NZCPR Newsletter: Cultural Apartheid

King’s Counsel Gary Judd has been at the forefront of a battle to defend New Zealand from the actions of Maori tribal leaders attempting to force their cultural apartheid onto our country.

He’s defending the Rule of Law from attack by those pushing for ‘decolonisation’ by arguing that since ‘tikanga’ is an ‘amorphous spiritual culture’ and not law, it has no place in our Common Law. And he’s appealed to Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee to stop the compulsory teaching of ‘tikanga’ to new law students.

He’s also opposing a Court proposal to commence and end each sitting day with a ‘karakia’ claiming it would breach the 1990 New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Since Court participants would have no option but to sit through the Maori prayers, the proposal would violate their section 13 “right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and hold opinions without interference”.

Since section 3 specifies that the Act applies to “the legislative, executive, or judicial branches of Government”, the karakia proposal would contravene the obligation of the judicial branch to uphold the section 13 rights of those attending the Court.

Gary Judd believes the rights protected in section 13 of the Bill of Rights are ‘foundational’: “A person’s thoughts, conscience, religion and beliefs are the very essence of individuality and identity… they protect us from the predations of people who enjoy positions of power granted to them by the government who would use those positions and that power to violate the sovereignty of the individual by seeking to impose their own opinions and convictions on their victims.”

And he points out, “This proclivity is found most frequently in those trying to force the population to conform to a Maori view of the world by compelling sectors of the population to embrace a culture which is not theirs.”

This problem of bodies with regulatory powers violating section 13 rights by forcing people “to engage with cultural norms which may place the compelled person in a position of conflict with their thoughts, conscience, religion or belief” is far wider than Courts introducing karakia or the New Zealand Council of Legal Education mandating tikanga for new lawyers.

Under the Ardern Labour Government, the Office of Maori Crown Relations worked in collaboration with tribal leaders to target all branches of government, raising concerns over whether all regulatory bodies that are enforcing Maori cultural requirements are in breach of section 13 of the Bill of Rights Act.

The Nursing Council is one such body. Last month they notified nurses that new cultural competency standards had been issued: “The Nursing Council has introduced changes to nurse scopes of practice and developed new standards of competence, to underpin and guide the way nurses practise.”

The new standards, which emphasise “a greater focus on Maori health and culturally safe care”, require nurses to engage in practice “that honours Maori” and “protect Maori rights while advocating for equitable health outcomes.”

Not only is such an edict, which requires nurses to demonstrate compliance with standards that honour Maori patients and advocate for special Maori rights as a condition of re-certification, extraordinary – it is racist.

As one critic said, “This divisive cultural agenda constantly shoved down our throats is putting many off from either entering the profession or remaining in it. No wonder everyone is heading offshore in droves!”

Even the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples condemns as racist any practice that advocates cultural superiority: “All doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust.” 

What makes this whole situation even more insidious is that successive governments have encouraged this kind of racism because they have lacked the backbone to stand firm against it. Through bullying and intimidation New Zealanders, in all areas of life, from sports to charities to workplaces, are being forced into submission, to effectively bend the knee to a racist culture that glorifies Maori supremacy and an ethos of aggression and violence.

The point is that section 13 of the Bill of Rights Act should protect us from tribal supremacists, who are using the organs of the State to force their racial poison onto society.

Every New Zealander has the right to their own culture; no-one has the right to impose their culture onto others.

What about doctors – is Maori culture being forced onto them too?

A review of Medical Council archives shows that Maori cultural rights didn’t feature until 2019, when, under the Ardern Administration, the standards were updated, alleging systemic racism within the health system and requiring doctors to comply with cultural indoctrination – a move that drove many away.

Racial inequities within the health system cannot, however, be verified as numerous researchers have shown - including New Zealand Initiative Senior Fellow Dr Bryce Wilkinson HERE, Social Policy Researcher Lindsay Mitchell HERE, and Medical Practitioner Dr Lawrie Knight HERE.

With Ministry of Health research showing only 20 percent of a patient’s health is determined by medical care, most health inequity is caused by other factors: around 40 percent of health outcomes are influenced by socio-economic factors such as education and income, 10 percent by the physical environment including housing, and 30 percent by lifestyle choices such as diet, exercise, drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes.

Furthermore, personal responsibility plays a huge part in health: attending scheduled doctor’s visits and specialist care, taking medication that’s been prescribed, and complying with treatment instructions.

To understand where this cultural takeover is leading, we need look no further than what happened when Labour restructured health during the pandemic. After abolishing our 20 autonomous District Health Boards, they gave tribal leaders the power to control the new centralised health system through the Maori Health Authority. In no time at all apartheid had been introduced, prioritising health care on the basis of race instead of clinical need.

The fact that the Maori Health Authority was disestablished by the Coalition Government shortly after the 2023 election, hasn’t stopped activist plans for a race-based health system. They are now infiltrating professional health bodies with their cultural apartheid agenda, so they can corrupt the system from within.

Not only have the Nursing and Medical councils been ‘captured’, so too has the Pharmacy Council.

But, pharmacists have raised the alarm by speaking out against the insidious cultural requirements being forced on them: “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… Pharmacists that I have spoken to feel the same. Many are contemplating moving to Australia because of this.”

They called on the Minister to act: “The Minister of Health needs to stamp down immediately on this repugnant, racist, woke over-reach by the Pharmacy Council and weed out the incompetent and radical members of the Council.”

Health Minister Simeon Brown responded: “As Minister of Health, my priority is to ensure that all Kiwis have access to timely, quality healthcare. Kiwis expect that professional bodies focus on safety and core competencies, not on imposing stringent cultural requirements on practitioners… I will be writing to the Pharmacy Council to outline my concerns with the imposition of these requirements, and the effects these could have on Kiwis receiving timely, quality healthcare.”

The Minister has now expanded his response by announcing a comprehensive review of health workforce legislation, stating that he wants to remove bureaucratic regulations including cultural requirements.

He explains that our regulations ‘make it harder to attract, train and retain healthcare workers’: “Whether it’s requiring nursing students to complete hundreds more clinical hours than those in Australia, complicated approval pathways for overseas qualified doctors to practice in NZ, or imposing rules that prioritise cultural requirements over clinical safety in scopes of practices, our healthcare system is being held back by outdated and unnecessary barriers.”

With changes expected through an amendment to the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act, it is vital that everyone concerned about the tribal takeover of health makes a submission by the end of the month – full details can be found HERE.

Speaking out against cultural indoctrination is crucial - it is the only way to ensure the government will act.

Anyone in a similar situation outside of health, who is being compelled by government agencies to comply with separatist cultural requirements in breach of section 13 of the Bill of Rights, should contact the Minister responsible and demand change. And those concerned about repercussions should not forget the power of banding together or writing anonymously if necessary - as long as they find a way to expose what’s going on.

The actions of the Health Minister is one of a growing number of signs that the Coalition is finally starting to listen.

Last month the Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters launched a New Zealand First Bill to remove the dangerous ideology of “diversity, equity and inclusion” from the public service. If properly enacted, such a law could signal the end of racism in public institutions.

Judith Collins, the new Public Service Minister, was singing from a similar song sheet last week when she told the House: “I expect the Public Service to get back to basics, sticking to its core functions, and delivering outcomes for the taxpayers that we all serve… While I do expect a great deal of change to drive improvement in Public Service performance, I also want to see core principles of the Public Service maintained, like political neutrality, like appointment on merits to all positions, and professional competence.”

It's important to remember that if opponents stay silent, all it takes to spread racial poison throughout an institution is one radicalised activist.

That’s what’s happened in the judiciary, where the Rule of Law is being corrupted from within.

This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator, former Judge and Law Lecturer Anthony Willy outlines the details:

“The Common Law is currently under threat from the separatists, their handmaidens the academics and an increasing number of judges at all levels of our jurisdictions. This sea change is of recent origin and dates back to the appointment of Justice Williams to the High Court and currently the Supreme Court. He has persuaded at least two other Supreme Court Justices that it is timely and necessary to incorporate Maori myths, legends and tribal practices into the Common Law, and he has met an enthusiastic response.

“This has culminated in a proposal by a recently appointed Court of Appeal Judge for a system of what he calls ‘bijural law’ which apparently will result in a legal system by which all New Zealanders public and private have their legal affairs regulated and decided by reference to whether or not there was a traditional Maori tribal practice said to cover the issue. Should this bizarre notion gather currency, New Zealand will no longer have a legal system which is certain, knowable in advance, and applicable to all New Zealanders.”

Anthony Willy then asks whether we should surrender our democracy - or whether the majority should stand up and not only halt the separatists’ ambitions but reverse them:

“This is not as difficult as it may first appear. All that it takes is common sense and political courage. Parliament should amend the Constitution Act and the various Courts’ legislation to provide that Tikanga and Maori spiritual values are not part of the common law of New Zealand. No more activist judicial legislation and no more bijural law experiments.”

Simple.

But does the Coalition have the courage to stop the rot and make the changes necessary to get New Zealand back on track?

While the signs are looking more positive, the demands by tribal leaders for New Zealanders to kowtow to their racist agenda have now spread throughout the country. It is socially destructive and cancerous. We must not let the bullies win. 

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THIS WEEK’S POLL ASKS:

*Should mandated cultural requirements be removed from all government agencies?

Dr Muriel Newman established the New Zealand Centre for Political Research as a public policy think tank in 2005 after nine years as a Member of Parliament. The NZCPR website is HERE. We also run this Breaking Views Blog and our NZCPR Facebook Group HERE.