If you think you’re beleaguered by political correctness in America, just thank your lucky stars that you’re not living in New Zealand. There you are increasingly surrounded by demands that you abide by the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, but, worse, you can be demonized or fired simply because you think it’s outdated and there needs to be court-mandated interpretation of what it means, or, worse, adopt a New Zealand Constitution.
For in that country, which I love, virtually area of endeavor is subject to Equity Demands and Diktats that you respect indigenous “ways of knowing.” Today the subject of discussion is pharmacy, which is being rapidly colonized by this ideology. But note the bit about real estate at the bottom.
An anonymous New Zealander sent me this article from The BreakingViews site in that lovely but increasingly benighted land.
You can verify Kennedy’s claims by going to the official pharmacy standards site (click on image to get pdf).
As you can see from the top headline, it’s a bit of a rant, but everything that Mr. Kennedy says about the pharmacy standards is true.
First, the aim of the Pharmacy Council is a general one: to help all New Zealanders. From pp. 3-4 of the second document:
An anonymous New Zealander sent me this article from The BreakingViews site in that lovely but increasingly benighted land.
You can verify Kennedy’s claims by going to the official pharmacy standards site (click on image to get pdf).
As you can see from the top headline, it’s a bit of a rant, but everything that Mr. Kennedy says about the pharmacy standards is true.
First, the aim of the Pharmacy Council is a general one: to help all New Zealanders. From pp. 3-4 of the second document:
Through skilled and safe practice, pharmacists contribute to better health outcomes for New Zealanders. We aspire to have pharmacists operate at the top of their scope of practice and to not only be competent and professional in their roles but to continually work towards being the best pharmacist they can be.
. . . . The purpose of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (HPCAA) 2003 is to protect the health and safety of the public by providing mechanisms to ensure that health practitioners are competent and fit to practise their profession.
So consideration #1 should be merit: the quality of service provided by pharmacists. However, if you look at the first three “domains” of competence (there are seven), you see this:
Click to view
Yep, the very first thing in which you must be competent as a pharmacist is understanding the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (“Te Tiriti o Waitangi”), which of course says nothing about pharmacy. The treaty simply guaranteed the indigenous Māori their lands, gives them all the rights of British citizens, and places governance of the indigenous people to England. There are several versions of the treaty, not all Māori tribes signed onto it, and it’s used to justify all kinds of stuff which are not in any of the texts but fall under a recent interpretation “Māori are to get at least half of everything.” That includes having their ways of knowing taught in science classes. And remember, just 17.8% of New Zealanders are Māori, while 17.3% are Asians (67.8% are of European descent. Somehow the Asians got left out of the pharmacy standards.
So once again the most important aspect of “competence” you need as a New Zealand pharmacist is respect and understanding of the Treaty, along with deference to the indigenous people. Extreme deference. The first four paragraphs below are Kennedy’s take (and his bolding), while the rest are word-for-word from the second source above.
Unfortunately the Pharmacy Council NZ has gone all woke and racist and apparently now thinks that practicing safe, competent dispensing of medicine and advice depends on a deep knowledge of 27 different aspects of Maori customs, beliefs, traditions, practices, superstitions, intergenerational historical trauma, familiarity with mana whenua and kaumatua, the Treaty of Waitangi, structural racism and colonisation and many other alleged Maori-related issues – such is the depth of knowledge required by pharmacists of Maori culture, beliefs and Te Reo etc. etc., that it would seem that every pharmacist who achieves all these competencies that are totally, completely, categorically, undeniably and irrefutably unrelated to safe dispensing of medicines will have earned a Bachelor’s degree in Maori Studies!
This is racism on steroids, the woke, totally unnecessary, unwarranted imposition of irrelevant culture and beliefs on a professional group whose sole focus should be on the safe practice of pharmaceutical medicine!
The Minister of Health needs to stamp down immediately on this repugnant, racist, woke over-reach by the Pharmacy Council and weed out any of the incompetent and/or radical members of the Pharmacy Council!
Following is the list (from page 31) of the essential competency standards for all pharmacists, according to the Pharmacy Council: [JAC: as I say below, I’ve put in italics everything that seems to me completely irrelevant to competence as a pharmacist]
● being familiar with mana whenua (local hapū/iwi), mātāwaka (kinship group not mana whenua), hapū and iwi in your rohe (district) and their history,
● understanding the importance of kaumātua,
● being familiar with te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nū Tīreni,
● advocating for giving effect to te Tiriti at all levels,
● understanding the intergenerational impact of historical trauma,
● understanding of the role of structural racism and colonisation and ongoing impacts on Māori, socioeconomic deprivation, restricted access to the determinants of health,
● being familiar with Māori health – leaders, history, and contemporary literature,
● being familiar with Māori aspirations in relation to health,
● developing authentic relationships with Māori organisations and health providers,
● having a positive collegial relationship with Māori colleagues in your profession/workplace,
● being proficient in building and maintaining mutually beneficial power-sharing relationships,
● tautoko (support) Māori leadership,
● prioritising Māori voices,
● trusting Māori intelligence,
● be clinically and culturally confident to work with Māori whānau, [JAC: family groups]
● understand one’s own whakapapa (genealogy and connections),
● have a basic/intermediate understanding of te reo Māori, [the language; and most Māori themselves don’t understand it]
● have a basic/intermediate understanding of the tikanga and the application of tapu (sacred) and noa (made ordinary),
● be familiar with Māori health models and concepts such as Te Pae Mahutonga9 and Te Ara Tika10,
● have a basic/intermediate understanding of marae (community meeting house) protocol,
● be confident to perform waiata tautoko (support song),
● be proficient in whakawhānaungatanga (active relationship building),
● integrate tika (correct), pono (truth), aroha and manaakitanga into practice,
● be open-hearted,
● be proficient in strengths-based practice,
● be proficient with equity analysis,
● practice cultural humility,
● critically monitor the effectiveness of own practice with Māori.
Only 1 out of 4 standards (7/28) seem to me at all relevant to competence in pharmacy, and I’m being generous.
Now I can understand that there should be a section in pharmacy school about “indigenous medicine” so that pharmacists can understand where a local is coming from if they want an herb rather than an antibiotic. But most of this statement It is simply irrelevant fealty to the indigenous people; a form of virtue signaling or “the sacralization of the oppressed.”
I needn’t go on, as you can see that most of the requirements for competence in this section are irrelevant to the aims of the Pharmacy Council. Poor New Zealand!
But wait! There’s more!
Lagniappe: New Zealander loses realtor’s license for refusing to take Māori-centered DEI training. Click on the image to go to the New Zealand Herald article:
An excerpt:
Janet Dickson, the real estate agent facing a five-year ban for refusing to do a Māori tikanga course, has lost a court bid to block the threatened cancellation of her licence.
Today, the High Court turned down her request for a judicial review of decisions about agents’ professional development requirements, which required her to take a 90-minute course called Te Kākano (The Seed).
The module focused on Māori culture, language and the Treaty of Waitangi and was made compulsory for all real estate agents, branch managers and salespeople in 2023.
Agents who do not complete professional development requirements risk having their licences cancelled. People whose licences are cancelled cannot reapply for one for five years.
. . .She has called real estate work a vocation and a calling, citing her Presbyterian values. In her court case, she said the course’s references to Māori gods sat uncomfortably with her own monotheistic Christian belief.
She labelled the course “woke madness” in a Facebook post and vowed to fight “to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else”.
She told the court she considered the course would not add any value to the performance of her real estate agency work.
Poor New Zealand!
Professor Jerry Coyne is an American biologist known for his work on speciation and his commentary on intelligent design, a prolific scientist and author. This article was first published HERE
6 comments:
What does that mean exactly though? Do you talk to a brown person who brings you their prescription differently? Do you say a maori prayer over the pills before you put them into the bottle? Do you ask the customer what politics and ethnicity they identify with before you are allowed to give them their prescription?
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
But what if all the pharmacists just said no? What if all the Real Estate Agents just said no?
I'm sure there are a minority of both Pharmacists and Real Estate Agents out there who have welcomed the irrelevant standards being imposed on their professions...good for them, but what if everyone who disagreed just said NO?
How would this be achieved?
Each and every affected pharmacist/ real estate agent or other went public with their views.
It might surprise them how much public support they have.
If they didn't want to wage a facebook campaign - they could each spend 5 minutes writing back to the pharmacists council explaining why this is an utter waste of their time and CC Hobsons Pledge and their local MP.
And while they're at it - why not include every other pharmacist they know in the email so that people know they're not alone?
Make it a public fight....anything less signals acceptance and endorsement by the pharmacists.
Yes NZ has gone mad! We’re the most woke country in the world based on Govt sponsored wokeness. It’s everywhere and so many people are complicit in its application. Just nuts! What’s happened to this once proud and sensible land?
Couple of points. You say 17.8% of the population is Maori. Not true. There are no “Maori”, just part-Maori. It’s important because we’re giving preference and benefits to a group of part-Whitie people who call themselves Maori. How can these part-Whitie people claim discrimination when they are part of the alleged discriminating group.
To glorify Maori culture is a nonsense. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Maori were a primitive Stone Age people with poor food, clothing and housing. They had no technology…nothing metal and not even a clay pot! No written language and their laws were of the jungle - utu, tapu and maru. Nothing to be glorified!
Come on NZ…wake up!
Poor New Zealand, is right. Has the country been taken over by aliens from Outer-Te- Aroa? When you watch Question Time in parliament we have Jabba the Hutt(three guesses who), Luke Skywalker(David S) and a variety of odd bods(The Greens)along with Darth Vader in a hat. I believe most New Zealanders want better.
"The Minister of Health needs to stamp down immediately on this repugnant, racist, woke over-reach by the Pharmacy Council and weed out any of the incompetent and/or radical members of the Pharmacy Council!"
It was our corporate government who appointed the 'pharmacy council' in the first place, and gave them their ‘corporate apartheid agenda’ orders to follow.
And as anon has stated above, it is compliance to this craziness that allows them to get away with their corporate apartheid agenda. You cannot comply your way out of tyranny. Just say NO.
The part where it says you need to be confident to perform waiata tautoko support songs. So you need to sing as you give the customer their pills?
If a pharmacist did that to me, I would not trust what they had put in the pill bottle.
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