NZCPR Newsletter: Reversing the Cultural Takeover

All around New Zealand there’s a growing concern that a cultural takeover of our country is underway. It’s a problem that’s being exacerbated by the weaponisation of “Te Tiriti o Waitangi”, and the domination of the Maori language.

John Raine: Universities not Wānanga - Time for the Government to Step Up

Distinction between a University and a Culturally Based Education Institution

New Zealand universities have been undergoing a cultural reshaping, and Government intervention is needed if we are to avoid adverse societal and financial consequences. Earlier articles by Raine, Lillis and Schwerdtfeger [e.g. 1, 2] have already covered this issue in some detail.

New Zealand has three wānanga as publicly owned tertiary education institutions, providing tertiary education in a Māori cultural context, and creating these institutions was positive for young Māori. They are: Te Wānanga o Raukawa (1981), Te Wānanga o Aotearoa (1984), and Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi (1991).  Why then, should our universities appear to be on a determined march towards indigenisation that will leave them looking like wānanga and no longer recognisable as universities in the internationally understood sense?

John Raine: Cultural High Noon in our Universities

Politicisation of our Universities

About a year ago, I first wrote with co-authors on this platform about the cultural shift and de facto politicisation of our universities [1]. By now I thought we might have seen a steadying of the ship and a true course set once again. The current reality is very worrying.

Throughout the Western world the infusion into universities of critical social justice (CSJ) theory and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) politics - now, ironically, exclusionary, racist and intolerant - is producing a generation of graduates steeped in postmodern relativist (frequently anti-science) thinking, embracing identity politics and the victim-oppressor mindset. It has caused division in our country rather than encouraging much-needed unity.

Muriel Newman: Coup in New Zealand

Finally, the mainstream media is reporting that a coup is underway in New Zealand – by the Maori tribal elite.

Admittedly that observation was penned by former Labour Minister and ACT Party leader Richard Prebble in an opinion piece for the Herald – but the newspaper published it and RadioNZ reported it.

The on-line Herald headline read, “Three Waters is a coup — an attack on democracy”.

That bold and compelling headline, however, didn’t last. It was changed to remove the words “a coup” and now reads: “Three Waters is an attack on democracy”.

The obvious question is why?