And let’s be honest: this was not some minor adjustment. ACT, alongside National and NZ First, removed the legal obligation outright. It’s gone. Deleted. Repealed. Section 9’s Treaty compliance requirement — the clause activists clung to like gospel — is no more. School boards are now required to prioritise educational achievement, not spiritual or cultural indoctrination. Treaty duties sit with the Crown, not PTA volunteers.
But the sector’s reaction? A dramatic nationwide tantrum. Schools suddenly proclaim they have a sacred mission to “honour the Treaty,” though they cannot, for the life of them, explain what that actually means in operational terms. “Honour the Treaty” has become the magic password that justifies everything — from mandatory Māori spiritual rituals to compulsory cultural worldviews baked into maths, science, and English.
Let’s drop the politeness for a moment. Māori culture and Māori spirituality are not separate entities. They are a single system, two sides of the same coin. Schools are not simply teaching culture; they are introducing spirituality into a secular public system under the convenient disguise of “heritage.” Somehow, unbelievably, spiritual content slipped past the secular firewall — and not by accident. It happened through legislative ambiguity and activist interpretation.
That ambiguity is now gone. The law has changed. Yet the indoctrination continues.
Parents who don’t want their children participating in Māori prayers, chants, karakia, haka, or spiritual teachings are not asking for the moon. They’re asking for the same thing secular schools have always promised: neutrality. But neutrality has become heresy. The moment a parent says, “I don’t want my child taking part in compulsory spiritual or cultural rituals,” they’re branded racist. The label is thrown around so casually it has lost all meaning.
Calling the Government racist for removing a Treaty clause? Absurd. Childish. Lazy. The clause was removed because schools were reinventing it into a licence for activism. The Treaty has morphed from a historical document into an apartheid rulebook, used to justify two-tier systems in everything from public services to curriculum design.
This is not an attack on Māori. This is an attack on mandatory belief systems in taxpayer-funded institutions. Nobody objects to culture, language, or tradition when participation is voluntary. But when schools decide your child must learn a spiritual worldview to pass the term, it’s not education — it’s coercion.
Auckland University tried this just this year with its compulsory Māori mythology paper. It blew up in their faces. Students revolted. The paper became optional because it had to. A university pushing compulsory spirituality? Madness. Now the same madness is spreading into primary and secondary schools — and at a much larger scale.
The public system does not belong to activists. It does not belong to cultural lobbyists. It does not belong to school boards acting like rogue political cells. It belongs to every New Zealander, every family, every taxpayer. And secularism is not racism; it is the only safeguard that ensures equal treatment.
Parents aren’t asking schools to abandon Māori culture. They’re asking schools to stop forcing it. There is a difference. A big one. Optional is fine. Mandatory is an abuse of authority.
It is time — long past time — for parents to speak up. Not with apologies. Not with hesitation. But with clarity:
Anything less is not diversity — it’s division. Anything more than optional cultural content is not respect — it’s coercion.
New Zealand deserves better than ideological schooling masquerading as enlightenment. And the public is waking up. Finally.
■ Make New Zealand Secular
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FZdTSnfHo/
----------------------------------------
This post was inspired by numerous online articles. This being one of them: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/579646/expression-of-kotahitanga-more-than-1000-schools-reaffirm-commitment-to-te-tiriti-o-waitangi
John Robertson is a patriotic New Zealander who frequently posts on Facebook.
But the sector’s reaction? A dramatic nationwide tantrum. Schools suddenly proclaim they have a sacred mission to “honour the Treaty,” though they cannot, for the life of them, explain what that actually means in operational terms. “Honour the Treaty” has become the magic password that justifies everything — from mandatory Māori spiritual rituals to compulsory cultural worldviews baked into maths, science, and English.
Let’s drop the politeness for a moment. Māori culture and Māori spirituality are not separate entities. They are a single system, two sides of the same coin. Schools are not simply teaching culture; they are introducing spirituality into a secular public system under the convenient disguise of “heritage.” Somehow, unbelievably, spiritual content slipped past the secular firewall — and not by accident. It happened through legislative ambiguity and activist interpretation.
That ambiguity is now gone. The law has changed. Yet the indoctrination continues.
Parents who don’t want their children participating in Māori prayers, chants, karakia, haka, or spiritual teachings are not asking for the moon. They’re asking for the same thing secular schools have always promised: neutrality. But neutrality has become heresy. The moment a parent says, “I don’t want my child taking part in compulsory spiritual or cultural rituals,” they’re branded racist. The label is thrown around so casually it has lost all meaning.
Calling the Government racist for removing a Treaty clause? Absurd. Childish. Lazy. The clause was removed because schools were reinventing it into a licence for activism. The Treaty has morphed from a historical document into an apartheid rulebook, used to justify two-tier systems in everything from public services to curriculum design.
This is not an attack on Māori. This is an attack on mandatory belief systems in taxpayer-funded institutions. Nobody objects to culture, language, or tradition when participation is voluntary. But when schools decide your child must learn a spiritual worldview to pass the term, it’s not education — it’s coercion.
Auckland University tried this just this year with its compulsory Māori mythology paper. It blew up in their faces. Students revolted. The paper became optional because it had to. A university pushing compulsory spirituality? Madness. Now the same madness is spreading into primary and secondary schools — and at a much larger scale.
The public system does not belong to activists. It does not belong to cultural lobbyists. It does not belong to school boards acting like rogue political cells. It belongs to every New Zealander, every family, every taxpayer. And secularism is not racism; it is the only safeguard that ensures equal treatment.
Parents aren’t asking schools to abandon Māori culture. They’re asking schools to stop forcing it. There is a difference. A big one. Optional is fine. Mandatory is an abuse of authority.
It is time — long past time — for parents to speak up. Not with apologies. Not with hesitation. But with clarity:
- Public schools are not marae.
- Classrooms are not temples.
- Curriculum is not a political pamphlet.
- We teach law, not lore.
- Education, not indoctrination.
Anything less is not diversity — it’s division. Anything more than optional cultural content is not respect — it’s coercion.
New Zealand deserves better than ideological schooling masquerading as enlightenment. And the public is waking up. Finally.
■ Make New Zealand Secular
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FZdTSnfHo/
----------------------------------------
This post was inspired by numerous online articles. This being one of them: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/579646/expression-of-kotahitanga-more-than-1000-schools-reaffirm-commitment-to-te-tiriti-o-waitangi
John Robertson is a patriotic New Zealander who frequently posts on Facebook.
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