
“I said something which surprised even me as I was saying it — that it’s not the job of Māori journalists like myself to compensate for, or mitigate, the institutional racism of the media industry.” — Aaron Smale on accepting his media award for Māori reporting.
“Technology will inevitably shape their future. But our responsibility as Māori is to ensure our rangatahi remain grounded in whakapapa, whānau, tikanga, identity, and humanity as they navigate this future.” — Dr Wiremu Manaia on the challenges of the digital world.
“Those in power love to ‘acknowledge’ and ‘recognise’ the inequities in Māori health outcomes, while still ploughing ahead to dismantle the tools that we’ve designed to address them.” — Louisa Wall on Pharmac proposals to change Māori and Pacific access to diabetes drugs.
"Stirring deep in my belly is the call to action. I’m going to do my level best to ensure that every eligible whānau member in my considerable network is registered to vote, is conscious of the issues, and is ready to turn out and vote come election day." — Denis O'Reilly.
“Wairoa has shown what’s possible when there’s high trust between local health providers and their communities.” — Fred Christensen on cervical screening progress.
“The curse is not just the environmental risks of mining — it’s what happens when people in need of money see the glitter of wealth in a time of extreme inequality.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“When ordinary people finally manage to get their concerns before a judge, the government can simply change the rules midstream to ensure the case never reaches a conclusion.” — Mike Smith on the government’s intention to override the Supreme Court.
“If ever there was a time for Māori to stand up and exercise their democratic rights, it’s now. This year’s election will be tightly contested, and those 170,000 votes could decide who governs.” — Waylyn Tahuri-Whaipakanga.
“Once again, as has been the case throughout this parliamentary term, the government is ignoring the recommendations of experts, in favour of further trampling on Te Tiriti o Waitangi.” — Luke Fitzmaurice-Brown.
“Without a plan for constitutional protection of Te Tiriti, we risk any progress being laid to waste again within a few years. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go through this again.” — Tina Ngata on voting to protect Te Tiriti.
“If the BSA disappeared tomorrow, Aotearoa would lose more than a complaints office. We’d lose one of the few free and accessible ways for ordinary people to challenge harmful or unfair media content.” — Pulotu Tupe Solomon-Tanoa‘i, a former BSA member.
“Sensible, precautionary investments will do much to help us manage climate change’s worst impacts on our health, saving the country’s health budget and our wellbeing well into the future.” — Lucy Cassels.
“When the river bursts its banks, or drains are popping manhole covers, that's the river talking to us. It's telling us: Hey, you've constrained me, you've constricted me, and I'm screaming and shouting about that.” — Dan Hikuroa.
“Over the past two years, our global reputation for fierce independence and commitment to human decency has been seriously betrayed.” — Gregory Fortuin.
“New Zealand must actively challenge Israel over its systemic violence, which has now escalated to the killing of civilians in Lebanon and Iran.” — John Hobbs.
“I notice it as they come through to the university. They're a different breed. They are very confident in who they are and where they're from, and they live comfortably in their own skin.” — Professor Margaret Mutu on one obvious sign of Māori progress over the last 30 years.
“It is one of the rare times that Māori have been less impacted by a disease than Europeans and provides a clear example of how much better Māori do when we are able to exercise self-determination and control our own lives.” — Professor Margaret Mutu, on the Māori response to Covid-19 in 2020.
“If the Māori economy is now large and growing rapidly, when will it start solving the disadvantage experienced in many Māori households?” — Sacha McMeeking.
“The Nursing Council is not a private club. It regulates a profession to assure the public that the people it registers can practice competently. To say that it should be selective when it carries out this task, applying it to some people but not others, is exactly the kind of outcome that Te Tiriti protects against.” — Dominic O’Sullivan.
“For all the discussion of Pacific empowerment in New Zealand, the conversation rarely extends to how Pacific political influence might be exercised within the current electoral system.” — Law lecturer Sione Tekiteki.
“Programmes that have supported thousands of whānau are suddenly under review. Contracts that provide stability for workers hang in limbo.” — Jaye Wainui.
“Papua continues to be imagined primarily as a strategic zone for national ambition, rather than as a homeland shaped by Indigenous relationships to land and food.” — Laurens Minipko.
“It is the spiritual relationship that is so often missing in scientific reports, and that I hope will be highlighted in the next IPCC report.” — Professor Sandy Morrison.
“Now that I'm inside the belly of the beast, I can see that there's a lot of goodwill, but there's also a lot of anxiety.” — Dr Safua Akeli on her work at a German museum grappling its colonial history.
“It is remarkable that our country has commenced recognising Indigenous ancestors in some significant lands and waters. It’s time to be next-level courageous with general conservation and environmental law.” — Jacinta Ruru.
“What we report on isn’t new, but the urgency of the need is only increasing.” — Charm Skinner, te ao Māori policy analyst, on this year’s State of the Nation report from the Salvation Army.
“One of the lasting legacies of Tokelau’s relationship with New Zealand is its loss of population and capacity, through both the resettlement and Tokelau scholarship schemes.” — Melanie Puka Bean.
“Within the marae gates, one conversation comes up time and time again: What should we do about sexual abusers, including paedophiles and intimate partner abusers, who want to speak on the paepae tapu?” — Te Aniwaniwa Paterson.
“For all intents and purposes, Forest & Bird waged a media and political war on Ngāi Tahu and the Crown during negotiations.” — Martin Fisher.
“When the prime minister spoke at Waitangi he set out a terribly distorted view of the country’s founding document.” — Carwyn Jones.
"Lots of people in our society are happy to have vast amounts spent on the mass imprisonment of our Indigenous population. It's an industry. And the industry relies on society thinking that this is the only way." — Paula King.
“The alternative rules-based order could be crafted to open political spaces for substantive participation by Indigenous peoples as peoples of inherent agency. They could participate as shareholders in public authority, not as stakeholders to be consulted in someone else’s project.” — Dominic O’Sullivan.
“The trouble is, medicines sit inside real lives. And for many whānau, those lives include multiple conditions, inconsistent access to care, and long gaps between clinical reviews.” — Brandi Hudson.
Alongside the many critiques of government policies that we published in 2025, we also ran many pieces about fortitude, accomplishment, and optimism. These are the stories that we’d like to leave you with over the summer. Stories of restoration, resistance, and hope.
“As soon as the Committee began its questions, I knew we were in the right place at the right time. The questioning was fast, direct, and showed they understood the situation in detail.” — Roimata Smail, on the UN trip to deliver evidence of government discrimination against Māori.
“Behind the review lie some questionable assumptions about the tribunal, including that it has overstepped its role … by actively scrutinising contemporary government policy.” — Carwyn Jones on the government review of the Waitangi Tribunal.
“Those who need it most can’t afford it, don’t receive it, and are being sidelined. Meanwhile, usage has tripled in just four months, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is increasing.” — Fred Christensen on the arrival of Wegovy in New Zealand.
“The relationships that schools and kura have with Māori endures despite directives from the right-wing.” — Awanui Te Huia.
The Jevon McSkimming affair “is yet another distraction, a smokescreen, from some truly worrying developments at the other end of the criminal justice sector”. — Denis O’Reilly on the soaring prison muster (and its soaring costs), and the meth crisis.
“We have a government willing to reshape constitutional understandings without genuine consultation, careful process, or respect for long-standing norms.” — Mark Feary.
“Māori institutions can’t rely on formal mandates alone. If we want legitimacy that endures, we need to design institutions that reflect our own power dynamics.” — Sacha McMeeking.
“Not caring anymore doesn’t mean the problem is no longer there. Especially in the Pacific, where climate change isn’t a distant threat but a present-day catastrophe already uprooting communities, unravelling the fine tapestry of culture, and upending entire ways of life.” — Jamie Tahana.
“The proposal effectively deprioritises Te Tiriti so that it sits as a supporting objective. We believe, and have advised, that this will not have the desired effect.” — Rahui Papa.
“As Māori cultural practices continue to thrive here in Australia, it’s important to know that even here, dress codes regulating tattoos should yield to the right of Māori to wear moko kanohi and other tā moko.” — Brisbane-based lawyer Bridget Burton.
“If a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum isn’t grounded in te ao Māori and the very people and things that make Aotearoa unique, who is determining the knowledge and where does it come from?” — Jessie Moss on the ideology behind education reform.
“Every movement that changes the world depends on two kinds of energy. One pushes from the outside, demanding transformation. The other works from the inside, turning vision into practical steps.” — Sacha McMeeking.
“Māori are lagging in every social and economic indicator, and the rest of the country seems to think that’s an acceptable status quo. But you won’t read about it when Te Pāti Māori are busy hogging the headlines.” — Aaron Smale.
“The idea that people educated in this country should devote a small fraction of their undergraduate study to understanding our history and its relevance to all citizens today ought to be unremarkable.” — Emeritus Professor Alison Jones on Auckland University’s decision to drop proposed compulsory courses.
“We shoulder the burden of ensuring that Te Tiriti lives in our classrooms, even when government policy tries to erase it.” — Rongopai Kira, deputy principal of Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga.
“We are a people who have endured land theft, blackbirding, nuclear testing, deportation, and exile . . . Yet again and again, we align ourselves with those who uphold the very systems that shrink us.” — Marli Olive Wesley.
“The recognition of tikanga strengthens the rule of law. By contrast, rhetoric from the executive that disparages judicial engagement with tikanga undermines the separation of powers at the core of our constitutional order.” — Natalie Coates and Tai Ahu, Te Hunga Rōia Māori.
“For Māori, the strongest interest isn’t usually in the suburb where we rent or own a house — it’s in the rohe of our awa, marae, whenua, and the decisions made there that most deeply affect us.” — Mike Smith.
“In this 50th anniversary year, the Tribunal and Te Tiriti are under a sustained attack from perhaps the most anti-Tiriti government that we’ve seen since the Tribunal was established.” — Carwyn Jones.
“New Zealand would do well to pay close attention to understand just how far it has moved towards the fringe of international political thought.” — Professor Dominic O’Sullivan.
“Even the most skilled school leader is constrained by the ongoing failure of the state to address the deep inequity in our education system. New Zealand ranks 33rd out of 38 developed countries for its overall equality in education.” — Rebecca Macfie, author of ‘Hope and Hardship’.
“Tākuta Ferris was off course in so many ways. ‘Asians’ have their own history of subjugation to white supremacy and British colonial rule.’ — Kim Webby.
“We should not underestimate the capacity of our children’s brains, but should be celebrating and supporting all the benefits of their potential bilingual superpowers.” — Linguist Hilary Smith.
“Kids’ homes and schools are the top exposure zones for junk food marketing in Aotearoa. That’s not passive exposure, it’s precision targeting.” — Vinetta Plummer.
“For ethnic communities — Indians, Asians, Black, and others — this is an invitation, not a rejection. It’s a challenge to move past the shallow version of multiculturalism that demands assimilation into Pākehā-dominated frameworks, and engage instead with Māori as partners under Te Tiriti.” — Professor Mohan Dutta.
“She had emerged from a year of mourning for her father, and her remedy for Māori advancement was couched in encouragement to let wounds turn to scars, and to turn from anguish and protest to acceptance and new economic plans.” — A commentary on the first speech from Te Kuini.
“Increasing deportations may look strong on law and order domestically, but it will cause untold damage to our Pacific relationships.” — Henrietta McNeill-Stowers.
“I realised during those meetings that people who are not Māori aren’t often exposed to the ongoing effects of colonisation. They seldom take the opportunity to listen to tangata whenua.” — Catherine Delahunty on the campaign to educate voters about Māori wards.
“While the Pacific Islands Forum is often described as the region’s premier political gathering, it has never been a space owned solely by Pacific nations. From the beginning, Australia and New Zealand have sat at the table.” — Sione Tekiteki.
“In one year, the public account has grown by more than the total paid out in Treaty settlements since 1994 — that’s every single claim across three decades.” — Bevan O’Connor, candidate for Hastings District Council.
“As a nation, Te Tiriti, Section 4, and iwi rights and responsibilities are the strongest protections we have against extensive privatisation and commercialisation of the conservation estate.” — Melanie Nelson on proposed changes to how conservation land is managed.
“Western, colonial education systems may be out of favour in 2025, but call it a ‘knowledge-rich’ system, and somehow it’s more acceptable.” — Erica Hamilton, secondary school teacher.
“I still have James’s letter. It became my conscience. It reminded me not to walk away from something I should be fixing. He asked me to come back, and I didn’t.” — Professor Welby Ings remembers a seven-year-old student he had taught in Ōtara 50 years ago.
“The emotional toll on tamariki Māori when their language is absent from core learning, or reduced to tokenism, is devastating. It tells them their identity is secondary.” — Te Aumoana Kingi.
“Children have a human right to a quality education that equips them for effective participation in a strong democracy — not one that simply shapes them into cogs for the economic machine.” — Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn.
“Alienating our Pacific whānau is not rooted in any coherent policy or strategy: it’s the product of personal grievances and political theatre.” — Jayden Evett.
“Seeing vowels present in Māori words grows a person’s ability to communicate and to understand New Zealand English, of which many Māori words are an everyday part.” — Vincent Olsen-Reeder and Corinne Seals.
“As I witness the hunger in Gaza today, I’m struck by the chilling parallels. Like Bengal, Gaza’s hunger is manufactured. And like Bengal, it demands our outrage and resistance.” — Dr Mohan Dutta.
“They are creating the illusion of a threat to justify passing legislation that would make it incredibly difficult for Māori to have their existing rights recognised.“ — Toni Talamaivao.
“We’re left to fend for our moana by ourselves, calling for reinforcements but being given scraps.” — Nicola Rata-MacDonald.
“Hobson’s Pledge is terribly enthusiastic about treating all people equally, but not above weaponising ethnicity, which is what makes us distinctive, when it suits their misguided purposes.” — Richard Shaw.
“We will no longer be tasked with local service design and delivery. Instead, our job will be to ‘engage’ and ’advise’. These changes take us from active partners to passive recipients.” — Louisa Wall on changes to Pae Ora law.
“The ICJ ruling has effectively reshaped the global climate change landscape by giving more power to small states, especially those in the Pacific, to hold the big polluting countries politically, morally, and financially accountable.” — Professor Steven Ratuva.
“Same-day enrolment isn’t a flaw in our democracy. It’s one of the few things that works for us: for Māori, Pacific peoples, rangatahi, and anyone who has ever felt like the political system wasn’t built for them.” — Eden Fusitu‘a.
“It’s one thing to be out of touch with the reality of New Zealanders’ lives. But it’s another entirely to make your contempt and disregard for most of the population so obvious.” — Brian Tweed.
“Our ministers have chosen carefully crafted diplomatic language buried under joint country statements to influence the situation in Gaza, while at the same time protecting relationships with allies, particularly the US.” — John Hobbs.
“Dismantling public housing infrastructure is short-sighted and socially damaging. It also occurs within an environment where homelessness is rising faster than our population is growing.” — Rebekah Graham.
“When a young parent and their baby sleeps in a car, it’s not just a housing failure, it’s a failure of our collective memory and responsibility to one another and our most vulnerable.” — Lizzie Strickett.
“The systems of government that run this country today were never designed with Māori in mind. They were created by colonial lawmakers to manage and control land, resources and people.” — Shonelle Wana.
“There’s a bitter irony when those who benefit most from a racist education system are the ones deciding whether we count the data — and how we talk about it.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
David Seymour “referred to himself as an ‘Indigenous New Zealander’ . . . He was employing a tactic we’ve seen domestically many times: invoking his ancestry to deflect criticism of his racist behaviour.” — Tina Ngata.
“The census is about so much more than counting people. It is fundamentally about making people count.” — Professor Tahu Kukutai.
“If our tamariki grow up in neighbourhoods where liquor stores are closer than libraries, where pokies outnumber playgrounds, and vape shops are easier to find than doctors, then our babies are pushing against strong headwinds.” — Hikitia Ropata.
“There are now suggestions that even Treaty settlements themselves may be seen as negotiable by the Crown, despite statements in the coalition agreement that they would be upheld.” — Melanie Nelson.
“This is the most rejected, reviled, and opposed bill in the history of our government.” — Tina Ngata on the Regulatory Standards Bill.
"Vaping has become so widespread that New Zealand now has more daily nicotine users than it did five years ago. In fact, 86,000 more people are regularly consuming nicotine than in 2018. In places like Wairoa, vaping is embedded in everyday life." — Fred Christensen.
“Central government continues to delegate duties for things like environmental stewardship and community wellbeing, but with little or no funding to go with them. This isn't decentralisation. It’s the export of risk.” — Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn.
“Racism is not a dirty word. It’s a precise diagnostic tool that helps us understand how systems work to the advantage of some while disadvantaging others.” — Dr Sereana Naepi, who edited ‘Oceans Between Us’, a new book that tackles racism against Pacific people.
"I had started to notice our reo all around me. We could hear it on the news, and we could see it on our government buildings and street signs. You would hear people saying 'Kia ora' and 'Mōrena' when you got into work. It began to feel okay to be Māori. Then came the new coalition government." — Hira Nathan.
“I was recently quoted as saying the Regulatory Standards Bill ‘will stop lawmakers considering broader public health.’ This exchange led Minister Seymour to question my sanity in a public forum. I stand by my statement.” — Dr George Laking.
“New Zealand behaves less like a partner and more like a strategic guardian from whom the Cook Islands must seek permission. This power imbalance speaks to a deeper truth: Pacific nations are often treated as never fully ‘sovereign’.” — Sione Tekiteki.
“Aotearoa deserves a lawmaking system that reflects its people, landscapes, and histories, not one that repeats the exclusions of the past.” Jodhi Warwick-Ponga on the Regulatory Standards Bill.
“There are discrepancies in how the privileges committee works, and there is no single explanation. But racism is undoubtedly a factor, and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke was right to ask: “Are our voices too loud for this House?” — Professor Dominic O’Sullivan.
“We ignore the fact that our dependency on imported palm kernel expeller is hurting the environment and communities where it’s grown. It’s another form of colonisation: outsourcing environmental harm for the sake of cheap animal feed.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“I get so many messages from people telling me how scared they are by what this government is doing. But they also say that watching me speak up gives them hope. I think thats why my tīpuna gave me such a big waha. So that I could use it.” — Tania Waikato.
“The compulsory Te Tiriti education at the University of Auckland is not a burden. It’s a necessary starting point for migrants, especially for caste-privileged Indian migrants like Dr Parmar, to begin undoing the toxic ideologies we bring with us.” — Mohan Dutta.
“The international deep-seabed is the common heritage of all humankind. It must be reserved for peaceful purposes.” — Claire Slatter and Maureen Penjueli.
“The bill may very well open the door for corporations to force Māori to pay for their own exploitation and the erasure of their Indigenous rights and lands.” — Ryan Ward.
“Despite all their protestations, there can be little doubt that our government is inherently racist, and blind to the the contorted ways it enacts that prejudice.” — Brian Tweed.
“Aotearoa only loves haka when it suits. We put it on the tourism ads. We use it to sell tickets to sports games. But the moment haka challenges power? We say: ‘Oh, don’t do that.’” — Anton Matthews.
“Westminster culture doesn’t care about intent or the dignity of people — it cares about its rules. And they are rules that privilege one culture.” — Catherine Delahunty, former Green MP.
“They attempt to cast themselves as victims. Yet in reality, their legislative efforts are causing harm to working-class women, including a large cohort of Māori and Pasifika women.” — Rebekah Graham.
“One approach is about truth, evidence, and accountability. The other is about control, efficiency, and convenience.” — Lawyer Roimata Smail, comparing the Waitangi Tribunal and the Regulatory Standards Board proposed in ACT's new bill.
“The pieces of paper inside told me that my family wanted me, and that the government should never have taken me.” — Christine Ammunson, on the impact of accessing her case files at 52, and helping others to navigate the records labyrinth.
“The ACT Party has tried to pass a version of this legislation three times since 2007 and has failed each time. Now it’s forcing the bill through as part of the coalition agreement.” — Melanie Nelson on the Regulatory Standards Bill.
"My employer is not a living wage employer. They’re a minimum wage employer. I’ve been with them for four years now, and the money side of things is a struggle. I’m left trying to eat on $50 to $80 a week, and that’s for two of us, because I’m a single mum." — A wahine Māori support worker in Wellington.
“The need for these discussions is urgent. We have perhaps not progressed the conversation as far as we ought to have in the nearly 10 years since the publication of the Matike Mai report.” — Carwyn Jones.
“In my experience working with Māori clients, I’ve seen how some cases of mental health challenges like depression, anxiety and even memory and concentration difficulties can be better understood through the lens of ongoing discrimination, intergenerational poverty and housing instability.” — Carrie Clifford.
“Political parties like New Zealand First and certain conservative voices have framed gender diversity as a threat to ‘traditional values’ and ‘common sense’ . . . These efforts aren’t just policy disagreements, they’re attacks on people’s lives.” — Rev Dr Nāsili Vaka‘uta.
“The difficulty with starting from the institutions we have now and trying to think how they could be tweaked to better reflect Māori aspirations is that our current institutions are based on a particular way of understanding power.” — Carwyn Jones.
“As thousands of men enlisted and went off to fight, those left behind were faced with a different kind of battle. They were responsible for keeping the country running while their hearts were heavy and hands were few.” — Shonelle Wana.
“Participating in the Matike Mai hui was a profound experience. People wanted to have those conversations. And they were ready and waiting for the opportunity to discuss the issues.” — Carwyn Jones.
“Most of us didn’t learn about Te Tiriti in school — I know I didn’t. But once you start learning, you realise it’s not hard to understand. It’s just been kept from us.” — Roimata Smail.
“The removal of section 7AA goes against the kōrero of survivors and the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. Yet this government pushes on, seemingly determined to repeat the mistakes of the past.” — Lawyer Harry Clatworthy.
“Not since the Cold War, when Pacific nations united to declare the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, has it been so necessary to insulate the region against outside rivalry.” — Dr Marco de Jong and Dylan Asafo on declaring an Ocean of Peace.
“Do we want alcohol woven through our daily experiences as an expectation? Whether it’s a complimentary drink during your haircut, targeted marketing on our social media feeds, or the quick delivery of alcohol to your doorstep, the landscape is shifting.” — Vinetta Plummer.
“No matter how powerful rangatira might presume to be, they never possessed the authority nor had the right to give away or subordinate the mana of the collective.” — Moana Jackson.
“We defeated a well-funded, bad-faith attempt to turn our country against our founding agreement.” — Kassie Hartendorp.
“It is obvious that the drafters of the bill were not only appallingly ignorant, deliberately or otherwise, of Aotearoa New Zealand history, but also British history.” — Vincent O’Malley.
“Religion is not the enemy. But delusional religion is. The kind that refuses truth. The kind that weaponises scripture. The kind that prioritises power over people.” — Professor Nāsili Vaka‘uta.
“When we position Shakespeare as essential, but treat Māori literature and oracy as enrichment, we reinforce colonial hierarchies.” — Tania Roxborogh.
“This isn’t policy-making — it’s political theatre, aping the aggressive strategy of a certain foreign leader to mask an ideological obsession with removing Indigenous and Te Tiriti-based rights in our country.” — Joshua Koko on Winston Peters' Trumpish war on "woke DEI".
“Elizabeth Rata often equates the inclusion of iwi, hapū and whānau knowledge and values into teaching with an emptying out of academic knowledge. She has been instrumental in shaping the new English curriculum.” — Jessie Moss.
“Our collective future in this country depends on our willingness to show up — not as obedient subjects of the Crown, but as those who refuse to participate in the settler colonial project of disenfranchising Māori on their own whenua.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
“No one has denied that the bombing of Hiroshima occurred, and that a nuclear weapon was used on people and the environment. In Mā‘ohi Nui, we simply don’t have that level of accountability and honesty from the French state.” — Vehia Wheeler.
“David Seymour creates a shadowy force controlling our society, when in reality being tangata Tiriti or tangata whenua is a simple recognition of historical fact — not a set of restrictions.” — Brian Tweed.
“The entire arrangement, where the US uses Hawai‘i as a strategic war base, is fundamentally violent and harmful. It relies on the perpetual suppression of our rights and potential as Kānaka Maoli.” — Joy Enomoto.
“Social workers still have the power to just go in, willy nilly, and take children away, largely based on whānau not being able to afford to feed their kids — not abuse.” — Paora Moyle.
“While China is deepening its economic entanglements with the region, Australia and New Zealand are scrambling to assert regional influence — this time without US backing.” — Professor Steven Ratuva.
“Despite producing enough food to feed 40 million people annually, Aotearoa allows its most vulnerable tamariki to go hungry. Food insecurity here is one of the worst in the OECD, and disproportionately affects Māori and Pasifika children.” — Dr Madeline Shelling.
“If we are to move forward together to counter the twin existential crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, we need to ensure tangata whenua are part of decision-making.” — Kayla Kingdon-Bebb and Carwyn Jones.
“We’re going to be left with people who go: ‘You know what, my uncle or my brother or my cousin died from bowel cancer. And it should have been picked up in a screening programme.’ Make no mistake, these deaths are unnecessary.” — Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen.
“Just like that, we were told there’d be no more books and language support for our children and families. It's been devastating. I want whoever’s in charge of these literacy funding decisions to walk in my shoes for a day.” — Alana Nootai.
“It doesn’t make sense. The minister has been positive about tamariki succeeding in Māori immersion learning. But now the very people who support this to happen effectively are in the firing line.” — Ripeka Lessels.
“While Māori generally support rainbow rights, many are also Christian. And on some level, they will feel conflicted about Tāmaki’s agenda. So, they become passive observers, unintentionally complicit in the hatred of takatāpui.” — Anton Blank.
“If the Indonesian government has its way, the area we’ve always called home, where we’ve lived and hunted for thousands of years, will cease to exist.”— Rosa Moiwend.
“NZ’s current lack of action is deeply rooted in its problematic approach to this issue in the past — a past which straddles an involvement in Palestine since the First World War, through to today.” — John Hobbs.
“Pacific countries and territories trying to assert their sense of autonomy need to be treated with respect and mana, and not be growled at in a paternalistic way, as if they’re delinquent juveniles.” — Professor Steven Ratuva.
“I couldn’t, in all honesty, remain in my roles. The government didn’t seem interested in listening to genuine public health advice.” — Sir Collin Tukuitonga.
“Our more middle-class economic status . . . owes everything to the housing and health policies of the former welfare state in the 1950s, and nothing to gold.” — Catherine Delahunty, whose great-grandfather was a miner in the Thames gold rush.
“There comes a point when a review stops being about transparency, and starts acting as a tool to delay accountability. We are at that point.” — Aaron Hendry.
“It feels like our country has been hijacked and redirected to a destination most of us never intended to go to.” — Brian Tweed.
“It is sound policy, not insurrection, for small nations to diversify economic partnerships and secure development opportunities for their people.” — Eugene Doyle on why New Zealand maybe shouldn’t invade the Cook Islands for signing a strategic partnership with China.
“Liberal democracy can’t support the idea that government has an ethnicity of its own — a Pākehā ethnicity, that excludes Māori people and ways of thinking.” — Professor Dominic O’Sullivan.
“When we talk about youth homelessness, I worry that people don’t understand how dangerous the consequences of being without shelter are.” — Aaron Hendry.
“Waitangi should be a place where political leaders are made to justify their decisions from the past year, to take stock of how they’re upholding their side of the Treaty partnership.” — Jamie Tahana.
“It is extraordinary that this minister is asserting the power to redefine core constitutional principles to govern future polities, just as he did with the ‘principles of the Treaty’.” — Emeritus Professor Jane Kelsey on the Regulatory Standards Bill proposal.
“They control our economy, they control our politics, they control our military and also our culture.” — Filipino activist Jaime Paglinawan on the influence of the US and foreign capital.
“Individually or together, these two bills would entrench libertarian preferences in New Zealand’s constitutional framework. They would also obstruct the consideration of Te Tiriti in future lawmaking.” — Melanie Nelson.
“While we underestimated the coalition’s willingness to sacrifice life for profit, we also believe that the government has underestimated how potent a coalition of shared interests to defend Te Tiriti can be.” — Matthew Scobie and Anna Sturman.
“A slate of policies that have lazily played on this country’s insecurities and set a fire beneath the nation’s founding document have been met with a resistance not seen for generations.” — Jamie Tahana.
“Science can show us the ‘how’, but the humanities give us the ‘what’ and ‘why’. Funding one without the other is like sailing without a compass: you can move forward, but without direction or purpose.” — Dr Pounamu Jade Aikman.
The lobby group Hobson’s Pledge "has turned Hobson’s incidental remark to chiefs into a weighty pronouncement that justifies the suppression of Māori rights and identity." — Susan Healy, Tim McCreanor, Ray Nairn.
“It’s not a coincidence that Aotearoa has moved in lockstep with our Anglosphere allies over their endorsement of the genocide in Gaza through silence and military support. What we’re seeing in Gaza mirrors our own settler colonial history and its dominant white Anglo identity.” — John Hobbs.
“I’ve heard stories of mining executives moving to the islands, where they’re insinuating themselves into the community, buying up art from local artists, funding cultural events, and pouring money into schools, sports and education.” — Teuila Fuatai.
“The real motive behind the bill is related to Act and its backers' long-term strategy of deregulating business and opening up New Zealand to corporate investment, extraction, and exploitation.” — Ryan Ward.
"Outside of its impact on Māori and race relations in Aotearoa, a significant long-term consequence of this bill will be the removal of one of the most important protections the New Zealand public have to the unwanted and harmful privatisation of state assets." — John Murrie.
“Apirana Ngata’s views on the Treaty in 1922 are historically important. They speak to the dominant attitudes of Pākehā, and undoubtedly some Māori too. But his was not the only voice speaking for Māori.” — Historian Matthew Cunningham.
“It is important that there is strong and visible opposition to the bill so that it is clear to politicians that there is no political advantage in progressing it.” — Carwyn Jones.
Parliament’s “dignity” rests on “a structure introduced less than 200 years ago, where members are required to swear allegiance to a foreign monarch who has no power but plenty of wealth derived from colonisation and slavery.” — Suzanne Menzies-Culling.
“They’ve charmed and courted their way through our islands and people. Industry representatives have embedded themselves and the vast resources of their companies into our communities.” — Louisa Castledine on the mining industry's activities in the Cook Islands.
“For Sāmoans, New Zealand citizenship has been like a rollercoaster ride. First, they had it, then they didn’t, and now a few of them can have it again.” — Nigel Allardyce on a law change that restores citizenship for a small group of now elderly Sāmoans.
“The Treaty Principles Bill may be a lame duck without National and New Zealand First’s continued support, but te iwi Māori have already stirred in a way not seen in at least 20 years.” — Jamie Tahana.
“Parliament, when haka-provoked, exposed some of the tell-tale signs of its own foundational cultural system.” — Brian Tweed and Pania Te Maro.
“Grandma is too ill to make the hīkoi this year, but all her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be there in force.” — Herewini Ammunson, on the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti (march for Te Tiriti).
“Do not step outside your house. Do not take off your suit jacket and go inside their homes, their prison cells, their marae, their gang pads, their fale, their communities, their pain.” — Connie Buchanan on how to give a bare minimum state apology.
“The Wairarapa Moana example exposes some of the Crown manoeuvring that goes on behind closed doors. It exposes some of the patent unfairness. We should all be concerned when citizens have their access to justice thwarted.” — Dayle Takitimu.
“The Wairarapa Moana Lakes agreement and the Raukawa tūpuna land deal at Pouākani provide a useful lesson on the weaknesses of the Treaty settlement process.” — Metiria Stanton Turei.
“The Bill would introduce new principles that have no legitimacy, and this would undermine the founding document in our constitutional arrangements, bringing into question the legitimacy of the Crown and its institutions.” — Caren Fox.
“The bill currently before parliament should be scrapped. The solution it proposes is nowhere near an adequate or acceptable outcome when seen against the size of the grievance. That grievance is entirely of the New Zealand government’s own making.” — Nigel Allardyce.
“I don’t want an apology, I want a reckoning. I want admissions and I want system change.” — Kim Mcbreen on the government's apology to survivors of state abuse, on November 12.
The New Zealand citizenship rights of Sāmoans “have been continually ignored and disregarded because the New Zealand government misunderstood, misapplied and failed to uphold its own legislation.” — Former diplomat Nigel Allardyce.
“What they do today won't destroy what we'll be doing tomorrow. That’s why I keep doing this work. Because if we don't exercise rangatiratanga over our health, we’re always going to be at the beck and call of successive governments.” — Lady Tureiti Moxon.
“We don’t need to always be reacting to kāwanatanga. Our actions can be our own declaration of rangatiratanga.” — Tracy Karanui-Golf, Mahinarangi Maika, Jota Firmin, and Carwyn Jones.
“Discussion about racism and teaching tends to focus on structural racism, as if the system is a force in and of itself, rather than an apparatus administered by humans, making discretionary decisions about Māori students daily.“ — Anton Blank.
“Private development encroachment into the conservation estate comes on top of a historical legacy of locking Māori out of these highly valued ancestral territories.” — Professor Elizabeth Macpherson on the fast-track bill.
“The policy agendas of the far right all rely on removing racial justice initiatives, at the same time as removing constraints on corporations and prioritising profit.” — Tina Ngata on how racism and capitalism depend on each other.
“Now is the time, we argue, for Māori organisations to develop hospitals to provide Māori, particularly older Māori, with culturally-safe care.” — Marama Muru-Lanning and Hilary Lapsley.
“David kept arguing that there are no examples anywhere in the world where people have successfully shared sovereignty under one nation. Well, he’s wrong.” — Helmut Modlik on his debate with David Seymour.
“The fact that the International Criminal Court is now considering adding ecocide to its jurisdiction is a huge step forward in the climate crisis.” — Professor Leilani Tuala-Warren.
“The government’s directive is not just an attack on Māori, but an attack on science and good medical practice.” — Doctors from the universities of Auckland and Otago.
“The spirit of our youth and people is one of determination. There is no going back. The fight for our dignity and freedom is a fight for all of humanity.” — Billy Wetewea in Kanaky.
“Survivors are courageous, but there was little acknowledgment about why survivors ever needed to have life-long courage — not least because agencies would not stop the abuse, listen to them, or investigate complaints.” — Professor Elizabeth Stanley.
“Without an informed understanding of the objectives behind equity-based initiatives, international students can erroneously perceive Māori as ‘privileged’ and contribute to anti-Māori sentiments.” — Kyle Tan.
“Those who wanted pine trees — the Crown and outside corporate interests — got pine trees. But it was Ngāti Porou and their lands and moana that would pay the price.” — Aaron Smale.
“It is an act of bad faith and deep dishonour that the Crown is seeking to unilaterally amend how the Treaty is interpreted in all laws without the free, prior and informed consent of Māori.” — Tai Ahu and Natalie Coates.
“The Crown can’t legitimately hold this debate without the other parties — the hapū and iwi of Aotearoa — and they haven’t been included.” — Catherine Delahunty on the Treaty principles bill.
“It’s not about picking out individuals who are racist and act on their biases. It’s about fixing the systems, culture and training the police operate under, and making those approaches consistent across the board.” — Tā Kim Workman on researching police bias.
“You can see that even her name fits her new role as Te Kuīni Māori, as a connector of peoples, even in the darkness.” — Professor Tom Roa, on why Te Airikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po is the right woman for the job.
“The Kiingitanga is an example of what is possible when the way we frame our politics is based on ideals of kotahitanga, mana, tapu, mauri and manaakitanga.” — Trent Hohaia.
“The death of Kiingi Tuheitia this week was sad enough. That it comes at this moment, in this of all years, at this politically charged time, makes it a particularly wretched blow.” — Jamie Tahana.
“The best protest we can make right now is being Māori. Be who we are. Live our values. Speak our reo. Care for our mokopuna, our awa, our maunga.” — Kiingi Tuheitia, speaking at the hui ā motu.
Exchanges like the one between Anthony Albanese and Kurt Campbell at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum meeting “would be inexplicable if Australia wasn’t ‘America’s man in the Pacific.’” — Van Jackson, foreign policy analyst.
“One ongoing challenge Whakaata Māori faces is securing equitable funding and resources. Today’s financial pressures highlight the fragility of our position.” — Shane Taurima.
“Kanaky is a microcosm of the broader security contest in the Pacific, where external forces are undermining Pacific self-determination and our priorities, causing political and social instability.” — Dr Marco de Jong.
“The Crown, including the courts and the parliament, seized on the ‘principles’ as a device to maintain the status quo and to avoid the realities of Te Tiriti.” — Ngā Toki Whakarururanga.
“It isn’t a debate about ‘race relations’. What we are really talking about are Māori-Crown relations.” — Lara Greaves.
“These policies are consistent with an alarming pattern of the Crown using the policy process and parliamentary sovereignty against Māori.” — Dr Caren Fox, Chair of the Waitangi Tribunal.
“If we provide the means for our most vulnerable to live with decency and dignity, there’s a much greater chance they will find long-term solutions to their own challenges.” — Brooke Pao Stanley.
“The government has repeatedly attacked Māori rights, including overt opposition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and eroded incremental gains made over the last 40 to 50 years.” — The tenth annual report of the Aotearoa Independent Monitoring Mechanism.
“What we’ve always said is this: We are not French. We are Kanak. Let us make our own decisions on our own land.” — Joseph Xulué.
“Māori rights, like all Indigenous rights, have always been the strongest roadblock to corporate mineral and freshwater extraction, and that is why we are consistently attacked in the media.” — Tina Ngata.
“In wanting to play with the big boys, the state bureaucracy, coupled with a grasping political class, appears likely to drag New Zealand into a US-led Asia-Pacific conflict that serves none of our interests.” — Glen Johnson.
“For a government to announce it will overrule the courts of law, in order to make it nigh on impossible for Māori to attempt to claim our customary rights, takes us back to the dark ages.” — Ngāi Tahu chair Justin Tipa.
“European scholarship has overlooked the Indigenous city. Thinking about the city as an Indigenous place calls for a more truthful and accurate account of what cities have done in the past to secure colonial expansion and erase Indigenous belonging.” — Professor Anthony Hōete.
“Māori wards are a tangible step for councils to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi... But this week, the coalition government reversed the legislation that makes Māori wards the same as all other wards.” — Kassie Hartendorp.
“Once you've seen the reality of considering ethnicity and the impact that can be made when we consider it, that's not something easily unlearned. You can try to ignore the evidence, but you can’t deny its existence.” — Dr Anthony Jordan, former Pharmac director.
“Places like bootcamps, corrective training facilities and prisons are effectively the military arm of the state. And it's impossible for them to be anything other than that.” — Michael Blakely, who worked at a military-style bootcamp in the 80s.
“Behind the rhetoric about prosperity and clean energy, I hear the voice of a kuia from Hauraki who educated so many of us, including judges, about the vital tests for assessing the value of minerals.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“It is an act of extreme bad faith for one party to a treaty to try to change the terms of that treaty without seeking the agreement from the other parties.” — Dr Carwyn Jones.
“Far from being unbiased and neutral, mainstream public health practice in Aotearoa is inherently racist, and this bias is currently under-acknowledged by public health professionals and institutions.”— Dr Elana Curtis and Dr Belinda Loring.
“A good place to start would be to simply admit that there is an issue of racism in our schools, and to start talking about it in our communities and at school.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
“It’s a mythical kindness because it’s always conditional on us being submissive. As soon as we stop submitting to Crown authority, that kindness, as we are seeing now, disappears.” — Tina Ngata.
“Assigning monetary values to a mountain forest's air filtering services is no less reductive than describing a mountain as ‘beautiful’.” — Jay Whitehead.
“Te Tiriti o Waitangi is not an endpoint. Nor is a relationship with the government necessarily the overall aim for Māori.” — Tā Mason Durie.
“With just three days’ notice, thousands responded to the call of Toitū Te Tiriti, and they responded in the name of making good decisions for our mokopuna.” — Eru Kapa-Kingi.
If the Fast-track Approvals Bill goes through, “our coast will once again be the target of mining consent applications — this time, with no clear avenue for our voices and rights as mana whenua to be upheld.” — Olivia Haddon, on winning an 80-year battle to stop sand mining at Pākiri.
“The story that Māori are bad parents was pushed relentlessly to justify policies that have removed tens of thousands of Māori children from their whānau since World War Two.” — Kim Mcbreen.
“I was adopted by good parents and grew up in a good home. That didn’t stop the damage that adoption caused. And, yes, Mr Luxon, being Māori did exacerbate it.” — Aaron Smale on the repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.
Māori tikanga “provides a different way of thinking about free speech than simply an individual right. Rather, it suggests a focus on the obligations to the community that are always inherently bound up with the exercise of rights in the Māori legal order.” — Dr Carwyn Jones.
“Despite the rhetoric around our so-called traditional partners and his desire to align more closely with the US, I believe Winston Peters also sees the need for New Zealand to engage meaningfully with Pacific nations.” — Dr Marco de Jong.
“What these types of comments do is hang an axe over the Waitangi Tribunal which threatens to drop if they behave and exercise their powers in a particular way. This has a potential chilling effect.” — Natalie Coates.
“Universities are still far from being “inclusive”, “equal” or “diverse”. Instead, they can perpetuate isolation for Māori and Pacific students in largely white learning environments.” — Hemopereki Simon, Kyle Tan and Waikaremoana Waitoki.
“An essential aspect of the right to self-determination is recognising that the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the state is on an equal footing.” — UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, José Francisco Calí Tzay.
“After six years of studying how to be a psychologist, I still needed to learn how to work with my own people.” — Dr Waikaremoana Waitoki
"In Aotearoa, we’ve got one people being regulated by another people’s imposed legal system, contrary to what was agreed in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That's inequality." — Claire Charters.
“It was clear that we had reached a point where our participation would amount to complicity in the oppression of our people.” — Tina Ngata on why the tangata whenua caucus walked away from the national anti-racism plan.
“We can’t claim to be a trusted partner when we spy on our Pacific family on behalf of others. We also can’t claim to have an independent foreign policy when outside interests operate within our spy agency.” — Dr Marco de Jong.
“The Treaty principles bill is highly radical. Act essentially don't agree with the slow, steady, progressive way the law has evolved in New Zealand.” — Matthew Hooton.
“Rather than emphasising the differences between the texts, or discarding the English text altogether, reading both texts together is necessary.” — Samuel Carpenter.
“In a tribal society with an age-related hierarchy, reporters who push for answers or display scepticism at what they are told can be accused of a lack of manaakitanga.” — Atakohu Middleton.
Act’s proposed Treaty principles “contain barely an echo of the actual terms and conditions of Te Tiriti. They don’t even mention Māori.” — Melanie Nelson.
“I realised individual action is not enough. I realised we had to deal with corporations, governments, and institutions. We had to turn the problem off at the tap. The solution had to be political.” — Tina Ngata.
“If we want to tackle domestic violence, sub-optimal childcare, abuse of intoxicants, be they licit or illicit, and dare I say it, gangs, then a good place to start is literally on the social housing whānau doorstep.” — Denis O’Reilly.
“When we can create connections to each other's histories, we also get to see how we’re entangled together in the global project of colonisation that continues its violence.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
“If you look at Te Tiriti from a community perspective, it’s actually about balance and a promise between two peoples to take the best possible care of each other.” — Te Huia Bill Hamilton.
“The very activities that exploited our people and land contributed to the fossil fuel-dependent economies of France, England, Australia, and other developed nations. These are the economies . . . that are feeding the climate crisis. Now, our islands and communities are the victims of that crisis.” — Vanuatu MP Ralph Regenvanu.
"Just what these principles are, and how they should be interpreted in law, remain open to contest — including by those who argue the principles actually limit some of the political rights that fairly belong to Māori people." — Dominic O'Sullivan.
“You could feel the anger but also the restraint. Ngāpuhi were in charge and were respected. No one threw a dildo. But did the Crown feel the depth of the disgust towards their policies?” — Catherine Delahunty.
“We were fed a narrative that always seemed mind-suckingly one-sided. We were supposed to believe that Māori willingly handed everything over to the benevolent latecomers and pretend-discoverers for mere nails and blankets.” — Manase Lua.
“I suggest the government abandon its focus on the repeal and instead allow Māori to lawfully draw on whāngai principles to addresses the needs of our most vulnerable tamariki.” — Taryn Dryfhout.
“I arrived here with the baggage of ignorance, thinking that New Zealand was a white country. I spent several years living in that wilful ignorance, and I kept my head down trying to be a model minority.” — Ahmed Aziz.
“It’s a new form of civil wrong we're proposing, which would recognise there is a legal duty to stop contributing to the climate crisis, and the Supreme Court has agreed that we have the right to argue for that.” — Michael Smith.
“The absolute boldness with which this government has shown their distaste for Tiriti justice is unmatched. And even when they stand, axe in hand ... we still give them the mic and say ‘take it away’.” — Eru Kapa-Kingi.
“We’re in a place where it’s hard for many of us to see a life without the US hovering overhead. Our sense of dependency has become so ingrained that we’re weighing promises of economic benefits . . . against significant damage to our islands.” — Sheila Babauta from the Mariana Islands.
Māori authority over their water bodies aren’t woke delusions but “tangible rights grounded firmly in the western legal tradition”. — Historian Matthew Cunningham.
“The American imperial moment is coming to an end; the Israeli genocide lays waste to whatever values the collective west claims to hold. The question is: Are they going to take us all with them?” — Glen Johnson.
“We’re beyond survival now. We have survived. We can afford to raise the standards, to increase accountability. And we have the freedom to take our rangatiratanga out for a spin.” — Dayle Takitimu.
“The time has come for us to have a referendum on whether the people of Epsom should be allowed to have an electorate MP.” — Carwyn Jones.
“Pacific nations can see the step-change in the way New Zealand is conducting its foreign policy. The shift away from an independent, nuclear-free and Pacific-led foreign policy towards the adoption of a US-led, Indo-Pacific strategy is clear. Our actions in Yemen confirm it.” — Dr Marco de Jong.
“The assumption of singular sovereignty continues to see the government hold the exclusive right to raise taxes, levies and rates. Māori aren’t permitted to engage in these same activities . . . thus entrenching the fundamental imbalance between Treaty partners.” — Matthew Scobie.
None of the things currently causing discussion and division, like a referendum on the Treaty and claims of Māori privilege, are at all new. We’ve been here before.
“If we stop talking about peace — and peace is not simply the absence of conflict — if we take it off the agenda altogether, then the only option left is war without end.” — Professor Joanna Kidman.
“What Christopher Luxon confronts now, as have all the politicians before him who’ve capitalised on seasonal bouts of Māori hysteria, is a generation of Māori strong in their identity, who won’t let progress slip without a fight.” — Jamie Tahana.
"Māori know our whānau, and we are committed to our responsibilities to mokopuna. Intergenerational lives can be changed if we hold the ground that has been hard-fought for by our mana wāhine." — Kerri Cleaver.
“I look at all the examples around the country of the strides and changes we’ve made. And suddenly this government wants to take it all away? Nah. It's not going to happen. Because our people are already on the journey, and they're not about to be stopped.” — Professor Margaret Mutu.
A genealogy of New Zealand and the Pacific can help us “comprehend not just New Zealand’s relationships with the other Pacific islands, but how these relationships have defined and redefined New Zealand itself.” — Damon Salesa.
“An excessive number of items on the coalition’s list buy a culture war that Pākehā New Zealand isn’t ready for. Believe me when I say that te ao Māori is prepared.” — Deb Te Kawa.
“Te Aka Whai Ora is already cutting through a huge amount of bureaucracy and is more aligned to the needs of Māori. It needs to remain to finish the job it was set up to do.” — Lady Tureiti Moxon.
“The challenge to tangata Tiriti is what we’ll do to support a fightback led by tangata whenua. Will Pākehā, in particular, be prepared to march in solidarity with tangata whenua and all people directly affected by the neo-racist political programme?” — Catherine Delahunty.
“It’s important to rehumanise the discourse, because this has gone too far,” Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, talking to Moana Maniapoto.
“Why must Tuvalu exchange some of its sovereign powers over its own security for a migration pathway? This is not climate justice.” — Taukiei Kitara.
“Our nuclear-free status is tied in intimate ways to our political independence, and ultimately to our survival as peoples of the Pacific.” — Dr Marco de Jong and Talei Mangioni.
“Taking advantage of the smallness and climate vulnerability of island states to serve strategic agendas and take away their sovereign rights is downright unethical.” — Professor Steven Ratuva on the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union.
“I agree with Helen Clark that it would ‘rip us down the middle’, and with Jim Bolger that it’s a ‘bloody stupid’ idea.” — Dame Anne Salmond on Act’s proposed Treaty referendum.
“Any government, including ours, which is serious about contributing to an international solution, would call for an immediate ceasefire. And then, secondly, keep reinforcing the fact that they support a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” — Dr Chris Tooley.
“Reverting to the articles of Te Tiriti is something a lot of people might prefer over the rather anaemic Treaty principles because it would definitely get New Zealand ‘back on track’.” — Moana Maniapoto on Act’s proposed Treaty referendum.
In November 2014, the Waitangi Tribunal “abandoned the great pretence that the English text had legitimacy. Therefore, there was no longer a need for Treaty ‘principles’”. — Moea Armstrong, a Pākehā Tiriti educator.
“No amount of investment in military platforms, and alignment with the AUKUS nations and their beliefs, will deny our demography and geography: we are part of the Pacific.” — Dr Marco de Jong.
“Our research has shown how Māori students experience shame while white students experience entitlement through mathematics streaming.” — Mahdis Azarmandi, David Pomeroy, Sara Tolbert.
“The enduring tapu of Te Tiriti cannot be harmed by shallow political baiting. Te Tiriti exists and cannot be made to un-exist.” — Eru Kapa-Kingi.
“The kōhanga reo generation, backed by an inexorable demographic change, and strong in their reo, whakapapa and identity, are ready to step up to the plate — defined by a uniting faith in Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a source of rectification and unity.” — Jamie Tahana.
“I look at a number of politicians who are out of that place, and how relieved, relaxed and vibrant they look. So, you know, it's all in front of me.” — Nanaia Mahuta.
“Reducing child poverty not only requires robust evidence of the kind provided by the Dunedin Study, but also a society that values such evidence and seeks a long, secure, and rewarding life for all its citizens.” — Jonathan Boston, John Kerr, Michael Baker, Russell Wills.
“The dangers of digital colonisation may not be obvious yet because, on the surface, technology seems to be advancing our reo and our connections instead of suppressing them.” — Siena Yates.
“Seventeen Māori leaders spoke up a week ago ‘calling for an end to race-baiting and racist comments in our countries’ election campaigns’. They pointed at New Zealand First, Act and National — but, in my opinion, Act is by far the worst.” — Nicky Hager.
“This election is not just a battle of policies. On one level, this is our own Voice referendum. It is our own opportunity as a nation to reject the politics of anti-Māori hate.” — Tina Ngata.
“Next weekend’s referendum is a chance for all of us manuhiri in Australia — Māori and Pākehā — to show our respects to our hosts by voting yes.” — Rachel Buchanan on the Voice referendum.
"The promise is that, in the first 100 days of a National-led government, Aotearoa will see the scourge of gangs eliminated — or at least, gang members corralled in a feedlot at an annual fee of only $190,000 per head. Systemic labelling and prejudice come at a price." — Denis O'Reilly.
“Arguing that Māori aren’t Indigenous is logical if you’re trying to appeal to voters who are concerned that Māori shouldn’t receive ‘special’ and ‘unfair’ treatment. Shorter life expectancy isn’t what I’d describe as special, but there you go.” — Professor Alice Te Punga Somerville.
“One of my core criticisms of restorative justice is that we exaggerate how much input Māori had into its development in Aotearoa. And we exaggerate to what extent tikanga was the foundation of practice in that forum.” — Juan Tauri.
“For New Zealand, and other Pacific nations, reducing our options to choosing sides between two imperial nations devalues our sovereignty and place as peoples of the Pacific.” — Dr Marco de Jong on AUKUS.
“Despite warning Māori of an 'Asian invasion' in the mid-‘90s, Winston is now suggesting that we share the same whakapapa and that the real enemy, particularly for young Māori, are those ‘fanciful radicals’ working towards co-governance.” — Moana Maniapoto on Winston Peters.
“Racism — which is to discriminate on the basis of culture, racial or ethnic origin — means democracy can’t give everybody a fair go.” — Professor Dominic O’Sullivan, on challenging racism in political campaigns on both sides of the Tasman.
“In a country built on colonial racism, it takes such little encouragement and validation for racism to show its face. And then out come the white sheets and petrol cans for a laugh.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“A rangatira is more than just a chief. The word ‘raranga’ means to weave. A ‘tira’ is a group of people who have a purpose. A rangatira is one who weaves together people who are on the move.” — Tainui Stephens.
“The notion that Māori are responsible for our own language decline is a convenient argument. It absolves the Crown of its responsibilities to make right its many wrongs.” — Awanui Te Huia.
“Colonisation and its underlying ideological justifications go a long way towards explaining how white race organisations took hold here in the 20th century.” — Dr Avery Smith.
“If Japan is so convinced of the scientific safety of its nuclear waste then it can go ahead and dump it in Tokyo. Their waste has no place in our Pacific.” — Dr Marco de Jong on the release of nuclear waste from Japan's damaged Fukushima plant.
Co-governance “is expressed when we sing the national anthem, when the All Blacks do the haka, when our media people greet us with ‘Kia ora’, and when our mokopuna come home from school and sing us a new waiata they’ve been taught.” — Te Huia Bill Hamilton.
“Justin Taia may be a menace to society, but we shouldn’t forget he’s a product of it too. He was fed to the system as a child, and then returned to it as an adult who’d been smashed apart — a violent offender who is also a brutalised victim.” — Connie Buchanan & Teuila Fuatai.
“Not all crimes receive equal coverage. Nor are they framed in the same way, however violent they may be.” — Criminologist Sara Salman on the Auckland shooting last month.
"What would the lives of our families look like had the Crown adhered to its side of the bargain in 1845 and fulfilled its obligations as our trustee?" — Kerensa Johnston.
“When we talk about children who are at high-risk of reoffending, we’re talking about no more than 134 children. Imagine if we worked out how much time, energy, and money we're putting into the idea that it's a much bigger problem.” — Judge Frances Eivers.
“Once the manager found out who Julian really was, she rang him back, told him that this was a Māori business and to go hither and fornicate with himself, or words to that effect.” — Denis O’Reilly on the anti-co-governance roadshow.
“Those in power are so accustomed to extreme privilege that anything less than maintaining that feels like oppression.” — Tina Ngata.
“Even one Pacific case is too many because that takes us to the fundamental question of what then was that Dawn Raids apology for, if not to ensure that it does not happen again?” — Pakilau Manase Lua.
“Sobriety will dawn in the days following the election when whoever finds themselves in power will be confronted by the same intractable and complex problems faced by the current administration.” — Denis O’Reilly.
“Why is there such a soft landing for racism right now? Is it the election? Or is it just the persistent underlying intolerance that has always been simmering below the surface of our communities and our politics?” — Catherine Delahunty.
“The central issue the story raises is one of media responsibility. Why was there no rush to demand that the people who kicked it off justify their angle, their selection of voices, and their framing?” — Connie Buchanan.
“I do believe that our combined powers as Māori can make a difference, even if ultimately broader constitutional transformation is still needed. And this is a chance to take part and do that.” — Maria Bargh, Independent Electoral Review Panel.
“The racial complexity of our schools has increased, and the need to actively manage race, culture and ethnicity issues has become more critical than ever.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
“One of the beautiful things that I’ve seen in my work is that when you implement equity structures into health systems then Māori do just as well as non-Māori. Pākehā don’t start doing badly — everyone starts doing well.” — Dr Maxine Ronald, General Surgeon.
“The proliferation of vape shops throughout Māori communities like ours is a clear example of the imposition of settler colonial law over our mana motuhake.” — Erin Matariki Carr.
“What I hope we might do is not just revisit reports, but also look back into the history of this land, where many of the seeds of what might replace prisons are already present.” — Moana Jackson.
“The Pacific needs an independent collective voice. The oppositional, vindictive and toxic nature of the geopolitical contest is not in their best interest. In fact, it will draw them unnecessarily into the deep vortex of insecurity and uncertainty.” — Professor Steven Ratuva.
“I’d like to think the conversation we had reflects his true position, and that one day he’ll be brave enough to express his pride in our reo no matter who is listening.” — Awanui Te Huia.
“Everyone has the potential to hold these biases. It’s one thing to point that out, but it’s another to ask people to change their attitudes and behaviours.” — Dr Flo Chan Mow and Anton Blank.
"For years, data has been used to inform narratives and policy decisions about Māori, but without our input or our values at heart. That’s why it’s so important for us to collect and gain access to good quality data for Māori.” — Ngapera Riley.
“Wars in Europe, such as the Ukraine tragedy, are centre stage on our news. But the war for West Papua is barely mentioned despite the bombing of villages, the plight of the refugees, and the killings and torture by the Indonesian military.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“It feels like this is a story without an end; that the reports and the names of the dead will only accumulate; that the law will forever open tiny windows and lament the unwillingness of Ngāti Pāhauwera to remove their bones to squeeze through.” — Connie Buchanan.
“There is now a global movement towards water governance that rests on the relatedness between waters and water peoples — a governance that’s not just consultation or participation, but real power-sharing.” — Dr Elizabeth Macpherson.
“It seems that for every new infectious disease outbreak we have to relearn these lessons and we have to develop workarounds for systems that are designed for majority populations.” — Dr Suitafa Debbie Ryan.
“Honestly, the clinic’s a slap in the face. It’s a disgrace. It makes no sense to pour millions more taxpayer dollars into that type of clinical setup because it just won’t solve the problem for families.” — Dave Letele.
“All we’re asking for is a world in which Māori make our own decisions about our own lives, the government makes its own decisions about its people's lives, and we sit together and make decisions on matters that relate to us both.” — Professor Margaret Mutu.
"Implementing rights shouldn’t be subject to the political mood of the government of the day. So we remain of the view that our human rights obligations require the government to act now." — Professor Claire Charters.
“At last the call for climate justice by the people of the Pacific has been heeded by the countries of the world, thanks to the power of young minds to think creatively and strategically about the future of the planet and humanity.” — Professor Steven Ratuva.
“Rather than just talking about power-sharing as compliance with our obligations, I think we should be talking about how it creates a real opportunity to get better solutions for the crises we face.” — Dr Carwyn Jones.
"An inclusive university might provide many of its members with a sense of progressive change, while change for Māori is not significant at all." — Te Kawehau Hoskins & Alison Jones.
"It’s a doctrine that’s been used to give legality to things that are highly unjust." — Claire Charters. "As you read the Vatican’s statement, it becomes less and less clear what the Pope wants us to forgive him for." — Tina Ngata.
“Pacific people should stake their claim in their ocean, and make this sense of ownership known, acknowledged and respected by the marauding big powers, whose interests have typically been to use, exploit, extract, and then leave.” — Professor Steven Ratuva.
“Deep sea mining is extraction for the sake of profit. It tramples the very things that make us Indigenous, that tie us to our land and moana, and to our ancestors and future generations." — Liam Koka‘ua.
“Centred around the acquisition of nuclear submarines to combat Chinese influence, AUKUS has grave implications for nuclear non-proliferation and Pacific sovereignty.” — Marco de Jong & Arama Rata.
“Before we can be reconciled by the Treaty, we need to reconcile the Treaty to itself and restore its mana.” — Alistair Reese.
“When there's a peak in these claims and assertions of Māori privilege, then historically at least, we’ve seen that Māori have lost things.” — Peter Meihana.
“Something that we’ve found, which Māori should be so proud of, is that our culture provides proven protective factors against mate wareware (dementia).” — Dr Makarena Dudley.
“I’m not sure that the room is anything like the one being described. At Waiohiki, I saw New Zealand citizens of many races using the marae as a place of refuge. The rain fell on us all.” — Denis O’Reilly.
“It’s more helpful to look at the question of Māori science as a tangle of semantic, philosophical, and political arguments, rather than a simple yes-or-no question.” - Georgina Tuari Stewart.
“In some ways, it’s an addictive situation to be in. There’s nothing quite like having an assured income, each and every year, and to be paid better than your local counterparts in Tonga.” — Sefita Hao’uli on the social impacts of RSE.
“Try really hard to get the politics taken out of the issues . . . and address, for instance, the way the media reports crime, because there’s still the attitude that if it bleeds, it leads.” — Chester Borrows on the need for a better approach to criminal justice.
“The fear and anguish which once hung in the air like a morning mist had been replaced by a euphoric mood — people felt relieved that the regime which had ruled them for 16 years was at last history.” — Professor Steven Ratuva.
“To have a constitutional conversation, you've got to rip your heart open and say: ‘These are the values that we have, these are the things that are important to us. How shall we make them work together?'’’ — Te Huia Bill Hamilton, Treaty educator.
“Times have changed, but the debate over the co-governance of water has highlighted how far we have to go in local government, and how the allergy to genuine power sharing is still widespread.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“As much as we may wish to point the finger solely at the Crown and call all of this yet another example of colonial mal-intent, these empty and part-gestures still depend on Māori endorsement to be effective.” — Tina Ngata.
“If we look to what I now think is the historically-correct context — the Treaty as a genuine attempt at a relationship-building exercise — then it opens the possibility of doing things better in our society today.” — Professor David Williams.
“We want safe drinking water, reliable stormwater systems and clean beaches. Doing nothing is not an option.” And also: “Why give in to racism?” — Simon Wilson on Three Waters.
“Rather than catching people doing things wrong, how about catching them doing things right? And helping them do more of that?” — Denis O’Reilly on the changing attitude towards charities.
“There remains a lack of understanding of things Māori, and an unwillingness to hand over power to hapū and iwi to make decisions under our own authority for the protection of our own children.” — Luke Fitzmaurice-Brown on Oranga Tamariki.
“There is no property in children. Māori children know many homes, but still one whānau.” — From the landmark Pūao Te Ata Tū report, written in 1986.
“What happens in the Amazon isn’t a problem for Brazilians only. It’s a problem for the whole world.” — Gabriel Uchida talking to Moana Maniapoto.
“If we can think about the idea of home as a place to which we can all belong, as a place upon which we can all stand, then the idea of housing falls more easily into place.” — Moana Jackson.
“The need for constitutional transformation has become quite clear in the Māori world over the last 12 or 13 years.” — Professor Margaret Mutu.
“Our research confirms the cost of keeping Māori sick is many millions of dollars. Saving Māori lives is not only good for Māori, it will save the country money.” — Professor Papaarangi Reid.
“Justice takes the form of punishment for a child’s 33 seconds in darkness. It should demand the rest of us take our share for the things that happened during the 14 years we could see him.” — Connie Buchanan.
"The forces that brought us here today are no less than pure, distilled, concentrated colonial entitlement. Colonial violence is not an accessory to this conversation — it IS the conversation." — Tina Ngata.
“Aotearoa New Zealand needs to confront the injustices of our past and the ongoing impacts today. That starts with confronting the myth of sovereignty.” — Dr Claire Charters.
“We're looking at what the evidence shows about systemic bias, which is about the policies of the police, the procedures, the practices, the legislation.” — Tā Kim Workman who’s leading the largest ever investigation in this country on police bias.
Over a working lifetime, the average income gap between Pākehā men and Pacific women amounts to nearly half a million dollars. For Pacific men, it’s $400,368. “That’s a lot of money our families and communities are missing out on.” — Teuila Fuata’i.
“Our legal institutions within te ao Māori have been degraded for years through colonisation . . . And because of that degradation, we can’t easily switch back now to tikanga to resolve all our contemporary problems.” — Amokura Kawharu.
“Perhaps the audacity lies in the assumption that an entire system of values, principles and laws that grew up uniquely in these islands should remain on the margins of the country’s legal system." — Kennedy Warne responding to criticism of the Supreme Court's recognition of tikanga in its Peter Ellis decision.
“The continued determination to negotiate with Māori men while ignoring Māori women, 154 years after the signing of the Treaty, is the gravamen of a claim recently lodged against the Crown before the Waitangi Tribunal.” — Ani Mikaere.
“Race is a socially constructed structure of power that we are part of, even if we refuse to acknowledge it, and one’s ethnicity is about personal ethnic identifications, whakapapa and ancestries.” — Dr Lana Lopesi.
“Colonisation continues to have long-lasting impacts on us as South Asians, even here in Aotearoa.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
“The care and protection and the youth justice system has failed to serve the interests of our mokopuna. It continues to fail them today.” — Judge Frances Eivers.
“For unity, you need to have equality — and we don’t have that in this country. We have deep social disparities creating division and separation.” — Dr Claire Charters.
“Something happens at graduate school to make people leave — and we believe a lot of it has to do with the racism you experience in the university system.” — Dr Leilani Walker & Dr Sereana Naepi.
“The people who didn’t vote for James Shaw at the AGM have said we need a radical voice on the inside as well on the outside. And I agree.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“It’s time we engaged our communities. A mature and informed conversation about the impacts of colonisation and religion on our community is overdue.” — Andre Afamasaga on the Manly Sea Eagles jersey debacle.
“If there is a generalised way to describe our traditional Pacific culture, then we can say it was supportive and reverent of our diverse communities. Our culture was inclusive.” — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
“The new EU FTA locks the door on Māori being able to get new IP laws to stop the misuse of our taonga in Aotearoa and the EU.” — Moana Maniapoto.
“Sea level rise is a slow-moving disaster for our Māori communities. They’re disproportionately at risk because our wāhi tapu, our urupā, our marae, are generally in low-lying coastal areas, or in river valleys.” — Dr Shaun Awatere.
“We’re a community contributing to the economy but not getting the same contribution back.” — Dr Sereana Naepi on the Pacific pay gap.
"Being lectured on the evils of China by the Anglo-West is like saying that Pacific states 'are not smart, strong, and sophisticated enough to stand up to China’s manipulative intents.' — Professor Steven Ratuva.
“Mātauranga Māori is linked to Māori identity and forms part of the unique features which make up that identity. Because this is so, it also means that mātauranga Māori is a unique part of the identity of all New Zealand citizens.” — Sir Hirini Moko Mead.
“According to the police’s own history, initially, the New Zealand Police were formed to counter a gang problem — that problem being the gangs of Pākehā sealers and whalers wreaking havoc among Māori communities.” — Denis O’Reilly.
“The warehousing of surplus humanity in prisons — and the ongoing incarceration of Māori in particular — is a crisis that has resulted in an unjust society where the shadow of the prison colonises our landscapes.” — Professor Tracey McIntosh.
“Nobody wanted to just go and shut down a road. It was about safety and health in the face of a threat.” — Luke Fitzmaurice, co-author of 'Stepping Up: COVID-19 Checkpoints and Rangatiratanga'.
“A decade of my life was spent on Treaty settlements. I think many people would be a lot more sympathetic toward the notion of co-governance if they learned the things that I was able to learn as a public official in that role.” — Chris Finlayson, former Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations.
“When people talk about pay transparency or secrecy, or pay gaps, or marginalised workers, it sounds abstract. But having less money isn’t abstract, it means we have fewer options. It means less for our whānau.” — Kim Mcbreen.
“A lot of places tell us they don’t have an ethnic pay gap. But when we ask for the data on their organisation, they don’t have it. To which I say: 'How can you address and fix something you're trying not to see?'” — Saunoamaali‘i Karanina Sumeo, EEO Commissioner.
“Although his books are considered classic studies based on rare first-hand knowledge, Elsdon Best was a structural racist whose bigoted beliefs help explain a lot of the shit we’re still dealing with today.” — Connie Buchanan.
“We need to understand anti-blackness as the context which allows for the N-word to be taken, claimed, and used repeatedly.” — Tina Ngata.
“The entire nation will stop on 24 June and acknowledge mātauranga Māori. I think, in generations to come, our descendants will look back and say that was a moment in time when we came of age as a nation.” — Dr Rangi Matamua.
“When we encounter racism from communities of colour, it’s harder for us to understand and reconcile — and sometimes it hurts more, because many of us have found solace among brown faces in the absence of Black ones.” — Guled Mire, Rita Wakefield, Mazbou Q.
“Pākehā culture faces some barriers to stepping up to Matike Mai. One barrier is the numbers of us still pretending we are not a visible group holding on to power.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“As the mother of proud Aboriginal and Māori children and the partner of a proud Aboriginal man, I’m reminded every day that even though I’m a First Nations woman, I’m also a migrant because I came here when I was four years old.” — Jo Kāmira.
“There’s a great deal of research across the world now that shows that trauma isn’t something that you just get over. It can be reproduced and passed down through generations.” — Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith.
“Over the last decade, the ‘land back’ rallying cry has stretched across the Indigenous world and breathed new life into the fight for land and sovereignty.” — Jack McDonald.
“Despite the fact that ‘mānuka’ is a Māori word, not an Australian word, the UK IP office backed Australia’s claim that it also produces ‘mānuka honey’. The UK FTA will cement in those legal tests.” — Moana Maniapoto.
“What exactly is the middle ground when democracies are faced with viral disinformation campaigns organised by powerful political and economic interests?” — Professor Mohan Dutta.
“We can build an enormous amount of te Tiriti, te reo and tikanga knowledge in the four to five years we have our students at law school.” — Professor Jacinta Ruru.
“This was the first person I’d ever met who was healthy and sane in every way, but whose view of the world was entirely informed by the media. The sum of the biased tabloid, talkback and television BS she consumed had polluted her view of the country she lived in.” — Tainui Stephens
“Our everyday practices need to follow Maōri authority and tikanga Māori in managing water. If water is protected from agricultural or urban pollution, everyone benefits.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“Even before we’d had a chance to talanoa or discuss what community education sessions could look like, Pasifika were being labelled as ‘likely to be difficult’.” — Dr Api Talemaitoga.
“New Zealand is steadfastly committed to drinking its own Kool-aid when it comes to race relations. We have stitched-in blinders when it comes to convincing everyone that we are kind, and just and equitable.” — Tina Ngata.
“Vaccination is a necessary protection against Covid, but dealing with a living history and the ongoing discriminatory actions of the Crown requires more than just an injection in the arm.” — Moana Jackson.
“Just as there is no transfer of tino rangatiratanga, there’s nothing in Te Tiriti that would prevent hapū Māori from controlling their own borders, from directing their own foreign policy, or from entering into new international treaties.” — Dr Arama Rata.
"If the government gets the incentives right, the opportunity is there for planting huge areas in native species, controlling pests such as possums, deer, goats, wallabies and pigs, and returning some of what has been lost." — Darren van Hoof, Forest and Bird conservation manager.
“In New Zealand the whole machinery of justice has been made by the white majority. These are the facts of racist oppression.” — Oliver Sutherland.
"If the government had listened to our experts, and itself, all these months, Māori could have been 90 percent vaccinated by now,” writes Vini Olsen-Reeder, who’s sick of Māori being blamed for being slow to vaccinate.
“In its September decision, the court elevates the importance of tikanga, giving it more legal substance than it has ever had since the advent of colonisation.” — Kennedy Warne.
“The indisputable fact that the Crown funds the primary health care system inadequately is a key reason for the extent of inequity that Māori continue to suffer.” — Waitangi Tribunal report on Stage One of Hauora claims.
“While it is OF COURSE urgent that Māori vaccinate, we can’t overlook the role that this broken relationship and intergenerational neglect and devaluing of Māori life plays in vaccine hesitancy.” — Tina Ngata.
“Our players are being asked to carry water for a brand that is desecrating our environment.” — Juressa Lee, a Greenpeace campaigner, on NZ Rugby’s six-year sponsorship deal with INEOS.
“It’s been a whole year since we went through this, and yet, here we are again, with mainstream media ignoring, or perhaps not even seeing, the very real damage done by this type of clickbait heading.” — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
“Indonesia is as brutal in its tactics as all colonisers.” — Catherine Delahunty on West Papua’s fight for independence.
“What if Ngāi Tahu had been allowed the reserve, and New Zealand’s walking culture had developed with Māori still owning the land? What kind of hybrid traditions might have emerged if Kemp’s Deed had been honoured, the mahika kai preserved?” — Nic Low.
“Overall, the inadequacies of the government's ‘gestures’ indicate that the apology came from a government that felt pressured to give an apology — and not a government that was genuinely invested in atoning for its ongoing actions of racist violence.” — Dylan Asafo.
“Only through discussion can we win the hearts and minds of others, and then, eventually, society adopts these new ideas as a new norm.” — Matt McCarten.
The recent attacks on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) are not just ill-informed — they're "dangerously provocative", writes Moana Jackson.
“On one hand, National wants Māori votes. On the other, National MPs criticise Māori initiatives and shoot themselves in the foot when they use race as a political tool.” — Dr Paerau Warbrick.
“The evidence is clear that the white supremacist who was threatening slaughter should have been charged from the get-go and been treated the same as the brown Mongrel Mob members.” — John Tamihere.
Teachers "don’t realise they spend more time with Asian and Pākehā students. Māori students see it, though, and retreat to the back of the classroom, where they sit in groups and disengage.” — Anton Blank.
“Colonisation has always been a separatist process in which the colonising states imposed their own separate institutions in places that already had their own.” — Moana Jackson.
“The government must acknowledge that ugly racial stereotypes were officially promoted for political gain, leaving a lasting legacy of prejudice against Pasifika peoples in New Zealand.” — Joris de Bres.
“Does it seem strange to be reading a court decision and discover that you’re hearing a dissertation on Māori worldview? It is becoming the norm.” — Kennedy Warne on the landmark High Court decision recognising the customary marine rights of Whakatōhea.
“Just as colonisation began in the mind — as a set of ideas based on racial and cultural superiority — so must decolonisation begin with a mental deconstruction of those ideas.” — Kennedy Warne.
The Fair Pay Agreements "will transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers now and in the future. It will change the entire power relationship between capital and labour.” — Matt McCarten.
“In this country, the potential exists to develop a different and unique decolonisation discourse because there are already stories which express the power of a different truth.” — Moana Jackson, from 'Imagining Decolonisation'.
“It is the people who offer us the material and inspiration for our stories . . . The people are the ultimate sovereign power. Story sovereignty belongs with the people we serve.” — Tainui Stephens.
“The Treaty was there. The vision was there. But is this going to make a difference?” — Dr Elana Curtis.
“The racist decision was not warning us before the suspension happened. The racist decision was not directly addressing the community after announcing it.” — Dr Sapna Samant & Professor Mohan Dutta.
“I hope that we dispel once and for all the myth that democracy in Sāmoa and the wider Pacific is uneventful or unsophisticated and unworthy of New Zealand attention.” — Patrick Thomsen.
“It’s deeply painful to consider just how poorly Pacific Islanders are being served by public health agencies here in the US, especially in states where their health data isn’t separated from Asians’.” — Ema Hao’uli.
“There is a housing crisis — but only for the working class. It’s a bonanza for the owning class.” — Matt McCarten.
“Takutai Moana is the law which, in name, repealed and replaced the inflammatory Foreshore and Seabed Act, but which, in substance, places the same heavy burden of proof on Māori.” — Connie Buchanan.
“To the uninitiated, it can be jarring to learn that, in Aotearoa, the state outsources the prosecution of moderate and serious crime to 17 commercial law firms throughout the country.” — Tim McKinnel.
“I often get asked: ‘Do you hate white South Africans?’ The answer is simple, but you must understand my story.” — Gregory Fortuin.
“By far the biggest impact of the assault on full-time work was borne by Māori and Pasifika families." — Mike Treen.
“We’ve made enormous progress on social inequality. But we’ve lost ground on class equity. Working people are consciously and legally discriminated against.” — Matt McCarten.
“I lose faith in my discipline quite often. English has broken my own heart several times, and it has been used for generations to make our community feel small.” — Dr Alice Te Punga Somerville.
“Fear is a powerful thing. It erases whanaungatanga, that relationship and duty that bind us as Māori. In its place, it inserts false logic, slapdash principles, and conspiracies.” — Dr Anthony Jordan.
“Māori and Pacific babies are more likely than Pākehā babies to receive palliative care rather than active treatment.” — Dr Simone Watkins.
“Don’t expect the Crown to become a revolutionary and hand over, or even share, real power.” — Annette Sykes, delivering the Nin Tomas Memorial Lecture in December 2020.
“The problem with social democratic parties around the world is that they’re timid. They focus on feel-good social justice issues and not nearly enough on economic justice.” — Matt McCarten.
“New Zealand’s colonial legacy in the Pacific is one that was inherently exploitative. We took — not just land and resources but brown bodies, too.”
“It’s not too late for the government to decriminalise cannabis. What’s the point of a once-in-a-lifetime majority if you’re not going to use it?” — Leah Damm.
"There really isn't time for the old 'be humble' buzz." — Emmaline Pickering-Martin on Pacific MPs.
“The next election has already started. The Māori Party has over 1,000 days to pick away at Labour whenever it makes a mistake or fails to deliver for Māori.” — Matt McCarten.
The Greens and the Māori Party both have candidates who are threatening to prevent a repeat of Labour’s 2017 clean sweep.
“The idea of choice is a fallacy. It’s based on people having access to adequate resources to enable their choices. And this is the ultimate choice." — Hirini Kaa on voting "no" in the End of Life Choice referendum.
“If barely anyone is entering the country, and immigration isn’t causing the housing crisis, why include border closure in a housing policy?” — Arama Rata.
“Despite decades of atrocities, including the state-sanctioned murders and human rights abuses in West Papua, New Zealand has refused time and time again to even criticise the Indonesian government, let alone investigate these abuses further.” — Dylan Asafo.
"I'm voting 'Yes' in support of the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill because we need meaningful change in an area that has, for far too long, marginalised our young Māori and Pacific people." — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
“It became clear that no matter how many publications publish our work, or how high the esteem in which our peers hold us, or how much research money we bring into university coffers, we are still, too often, dispensable to our institutions.”
“This is not a nicety — it’s a matter of life and death. Māori patients’ ability to choose to be cared for by Māori physicians is a matter of life and death.” — Dr Papaarangi Reid.
We, the undersigned, stand in support of Māori academics who have spoken out about long-term,...
“Every time decision-makers are given the opportunity to take action that is pro-equity, they find reasons not to.” — Dr Rhys Jones.
“The challenge for small parties inside a coalition is to survive and hold on to your kaupapa.” — Catherine Delahunty, former Green MP.
"There is no doubt that certain voices are privileged by the editorial process of health and medical journals, whereas others are systematically screened out. " — Vanessa Selak, Rod Jackson, Matire Harwood.
“Why are we even looking at restricting a successful programme that’s doing exactly what it was designed to do? Have we reached maximum equity?” — Māori medical student at Otago University.
“The overarching reality is that politics remains incredibly disconnected from some of the communities who most need structural change.” — Leah Damm.
“The very real life effect of this rumour has been felt by the Pacific community. There have been multiple racist attacks on Pacific peoples online and verbal abuse in person." — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
“I’ve been part of endless debates which assume that we Pākehā can’t trust tangata whenua to look after the environment as well as we can.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“Overall, a key issue is the need for the government to provide Māori and Pacific whānau with ‘choice and control’ rather than ‘forced and compulsory’ isolation management.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
“Predictably, we’ve seen damaging racist views vilifying Pacific communities on mainstream and social media since the family at the centre of the Auckland cluster was first identified as Pacific.” — Dr Collin Tukuitonga.
“JT leads a fight to win at least one of the Māori electorates for the Māori Party next month and Willie leads the Labour Party campaign to stop him. Neither can afford to let the other one win.” — Matt McCarten.
"How do conspiracy theories move from white supremacist minds to Māori mouths?" Tina Ngata looks at the rise of Billy Te Kahika and his New Zealand Public Party, and why far-right, white-supremacist agendas are finding favour with many Māori.
“We’re committed to ensuring that Māori hands continue to have a firm grip on all the levers needed to transform our lives — not just on the shovels.” — Te Kāhui Amokura.
“Despite Pasifika women being some of the leading figures in my life, I never saw their myriad, colourful personalities reflected on screen.” — Litia Tuiburelevu on the new comedy sketch show 'Sis'.
Is it time to turn to Māori law for the answer to a legal issue that would affect all New Zealanders? — Māmari Stephens on the Peter Ellis case and the growing role and status of tikanga Māori in Aotearoa's laws.
“Her caucus hates and fears her in equal measure, but she will survive because the Trumpian base in the National Party love her. And, more importantly, she’s more ruthless than any politician who may covet her new throne.” — Matt McCarten.
A landmark decision delivered by the US Supreme Court last week has stunned Native American communities because of its forceful defence of their rights, writes Kennedy Warne.
"One of the perceived political difficulties to arriving at a settlement that will attract broad public support is that 'private land' is involved. But this is a red herring that misleads and distracts us from the relevant and important questions." — David Williams.
The current protests over names and statues isn’t about erasing history, writes Kennedy Warne. They’re awakening us to a side of history that’s been ignored and suppressed.
“Māori own the water because our customary native title has never been extinguished.” — John Tamihere.
"Pushback to call-outs is often from the powerful — those who benefit from the status quo." — Khylee Quince.
“To move from dismay to justice, we have to become serious about economics — about wealth and who has it, and why." — Kennedy Warne.
“Korowai Manaaki is run by Oranga Tamariki. It’s labelled as a ‘youth residence’. The authorities like to highlight the fact that it has a school and that it helps young people get on the right track. But, let’s be honest. It’s a prison.” — Kingi Snelgar.
“It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that our cannabis laws have been yet another tool of colonial oppression.” — Tim McKinnel on the upcoming cannabis referendum.
“Labour has bent over backwards to help businesses. But the government must make a priority of being mindful of the people at the bottom.” — Matt McCarten.
"If it seems surprising for a New Zealand court to provide a lesson in the Māori worldview as part of a decision about a proposal to mine the seabed, then it is equally surprising to hear the court lecture decision-makers on their failure to engage meaningfully with that worldview." — Kennedy Warne.
“The distrust many Māori have for police comes from recent and very legitimate places of fear, and it’s rooted in historical racism.” — Irihapeti Edwards & Stephanie Muller-Pallares on what you need to know about the Covid-19 response law.
"I know, and work in, communities where the feeling is that we are much closer to the precipice than we care to admit." – Tim McKinnel on why we need to resist militarised policing.
“Genuine, ongoing consultation and partnership with Māori throughout Covid-19 would have allowed concerns to be voiced, and potentially harmful unintended consequences like these to be mitigated.” — Dr Pounamu Jade Aikman.
“Much of the conversation that led to this budget came through Pacific media vehicles and not just in English.” — Richard Pamatatau
“Jacinda Ardern is lauded in this country, and feted as a leadership icon around the world, while Bridges flounders as an embarrassing and irrelevant lightweight. He exudes desperation and panic.” — Matt McCarten.
“Digital inclusion means doing things differently for, and with, Māori." — Kirkpatrick Mariner.
“If history is anything to go by, I fear any confidence would be misplaced.” — Pounamu Jade Aikman on whether police will apply their Covid-19 powers fairly and evenly.
“If these leaders succeed in getting things back to our deeply dysfunctional and inequitable normal, I’m sure many of us will be relieved and happy to forget the lesson that this Covid-19 pandemic has provided.” — Dylan Asafo.
New Zealand’s response to the short-term Covid-19 crisis should guide our response to the long-term issues facing us, writes Kerensa Johnston.
“The question of authority, how and where it’s exercised, and by whom, is not just an academic one.” — Kerensa Johnston.
“Millennials are the functional generation in an environment we’re all being forced to occupy: the online world.” — Wiremu Manaia.
“Let Aotearoa show the world how Indigenous rights and health equity can be meaningfully upheld and respected as we face this crisis together.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
“The reality is that we have a digital divide that mirrors the social and economic inequality in our society. And that’s a major concern as the Covid-19 pandemic exposes just how digitally unprepared we are.” — Kirkpatrick Mariner.
“It’s precisely in these moments of panic that a country’s inequities are most visible.” — Patrick Thomsen
Whanaungatanga, manaakitanga, and aroha will get us through, writes Moana Maniapoto. But stay in your bubble.
Moana Jackson on whether Bob Jones’s NBR column, as well as various other examples of his writing and public statements, express views that could be regarded as “racist or amount to hate speech”.
"Whether we like it or not, Aotearoa is a disease gateway to the Pacific," writes Lana Lopesi.
“The building of new relationships and the telling of new stories begins with the identification and ‘un-telling’ of colonisation’s past and present lies.” — Moana Jackson.
“My culture is not the cause of, and therefore not the solution to, contemporary Māori health inequities.” — Dr Elana Curtis
“When this government is led by a prime minister who is without question the most supportive of Māori empowerment in our history, Māori who sit around the cabinet table have no excuse.”
“Denying racism provides cover for racist attitudes and excuses for unequal outcomes. It gaslights people who’ve experienced racism, and blocks people who want to start the real work of moving beyond our colonial heritage.”
"How do we begin to have conversations about critical issues when we’re so far apart?"
"There’s a litany of examples, including admissions by the police themselves, of unconscious bias. Or racism, as we called it in the good old days." — Moana Maniapoto.
“Their tūpuna inhabit every room they enter, they embody every act, and they help guide every word.”
“The simplicity and universality of the NZ Superannuation model is the envy of many across the world, but it doesn’t address the needs of all — nor is it guaranteed to be sustainable without refinement.” — Peter Cordtz, interim Retirement Commissioner.
“The longer I stay at university, the more I realise that not only are universities not made for me, but there are institutional structures embedded within them that actively exclude me."
“The Treaty relationship needs to underpin the Climate Change Commission — and in fact, all the commissioners should be bound by Treaty obligations, such as to actively protect Māori rights.”
“With Māori people, it's not just one thing. There's a plethora of social barriers and problems that are against us at the moment, such as the recent kaupapa about Oranga Tamariki.”
“Even in the most liberal of spaces, such as universities that publicly commit to being a space that welcomes and celebrates Pasifika, we see a pattern of racism and sexism.”
Nine years of race and religious hate crime in New Zealand, based on news media reports between 2004 and 2012.
“Instead of placing Māori and Pacific literatures as late arrivals to English literature, we instead recognise a whakapapa of Māori literature that goes all the way back to Te Moana nui a Kiwa.”
“Those who cannot truly and freely choose should be protected by the state, not exposed to greater risk of death.”
E-Tangata is an online Sunday magazine specialising in stories that reflect the experiences of Māori and Pasifika in Aotearoa.
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