Centrist: Medical Council draft tells doctors to advance Māori equity, dismantle ‘power imbalances’

Documents circulated to doctors this week show the Medical Council is consulting on a new statement requiring practitioners to actively advance “hauora Māori” and address “unfair systems and power imbalances” within the health sector.

Does pursuing race-linked outcome equity cross from professional standards into political doctrine?

Graham Adams: Compulsory Treaty courses tip of the iceberg

Last week, David Seymour enthusiastically welcomed the recommendation by Auckland University’s Senate to make the compulsory first-year courses on the Treaty and te ao Māori voluntary after Act had publicly campaigned on the issue.

He described the Senate’s “two to one” vote in favour of voluntary enrolment as a “massive victory for people… to make up their own mind”.

Brian Gill: New Zealand museums need neutral organisational viewpoints and stronger science

Publicly-owned museums enjoy public support—tax-payer (or rate-payer) funding and high visitation—only while they are trusted and respected. To preserve trust, museums must be politically neutral. Institutions such as museums and universities can maintain a degree of political neutrality by being a forum for ideas and discussion, rather than a protagonist in debates.

Yvonne van Dongen: Woke Surgeons Only Need Apply

If you had impacted wisdom teeth requiring surgery, would it comfort you to know the consultant surgeon was competent in te ao Māori?

Or, say, if you needed oral cancer surgery, is it a bonus if the person operating on your mouth has had experience in projects and initiatives which give effect to Te Tiriti principles?

Point of Order: Marsden Fund boosts Mātauranga Māori projects

But how many researchers will survive the money malaise at Massey?

Massey University chiefs obviously were chuffed that seven Massey research projects – two Fast-Start grants for new and emerging researchers, and five Standard grants – secured a total of $4,948,000 from the Marsden Fund Awards 2023.

Point of Order: Champion of mātauranga Māori dabbles with a myth:

.....European navigators didn’t fear sailing too close to the Earth’s edge

Dave Armstrong, a columnist for state-subsidised Stuff, went out to bat for mātauranga Māori this week and to remonstrate with Richard Dawkins, the renowned British biologist, science communicator and atheist.

During his recent New Zealand tour, Dawkins had written an article for The Spectator about our government’s decision for Māori “Ways of Knowing” (mātauranga Māori) to have equal standing with “western’ science” in our education curriculum.

Armstrong challenged the renowned scientist’s critique:

Richard Dawkins: Why I’m sticking up for science

I’m in New Zealand, climax to my antipodean speaking tour, where I walked headlong into a raging controversy. Jacinda Ardern’s government implemented a ludicrous policy, spawned by Chris Hipkins’s Ministry of Education before he became prime minister. Science classes are to be taught that Māori ‘Ways of Knowing’ (Mātauranga Māori) have equal standing with ‘western’ science. Not surprisingly, this adolescent virtue-signalling horrified New Zealand’s grown-up scientists and scholars. Seven of them wrote to the Listener magazine. Three who were fellows of the NZ Royal Society were threatened with an inquisitorial investigation. Two of these, including the distinguished medical scientist Garth Cooper, himself of Māori descent, resigned (the third unfortunately died). I was delighted to meet Professor Cooper for lunch, with others of the seven. His resignation letter cited the society’s failure to support science against its denigration as ‘a western European invention’. He was affronted, too, by a complaint (not endorsed by the NZRS) that ‘to insist Māori children learn to read is an act of colonisation’. Is there an implication here – condescending, if not downright racist – that ‘indigenous’ children need separate, special treatment?