John Raine: The Indoctrination Must Stop But Labour Would Double Down

The Ongoing Long March Through the Institutions

More than three years ago, along with many others, I was drawing attention to New Zealand’s trajectory towards cultural authoritarianism, and the widespread identity politics and critical social justice activism in our public service, the universities, the wider education system, but also in the private sector. I thought back then that we might quickly pass peak woke and that rationality would have taken hold again by now. Not so fast, some warned - they were right!

We have witnessed an extension of the “long march through the institutions” as proposed by Rudi Dutschke in 1967 to foster revolutionary socialist transformation in government and institutions. This time it is cultural re-engineering framed primarily around race and identity rather than an economic end goal. It got under way in the 1970s and 1980s in the universities but did not really become widely visible until a new generation of education and social sciences graduates themselves became teachers or otherwise joined the workforce over the past 25 years.

Politically Motivated Course Content

I had to hit the keyboard again after recently seeing the 2026 “Social Studies” course outline in a Law degree bridging programme in which a family relative is enrolled at the University of Canterbury (UC). This course includes topics such as:

· Introduction to the Social Sciences + Intersectionality

· Te Tiriti o Waitangi + Social Issues

· Race and Ethnicity - Understanding White Supremacy

· Race and Ethnicity - Racism in Aotearoa

· Introduction to Criminology

· Criminal Justice – Offender Rehabilitation

· Tamariki and State Care

· Introduction to Gender and Sexuality

· Climate Change and Indigenous Understandings

· Bodies and Society – Fatphobia

· Research Methods and Ethics in the Social Sciences

This content echoes in part the University of Auckland selectively mandatory Waipapa Taumata Rau Stage 1 course and material taught in the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) Teacher Education programme.Some of this may be politically neutral, but I understand that the UC and VUW courses take a hard-line “liberal progressive” ideological perspective - ultimately neither liberal nor progressive. For example, the UC students are instructed that saying, “Not all white people are racist” is just another form of white supremacy.

And…….the time-wasting intersectional nonsense of this tutorial content:

· Explain two new terms/concepts that you have learnt from Fatphobia topic materials (e.g. lecture, reading videos).

· Explain how Ashlea uses a Te Ao Māori lens to explain anti-fatness.

· How do fatphobia and anti-fatness intersect with racism?

· What have you found interesting about this topic in relation to yourself and your own lived experience?

I am surprised that they didn’t go the whole hog and link fatphobia with climate change.

Sadly, the UC course is just the tip of a massive iceberg. I made an AI search of New Zealand University courses which are Stage 1 introductory courses, or those found in higher-level programmes, but which emphasise DEI and critical social justice, decolonisation, and cultural re-engineering themes. The list returned across Education, Social Sciences, Environmental and Law courses, to take just a few, was far too large to summarise here.

The University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau Stage 1 course remains mandatory for accredited programmes - Engineering, Nursing, Health Sciences, Architecture, Urban Planning, Biomedical Science, clinical‑pathway BSc students, Education, Business and Law.

Law deserves special mention. From Semester 1, 2025, Tikanga Māori and Te Ao Māori content and assessment became compulsory in all core LLB courses across New Zealand. Some Law Schools have taken a strong decolonisation stance on this. For example, AUT is aiming for a structural decolonisation of the Law curriculum. AUT Law School Dean Khylee Quince has stated that their redesigned curriculum aims to weave Māori law and Pākehā law into a “third law of Aotearoa” using a bijural, bicultural, bilingual legal‑education model.

As pre-European Māori had no codified law, and Tikanga varies by region, such a system would struggle for consistency (apart from drawing spiritual dimensions into the law) even though the Law Commission’s He Poutama study paper describes Tikanga Māori as a normative legal system.

Massey University requires the following in individual staff professional development plans (PDP): “Massey University is a Tiriti-led University and all staff are expected to implement the principles in their work and practice. If you have not attended (or have not included in your 12 months plan) the training on Te Tiriti provided by our university, please indicate you intend to do so.”

Other New Zealand universities also require staff to implement imprecise Treaty Principles. This imposition runs directly counter to the very nature of what a university should be. Universities, as distinct from Wananga, should not impose any one culture or its related beliefs on staff and students, but should foster a secular environment with open enquiry and debate on all subjects, and the academic freedom not to align oneself with any one culture.

Learning or Indoctrination?

Activists continue to impose ideology on students, and vigorously in some disciplines. Whether around Māori culture and spiritual beliefs and decolonisation agendas, or more generally around race and oppressor-oppressed narratives, revisionist history, gender identity politics, or climate change alarmism, students are required to listen to beliefs presented as fact. Students hear denigration of Western civilisation and of the huge benefits of the liberal enlightenment, alongside a sacralisation of traditional knowledge, sometimes at the expense of modern science.

University students should of course be exposed to different philosophical perspectives and invited to form their own views, but for many students the lecture room is now somewhere to hear fixed-view polemics lacking a validated foundation. When belief trumps established truths, critical thinking has left the room. The frequent negation of what has been valuable, hard-won and nation-building in our history speaks of a destructive cultural authoritarianism (cultural Marxism is no longer too strong a term) in much of our education system, but also across our public sector and professional associations.

The failure on appeal of Janet Dickson’s case against the Real Estate Agents Authority over cultural instruction requirements is well known. And now, the New Zealand Psychological Society and the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists have apologised to Māori for "the structural racism and monoculturalism inherent within the discipline of psychology, which has its origins in 19th century Europe." The Psychological Society's Kaihautū Professor Waikaremoana Waitoki said: "Western psychology is reproduced globally not because it is better, but because it travels with colonialism." No evidence was provided.

The Role of Education in Preserving Democracy

Similar issues to the foregoing bedevil much of the Western world, but we can only sort out New Zealand. In looking to steady our liberal democratic ship, resetting the education system is critical at all levels as schools and universities fundamentally shape our children’s thinking. In this regard, Professor Dame Elizabeth Rata’s excellent YouTube series on the History of New Zealand Education (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BdWVlbJC5M&t=23s is a link to Episode 1) should be widely viewed.

Looking at where educational reforms have led our schools and universities over the past 50 years, it becomes critically important that the Erica Stanford-led Coalition reforms are embedded and extended.

Yet, Chris Hipkins has said that, if in government again after November 2026, Labour would undo the education reforms taking place under the present Coalition government and revert to a more strictly Te Tiriti-based system. So, a Labour-led coalition would not only accelerate us towards greater race-based government, but also a trifecta of increasing national debt, more taxes, and a Te Tiriti-based education system that would lead us inevitably to mediocrity.

Do we want our children at school and university to again subjected to a constructivist learning approach and be taught:

· That equity and equality of outcomes in society is more important than equality of opportunity, the pursuit of excellence, and advancement on merit?

· Revisionist history which includes that Māori never ceded sovereignty, and that co-governance (with its ensuing chaos) is the way forward?

· That the colonisation and civilisation of other lands by European countries over the past 500+ years was an evil (and, yes, not all of it was good) that requires our collective guilt and should somehow be reversed?

· A mix of solid science and cultural/spiritual beliefs within a science course?

· That we face an existential threat from global warming, when there is clear evidence that, in an ever-changing climate, we do not face an anthropogenic climate crisis and that carbon dioxide has been demonised?

· That men can be women and vice versa, when science shows us that less than 0.005% of the population are born with both ovarian and testicular tissue, and only about 0.018% have ambiguous genitalia?

· Intersectional associations e.g. around fatphobia, that defy rational analysis.

Of course, many students escape such indoctrination. But New Zealand must rebuild strong, secular, knowledge-rich education curricula at all levels to equip students with the basic tools and critical thinking capability to find their way in a highly technological, internationally connected world of employment. And critical thinking ability is increasingly important in an AI world which is also awash with misinformation.

We must lift our international credibility as an industrial nation and that attracts inward foreign investment, together with greater international education and research collaboration. To do this, we cannot afford to fall back on an ethno-education system where Te Ao Māori beliefs and Treaty of Waitangi politics have a primary position.

Rebuilding the culture in our education system is just one task. A similar spring-clean must finally happen in the public sector, and professional associations must reshape their cultures towards secular neutrality and away from cultural impositions on their members.

Can New Zealand stop its drift towards an inwardly focused society that increasingly shows the characteristics and tensions found in ethnostates? On this, it remains to be seen whether Party leaders have learned from their unkept 2023 election promises. It is increasingly clear that our democracy has a higher probability of remaining intact if the present Coalition is re-elected in November 2026.

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John Raine is an Emeritus Professor of Engineering and formerly held positions as Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation) at AUT, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Albany and International) at Massey University, and Pro Vice Chancellor (Enterprise and International) at University of Canterbury. He has had a long-term involvement in NZ’s innovation system and chaired the Government’s Powering Innovation Review in 2011.

Editorial input from Dr David Lillis is gratefully acknowledged.