NZCPR Podcast: Healing Racial Tensions

The 14th of October is an important day for both New Zealand and Australia. 

Australia is holding a referendum about giving a Voice to indigenous rights. 

We are holding a general election where indigenous rights – co-governance – have become a significant issue. It may well be a defining issue of the campaign and could explain the rise in support for New Zealand First. 

John Raine, David Lillis and Peter Schwerdtfeger: Universities or Indoctrination Centres?

The assertion that all human knowledge is equally valid and the university is a site of power contestation makes it easier to understand the abandonment of fundamental academic principles, not least that of academic freedom
- Doug Stokes in “Against Decolonisation” pp. 83-84.

Becoming Ethno-institutions?

As New Zealand Universities move further towards becoming ethno-institutions we state again our serious concerns for the survival of the New Zealand university as an independent and internationally-focused place of higher learning and research, where diverse views may be discussed on any matter and where modern world science is not diminished through promotion of “other ways of knowing.”

Robin Grieve: Reimagining Educational Equity

In a recent report by Radio New Zealand, it was highlighted that universities face the challenge of setting deadlines to ensure the academic success of Maori and Pacific students is the same as that of white students. These deadlines are a mandate from the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), which has been striving for over a decade to tackle the high dropout and course failure rates of Maori and Pacific students.

In the past academic year, universities reported an overall course pass rate of 88 percent for white students, while Maori students achieved an 80 percent pass rate, and Pacific students reached only 69 percent. Similarly, at polytechnics, European students achieved an 81 percent pass rate, with Maori and Pacific students achieving 72 percent and 70 percent, respectively. The success rates of Asian and other student groups were not addressed in RNZ's report.

John Robinson: A positive future - to get the job done free from racial division

Division by race, along with co-governance, partnership and an insistence to follow a vague Maori way of organisation (tikanga, based on pre-1840 squabbling tribalism) is creating a confusion of sinecures, jobs for the boys, well-paid positions for relatives, for the folk of the whanau (whanaungatanga) – a great deal of empty effort that ensures that nothing gets done and problems continue to fester.  This time-wasting process is seen across the country, on the national level (such as with the failure of the dual health system) and locally.  One such example is a ‘new’ Maori way of managing the Wanganui River.[1]

There, “Iwi of the Whanganui River expect a new strategy will reform resource management in the catchment. … Te Heke Ngahuru ki Te Awa Tupua, which was unveiled on Friday, was released for consultation by Te Kopuka na Te Awa Tupua, a 17-member strategy group made up of iwi, central government, mayors and council leadership, and industry and sector interests. …

NZCPR Podcast: Cultural Injustice

In 2019 the Labour Party introduced a new corrections policy called Hokai Rangi. It takes a tikanga Maori approach to sentencing. 

The Minister behind the scheme was Kelvin Davis. He said it would make the corrections system work better for Maori who make up more than half of the prison population. He said the objective was to reduce the number of Maori in prison to match the Maori share of the general population. 

John Franklin: “I am not Pakeha, I am a Kiwi.”

Have you ever filled in a form, especially one from the government, and the closest ethnic definition that you can select is Pakeha or European or Pakeha/European, yet you identify with neither?

Regrettably, I have been coerced and have selected Pakeha or European rather than make a new category under “Other” and hand write in “New Zealander” or “Kiwi”.

I find it unacceptable that despite our feedback over several decades, the government are still coercing the Pakeha identity on New Zealanders with European ancestry and am sure other ethnic groups have a similar frustration.

NZCPR Podcast: All Are Equal

The United States Supreme Court has ruled against a university giving preferential entry on the grounds of race. The Court said the American constitution is colour-blind and prohibits racial preference. 

Cam Slater: Gee, I Wonder What Caused That?

Proof Labour’s policies have made NZ more racist not less

Like everything this Government has done since taking office in 2017, their attempts to supposedly address race relations have had the opposite effect to that which was intended.

Affordable housing policies and healthy home initiatives, plus the war on landlords, have seen rents and house prices skyrocket. The only light at the end of the tunnel in that regard is the oncoming train of recession tanking house prices. The recession will deliver yet more bad news for them, countering any positive claims regarding house prices.

NZCPR Newsletter: All Are Equal

Late last month the United States Supreme Court released a landmark judgement ruling that race cannot be used as a factor in considering college admissions.

If such a judgement applied to New Zealand, it would signal the end of the University sector’s targeted race-based admissions schemes. That would include Auckland University’s School of Medicine, which in 2023 reserved 103 places out of the total intake of 287 for Maori and Pacific Island students.

Penn Raine: The NZ University - Poacher turned Gamekeeper

The communist revolutions in Russia, China, and Cambodia had tens of thousands of educators - intellectuals - killed.  

Stalin’s and Mao’s eliminations were countless. Between 1975 and 1979 it is estimated that Pol Pot’s Marxist regime in Cambodia almost eliminated all its educated citizens and amongst the 200,000 murdered only 87 of the country’s 1000 academics avoided state sanctioned death. 

The mistrust that totalitarian regimes have for academics is easy to understand as coercive politics bring pain to most of their citizens while waiting for present suffering to bring about a promised utopia. Those most likely to examine and question unpalatable changes are a nation’s intelligentsia, therefore they must remain silent, or if they refuse, be got rid of.

David Lillis: Sorry, Professor Charters – We do not Agree

Claire Charters’ Article on Matariki

Matariki was a great holiday and a worthy recognition of the very significant contributions of Māori to the New Zealand of today. Many of us enjoyed the celebrations and we appreciate Māori values and world views. They should be treasured. We support the preservation of matauranga Māori and Te Reo, and are happy for them to be taught at school, along with other minority world-views and languages, though not at the expense of other critical learning.

So – we were interested to read the recent piece from Professor Claire Charters in Stuff - Matariki is a mark of how far we have come, and how far we have to travel (Charters, 2023). Professor Charters expresses very strong opinions relating to the governance of our country, self-determination for one ethnic group only, and effectively to co-governance, that deserve a response.

NZCPR Newsletter: A High Stakes Election

Thursday 6 July marked 100 days until the most important election of our lifetime. 

For many New Zealanders, the return of Labour to government along with the Greens and the Maori Party would be the final straw.

Barry Brill: Does healthcare treat people or races?

The new Community Pharmacy Minor Ailments Service will be provided free by local pharmacies to treat minor ailments and ease the pressure on GPs.

This makes a lot of sense in our country’s current self-induced health crisis. In fact, it might well be the most sensible decision yet taken by Ayesha Verrall, since she took over the poisoned chalice of Minister of Health.

NZCPR Podcast: Freshwater - the iwi agenda

Tuku Morgan and John Tamihere have made it very clear that if the Maori Party is the kingmaker after the election, they will not settle for anything less than full ownership of New Zealand’s freshwater.

This is a podcast of the latest NZCPR feature article - to read the article click HERE. 

All podcasts can be viewed on our Podcast page HERE.

Alistair Boyce: Let's Just Call it Like it Is...

There should be no celebration.

There should be an overwhelming sense of relief.

Jacinda Ardern has done the right thing by herself, her family and finally the people of New Zealand.

In just over a year, we have witnessed the disintegration of a leader whose 2020 tenure of absolute electoral driven power started with overwhelming public support, gratitude and reverence but descended into a myopic and confused authoritarian rule. We have graphically endured a lesson of incoherent government and state overreach which has been on a march of portentous marginalisation through the private sector. It has elevated a ballooning and unproductive state sector of ‘bourgeois’ excess.

John Franklin: “I am not Pakeha, I am a Kiwi.”

Have you ever filled in a form, especially one from the government, and the closest ethnic definition that you can select is Pakeha or European or Pakeha/European, yet you identify with neither?

Regrettably, I have been coerced and have selected Pakeha or European rather than make a new category under “Other” and hand write in “New Zealander” or “Kiwi”.

I find it unacceptable that despite our feedback over several decades, the government are still coercing the Pakeha identity on New Zealanders with European ancestry and am sure other ethnic groups have a similar frustration.

John Franklin: “The Magic Equity Wand”

How do you hide a stinking pile of race-based supremacist policies and rampant socialism? Easy, just wave the magic equity wand over it.

Not long ago I attended a Te Pukenga presentation at the Polytech campus, one speaker who was a Māori woman told us four times in a short presentation that the entire purpose for Te Pukenga was to ensure that the tertiary education system was equitable for Māori. The fourth time, just in case we all missed it the first three times she also added, and Pacifica and then almost as an afterthought she added, and any other disadvantaged groups. In case there was any lingering doubt about the goal of Te Pukenga, she then smugly stated that every aspect of operations was going to be scrutinised with a fine-toothed comb to ensure they were equitable for Māori.

Clive Bibby: Letter from the Provinces

Open letter to David Seymour, Christopher Luxon and all potential candidates from both the Act and National parties offering themselves to the electorate at the next general election. 

It is becoming common place for those of us here in the provinces who are suffering under the dictatorial whims of the current administration to hear that the cavalry is about to come over the hill and wipe away any trace of this disastrous spell on the treasury benches - almost as if we would be able to blot it out of memory like a bad dream.

Let’s examine whether this confidence in the alternative might be misplaced. 

John Franklin: “We are now One People”

The current Labour government is purposely ceding control of New Zealand’s assets and infrastructure to the Iwi elite because they represent the indigenous people of NZ in line with the unworkable suggestions of the United Nations Agenda 2030.

This is not a theory; it’s a provable fact, there is evidence that it is part of a deliberate agenda, there is also the evidence of what they have already achieved to date, the evidence is there to see.

He Puapua is the name of the driving body set up by the current Labour government to push this agenda. Meet the team behind He Puapua below, there is only ever going to be one beneficiary from this group, the Iwi elite.

Henry Armstrong: Democracy? What Democracy? Who Is The Biggest Hypocrite Of Them All?

The Western world has been quick to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, one of the former “buffer” states of Russia under the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and claimed to be historically, culturally and spiritually part of Russia.

I too condemn any invasion of a sovereign territory by a stronger power using (in this instance) military force. Most of the current generation of New Zealanders have no understanding or experience of wars, be they big or small. That is a blessing. But there are still many of us who have experienced the trauma, devastation, loss of life and futility of armed conflict - and it is very unpleasant indeed.

Major international conflicts usually involve multiple countries. But most 21^st century conflicts involve either very few or are internal conflicts where local dissidents, unreceptive or angry about their particular government’s policies and mandates, decide enough is enough and commence protests, demonstrations, insurrection and ultimately, armed insurgency. Many civil wars follow this process of escalation.