Allan Alach – Stanford Must Go!

There are so many reasons to ditch these pricks in ’26. Getting rid of some truly horrid cabinet ministers is very high in the list of reasons, Willis, Upston, and Brown for a start, although it’s hard to think of any cabinet minister that would be an exception. 

There have usually been ministers in previous National led governments who showed integrity – Chris Finlayson for example – but not in the present case. As for the coalition cabinet members, I have no suitable words. Maybe we need to emulate Shakespeare and make up new words to describe them?

One minister who needs to be kicked out of play is Erica Stanford. So many reasons, her arrogance (‘I know it all’) and her hypocrisy, for a start. 

Martyn Bradbury discussed this in his recent article, which I encourage you to read/re-read.

Erica Stanford’s claims of educational ideological stacking after ideologically stacking education is political hypocrisy at its most inane

“Erica Stanford’s claims of educational ideological stacking after ideologically stacking education is political hypocrisy at its most inane!

She stacked far right Atlas Network appointees to mutilate the curriculum and then has the audacity to claim education boards with actual Teacher as opposed to far right activists is  “ideological stacking”…”

 

Indeed, After stacking a range of educational bodies with her hand picked Atlas Network acolytes, she has the effrontery to criticise Labour’s policy of establishing an independent committee of education experts to oversee curriculum developments. 

Eh?

I’ve written several times about the need for politicians to get out of the development and implementation of education delivery, and now we see that Labour have got the message. A great start.

A number of curriculum developments have been in the headlines over the last week. 

At the top of the list is Waitangi Tribunal Report on the curriculum reset as it pertains to Māori.

Bevan Holloway has written an in-depth article about this

Waitangi Tribunal Urgent Education inquiry WAI3553 – Stage 2 Part 1 Report: the curriculum Reset

‘As a witness in this claim, it was a slightly surreal experience to read this report and I have found it hard to gather my thoughts beyond the initial headline of its findings that the Crown has breached multiple principles of the treaty and duties to Māori:

• The principle of partnership
• The principle of active protection
• The duty of active protection of te reo, tikanga, and mātauranga
• The principle of equity
• The principle of good government.’

At the same time this report was published, the government has gone into urgency to ram a raft of legislation through parliament that downplayed or removed so many of the clauses pertaining to the Treaty of Waitangi. 

Decades of work to implement the Treaty principles has been undone in a matter of days, by a dying government rushing to get this done, fearing/expecting that they will be deservedly kicked out of office in November?

Surely if they were confident of electoral victory, they could have addressed this in the next parliament. Obviously not. 

How immoral is it to use urgency in this way?

Gutless?

Back to Bevan’s article:

“The Ministry and Minister will claim these findings are no longer relevant as the curriculum documents that have been released in the last month have been through consultation and adapted. The Tribunal address this issue and do not accept it. The conditions and process for curriculum development that were examined in the claim have not changed. I agree with the Tribunal.’

The Tribunal wrote:

‘The cumulative effect of the shifts to the front end of the curriculum (as many claimants said, it is hard to call it Te Mātaiaho now) are described by the Tribunal in the following terms:

the 2025 framework, to us, seems lifeless. The treaty is no longer at the heart of the framework as its guiding kaupapa. Each aho has also been described very differently from before, meaning they now embody a very different essence and are quite disjointed. We struggle to see how the aho, as currently described, could be woven together to give life to the original vision.’

Does this reflect the Aotearoa/New Zealand that we want? Apart from all the racists of course. 

Where do you stand?

TV1 News on Friday night ran a news article:

‘Excitement and pride’: Poumatua Festival revisits gift of Tāmaki Makaurau

‘Thirty schools from across Tāmaki Makaurau embraced te reo Māori by taking the stage at the Auckland Town Hall this week as part of the inaugural Poumatua Festival – a celebration of the city’s origins and the art of kapa haka.’

Watching and listening to this was very moving, a picture of the country at its best.

‘Te Waitītiko performer Te Awanui Lowman said one of their waiata was about mana being passed down from atua to ancestors, and down through generations to rangatahi.

“We are trying to uphold that mana to keep it strong and to hold on to the mana motuhake,” he said.

Eight-year-old Ihaia Paora, lead guitarist at Ōrakei School, said performing “felt good” despite being nervous. “But I do it for a living, so it was pretty cool.

“Te reo Māori is my culture and everything that I am,” he added.’

Compare this to the anti-Māori agenda of this racist government. Whose agenda are they implementing? Clearly not the wishes of the people.

According to the Stats NZ website, Māori made up 17.5% of the population in 2025 and that this is growing at 1.2% per year compared to the 0.6% growth of the total population. Effectively this government is disenfranchising almost one-fifth of the New Zealand population. 

These racists can keep tilting at windmills as much as they like, or, to use another analogy, they can run around plugging holes in dykes, in order to try to maintain their Anglo-Saxon, Eurocentric privilege, but ultimately will lose the battle. 

Who voted for this? 

Erica Stanford has played her part in this, through her oversight of curriculum development and demonstrating the input of well known anti-Māori educator Professor Elizabeth Rata. It is indeed ironic that in a previous incarnation she was an active mover in the Kõhanga Reo project. 

What happened to her, to turn her to the dark side?

Bevan writes:

‘Is it reasonable to shut the sector out of the development of the knowledge-rich curriculum because they were “adding complexity” to the process and stopping the Ministry from working “at pace”?

Is it reasonable to ignore evidence of what works for Māori?

Is it reasonable that no effort was made to include Māori voices perspectives?

Is it reasonable to rely on evidence from offshore organisations that provide no evidence that the curriculum direction will work in Aotearoa New Zealand?

Is it reasonable to commission Learning First to write a literature review of a knowledge-rich curriculum which did not address or analyse any of the criticisms of such an approach?

Is it reasonable to have Learning First contribute to the development of the curriculum documents by, in Pauline Cleaver’s words, “source[ing] content”.

Is it reasonable that the October 2025 maths curriculum includes objectives “directly copied from the Australian curriculum and used at the same year level without the consideration that Australian students are one year older with an extra year of schooling given a different level year system”?’

Note the last point Bevan raises. What competent minister of education would allow this to happen? 

No wonder she objects to the idea of a committee of independent experts.

Bevan raises many other points so please read the article for yourself.

The full report can be downloaded here.

As Bevan says ‘there is plenty in its 260 pages that will hit a nerve with ‘middle nz’.

RNZ has also written about this report:

School curriculum rewrite ‘ideological’, Crown breached multiple treaty principles – Waitangi Tribunal

‘The Waitangi Tribunal says the government’s rewrite of the school curriculum was ideological, aided by people hostile to Māori knowledge, and breached multiple Treaty principles.’

And:

‘In her letter to ministers, presiding officer Rachel Mullins said the adoption of a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum – which stresses the importance of all students acquiring the same knowledge, in sequence and structure, and progressing together – as government policy was a predetermined course to return to a one-size-fits-all style of education.

“For its part, ‘restoring balance’ to the teaching of Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories has effectively meant lessening the emphasis on local and Māori experiences (including the focus on the treaty itself) and recentring international events and ‘the histories and traditions of all New Zealand’s people’.”

Mullins said the government made changes to the curriculum in spite of the opposition of both Māori and the education sector and despite the lack of solid evidence that a knowledge-rich approach will reduce inequities.’

Recall that the so-called ‘knowledge rich curriculum’, as described here, is an import from overseas, rather than being a curriculum developed in Nw Zealand to reflect this country and its values. As Mullins points out, the  ‘knowledge rich curriculum’ means devaluing Māori perspectives and values, with no evidence that this will reduce inequities.  

This lack of evidence underpins most of Stanford’s education agenda, yet she has imposed it on our schools and children without debate. 

She must go.

Given Stanford’s objections to the independent committee of experts, this next section from Mullins stands out.

“The Minister of Education’s approach has been essentially ideological, and she surrounded herself with supporters of that position in, for example, her Curriculum Ministerial Advisory Group – which has included members either unenthusiastic about or outwardly hostile to mātauranga Māori.”

Hypocrite.

Newsroom has also published a well researched article about this. Again I encourage you to read the full article for yourself.

‘Ideological’ school curriculum rewrite breaches Treaty principles – tribunal

‘In April 2022, Dr Elizabeth Rata, a sociologist of education at the University of Auckland, published an online article examining what she described as the Ministry of Education’s attempts to “decolonise the New Zealand schooling system”.

At the time, the curriculum was undergoing reform under a Labour-led government. The refreshed curriculum was developed in partnership with Māori and was gifted the name Te Mātaiaho. 

“A revolution is coming,” Rata wrote. “The government’s transformational policies for education make this clear. It will only be stopped by a re-commitment to academic knowledge for all New Zealand children, rich and poor alike, within a universal and secular education system. 

“Colonisation is not the problem and decolonisation is not the solution.”‘

So that makes it very clear who is pulling Stanford’s strings.

‘Her appointment and its surrounding circumstances are among the many details laid out in a 239-page report by the Waitangi Tribunal, which argues the government’s “knowledge-rich” curriculum reset has breached multiple Treaty principles.

The report, published on Thursday, concludes that the reforms lack evidence, exclude Māori, and are ideological.’

So then, why are our children being subjected to a curriculum that is ideological and the excludes Māori?

In her response to this report, Stanford maintains that  she is already seeing a turn around in achievement – based on what evidence? 

And further, she shows she has learned nothing, by trotting out this line:

‘Brains learn the same way and the science of learning, underpinning the reforms, does not divide down cultural lines, she says.’

That is provably false. Arrant nonsense, which shows the shallowness of her understanding of pedagogy.

The article discusses in depth the background to the curriculum development, including the handpicked nature of other advisory group and especially the role of Rata.

‘It noted other members were also known proponents of a knowledge-rich approach and highlighted Rata’s view that “there is no place for traditional knowledge in a curriculum except as an object of study”’.

And her evidence is…?

Oh wait, what’s this?

‘That was despite the more than decade-long experience in England, reported in 2025, which found knowledge-rich had not improved equity between better off and disadvantaged students. 

Of the nearly 150 sources cited in the literature review, only three were from New Zealand – two of which were Rata’s work’. 

Hmm, this doesn’t pass the smell test.

‘The evidence suggests the redesign of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa was not driven by the aspirations whānau, hapū, and iwi have for their children in Māori-medium and kaupapa Māori education, but “rather the Crown’s drive to impose its knowledge-rich approach”’.

And to continue their anti-Māori agenda….

Is this the country we want?