OPINION: Don Brash/Hobson’s Pledge.
From activist groups weaponising professional complaints and silencing dissenting voices to taxpayer-funded universities mandating ideological courses, our public and professional spheres are facing a coordinated assault.
However, it is not all bleak. There are a few signs of the tide turning, as the Government (finally) begins the necessary work of cleaning up the messy patchwork of Treaty clauses across our laws. Here’s an update on just a few of the most pressing issues we are focused on.
The Weaponisation of Professional Regulation
Hobson’s Pledge frequently warns against the creeping injection of ideology into our legal frameworks. A deeply concerning case involving prominent Wellington lawyer Stephen Franks, who has represented our organisation at select committee hearings on a few occasions, serves as a stark warning about how far this rot has advanced.
Acting for another client, Mr Franks sent a letter to medical practitioners regarding gender-affirming healthcare, advising them to preserve documents in light of escalating overseas litigation. It was a standard, robust piece of legal advocacy. Not a single recipient of the letter complained.
Instead, a group of academics, activists, and rival lawyers decided to insert themselves where they weren’t needed. They dragged Mr Franks before a Law Society standards committee, initiating a stressful, year-long process that was only thrown out last week.
While this specific case did not centre on race, the playbook is identical to the one used to silence critics of co-governance. Our regulations are easily weaponised to allow activist busybodies to hijack policies and complaints processes across multiple sectors, enforcing ideological conformity and punishing unpopular truths.
You need to think no wider than the case with Janet Dickson, the real estate agent, being punished because she refused to be involved in a programme of indoctrination. We have stood by Janet and continue to do so. We said at the time that her experience would soon be replicated and would spread to other professions. And so here we are.
If our professionals are forced to constantly look over their shoulders for fear of being ‘cancelled’, their courage to speak up fades. And when professionals become timid, it is the New Zealand public that loses.
We believe an expectation of neutrality in regulatory bodies is essential to a fair and democratic society. Ethics, competence, and quality should be assessed, but we have to take away the ability of these captured organisations to use the withholding of licences to practise as leverage for enforcing ideological conformity.
The Waitangi Tribunal and Our Education System
The same pattern of overreach is aggressively playing out in our education sector. This battleground is arguably one of the most important, as indoctrinating young minds is an effective and insidious tactic. Control over education shapes the next generation’s understanding of history, identity, citizenship, and democracy itself.
Just days ago, the Waitangi Tribunal issued an interim report accusing the Government of a “reckless” breach of Treaty principles. The offence? Attempting to restore democratic accountability by reviewing the huge number of references to the Treaty within the Education and Training Act, including the requirement for school boards to “give effect” to the Treaty.
The Tribunal has gone so far as to demand that the Government immediately halt its broader legislative review. This is an extraordinary intervention into the mandate of an elected government, and one that the Tribunal does not have the authority to do.
It is also demanding that the Government “engage in co-design with Māori” before proceeding further.
You may have forgotten, amongst all the noise, that a review was conducted into the role of the Waitangi Tribunal, but apparently that report now sits gathering dust on Minister Tama Potaka’s desk. The continual muscle flexing and activism of the Tribunal shows how important it is that we draw tight parameters around it or admit that it is no longer needed and shut it down. Given that it behaves as though it holds a constitutional veto over public policy, we favour the latter.
We must ensure the Government does not bow to the Tribunal’s pressure. Our schools should be focused on delivering core education, not acting as vehicles for constitutional re-engineering.
Reining in the Legislation
Fortunately, we did get some good news from Minister Paul Goldsmith, who has provided some of the details of the Government’s long-awaited review into how the “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” have been scattered across our statute books and announced which laws will have clauses removed or amended.
For decades, a messy, inconsistent patchwork of Treaty clauses has been strategically inserted into New Zealand law. These clauses have used varied language, creating immense legal uncertainty. The Government will attempt to clean up this legislative overreach across 19 separate Acts of Parliament:
Seven references will be repealed entirely.
Ten references will be strictly capped.
Two references will be rewritten.
This review is an excellent first step toward ensuring that Parliament – not the courts, and certainly not the Waitangi Tribunal – makes the laws for all New Zealanders, equally.
But we also highlight comments from the ACT Party that until the principles of the Treaty are clearly defined by Parliament (rather than activist courts), any references remaining in legislation remain problematic or, at the very least, uncertain and unclear.
Universities and Ideological Compliance
We see this same institutional arrogance within our universities, where ideological indoctrination and control are being shielded from public scrutiny.
ACT MP Dr Parmjeet Parmar has asked the Ombudsman to investigate the University of Auckland for a flagrant failure to comply with the Official Information Act. It has been 150 days since she requested information regarding the university’s remaining compulsory Treaty papers – and the university still refuses to respond.
Last year, pressure from Hobson’s Pledge supporters helped force the university to back down from making its “Waipapa Taumata Rau” Treaty course compulsory for most students. Yet, it still remains strictly mandatory for critical fields like engineering, nursing, health sciences, and architecture.
Students should focus on the qualifications required for their careers, not be forced into ideological courses. Taxpayer-funded public institutions must be accountable. Parents, students, and taxpayers deserve to know exactly what is being forced onto our next generation.
Tania Waikato and Māori Seats
Over the past week, we have been engaged in a revealing online conversation with activist lawyer and Green Party candidate Tania Waikato. Much of it has been rather amusing, with her requesting a billboard from us. Be careful what you wish for!
She is standing in the Māori electorate of Waiariki and hopes to unseat Rawiri Waititi, the leader of Te Pati Māori. While Ms Waikato stands for many things we disagree with, including the idea that Māori never ceded sovereignty and that ethno-nationalism is a good idea, with her education and career, she, like many Māori politicians, is capable of standing in a general seat.
She is a good example of why Māori seats should be a relic of the past. Māori with exceptional credentials on all sides of the political spectrum do not need special seats set aside for them anymore.
Māori are fully entitled to enroll on the general roll, vote for any candidate, and run in any general electorate they choose. In an equal democracy, a person’s vote should carry the same weight regardless of their ancestry. Separate seats only serve to entrench division.
Hobson’s Pledge has been researching and working on this issue for a long time. The public appetite for genuine equality is growing.
Importantly, this isn’t just an argument about fairness and equality either. It is a statement of fact that Māori seats simply aren’t needed when Māori already have political representation that outstrips their proportion of the population. All parties except Labour have had Māori leaders, and we have a record number of Māori in Parliament and Cabinet currently. Four of the six parties currently in Parliament have a Māori leader. It is time to acknowledge that MMP did the trick, and we can remove race-based seats, secure in the knowledge that Māori win seats in Parliament with no trouble at all.
That is why we have been working on a campaign demanding a nationwide referendum to abolish the Māori seats once and for all, returning us to a single, unified roll for all citizens. It is time to let the voters decide whether we continue down the path of convoluted segregation, or return to a single, unified roll for all New Zealanders. Watch this space!
