Matua Kahurangi: Apartheid has no place in New Zealand

University of Otago must end its racial discrimination

In New Zealand, we pride ourselves on fairness, equality, and opportunity. We are told that success comes from hard work, merit, and commitment. However, at Otago University’s medical school, one of the country’s most “prestigiously woke” institutions, that fundamental promise is being betrayed.

Peter Williams: Defending the indefensible

If you were hoping race relations temperatures in 2025 might reduce after the simmering discontent of the hikoi, Christchurch organization Brown Town has turned up the thermostat.

In an extraordinary act of tone deafness they’ve decided if you are brown, or presumably merely identify as Māori or a person of the Pacific, you can get a discount price for a music festival on January 26th called Waves.

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.

Lindsay Mitchell: More racial discrimination looming in the health sector

FREE cervical screening will be rolled out from September this year.

Free, that is, to Maori and Pacific women (or to use Te Whatu Ora’s terminology, “people with a cervix”), those with a community services card, and those who have never been screened or not within the last five years.

Te Whatu Ora claims the new initiative is about improving access.

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.

Lindsay Mitchell: Racial discrimination in the public service

In a publication called "Engaging All New Zealanders survey report: Children in New Zealand Communities 2022" commissioned by Oranga Tamariki and administered by NielsenIQ, the results are presented in a fashion that makes Asian and New Zealand European participants almost invisible.

Just under 1,600 people aged 18 and over answered the survey. The results were then weighted to roughly represent the population. NZ European 71%; Maori 13%; Pacific 6%; Asian 15% and other <1 (The percentages do not tally to 100 percent as some respondents have more than one ethnicity.)

The participants were asked a range of questions relating to their attitudes towards the care and well-being of children. For instance, "Do people think Aotearoa New Zealand is getting better or worse at caring for children?" The group that answered 'worse/much worse' had increased from 28% in 2019 to 36% in 2022.

David Seymour: Racial Discrimination By Te Pāti Māori Must Stop

Te Pati Maori has been engaging in racial discrimination on its website with claims of genetic superiority, but when notified, New Zealand’s Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon refused to publicly stand up to it.

Te Pati Maori’s sports policy on its website makes the following claim:

“It is a known fact that Maori genetic makeup is stronger than others.”

The notion that some racial groups are superior or inferior has been discredited, used to justify racial discrimination and, when taken to its extreme, resulted in some of history’s worst crimes. It is deeply concerning that a sitting New Zealand political party is promoting such a divisive idea.

Graeme Reeves: The Canterbury Regional Council (Ngai Tahu Representation) Bill

On the 22^nd of July 2022 the second reading debate on the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngai Tahu Representation) Bill (the CRC Bill) took place in Parliament.

The purpose of the CRC Bill is to provide Ngai Tahu with the right to appoint two non-elected members to the CRC alongside fourteen elected members.

In many respects the constitutional issues raised are the same as those raised by the now “paused” Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill (RDC) which I wrote about on 23 June 2022 - see HERE.

That Bill was referred to the Auditor General who found that the Bill offended section 19 of the Bill of Rights Act 1990 in that it discriminated on the basis of race by giving Maori two votes whilst all other eligible New Zealanders only have one.

Bob Edlin: Yet more discrimination from the Waitangi Tribunal

We are wondering – here at Point of Order – which politician will go out to bat for the idea that all citizens of this country be accorded exactly the same voting rights they were given at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. 

To ensure nobody was denied those rights, all prisoners of all races in our prisons should be included in this entitlement.

We would like to think the Waitangi Tribunal might consider endorsing this idea because today it has released He Aha i Pērā Ai? The Māori Prisoners’ Voting Rights Report in pre-publication format.