Allan Alach – Why is the Taxpayers Union Influencing Education?

Words fail me. Recently the Social Sciences curriculum for Years 0 to 10 was released. If such an ideologically driven document was released by a Labour led government all hell would break loose. However since this particular document originated from Erica Stanford and her ideological backers in the New Zealand Initiative/Atlas Network, we can expect that the media will do as they are told and ignore it.

Think I’m joking?

Try this on for size. 

The document highlights the Taxpayers Union as a source.

The following comment was posted by Melanie Dorrian on the Facebook ‘Save Our Schools’ page (this was originally set up in 2011 to fight National Standards. Fifteen years later and the situation is much worse).

‘In the detail of the newly released Social Sciences curriculum document is an unsettling glimpse into the future of New Zealand education – and a direct consequence of the Sector Reform Bill.

Our New Zealand Curriculum is now directly influenced by government MPs.

Previous curriculum documents have never explicitly named individual, active unions like E tū, FIRST Union, or the PSA. The focus was kept firmly on the conceptual framework of how organised labour operates within civil society, allowing teachers and students to analyse various real-world examples critically. Teachers may have in their classroom used a specific name when talking about a specific example, however, naming the Taxpayers’ Union in the curriculum itself breaks this long-standing convention entirely.’

What madness is this? 

It would never be acceptable for a curriculum document to reference a genuine union (not a farce like the TPU) as an influence.  

Why is this acceptable now? 

The inescapable conclusion – Erica Stanford has approved this curriculum, and given her well known links to this group and its companions, she is following a planned agenda to ‘brainwash’ our kids

No political/lobbying group should used as a reference in a curriculum, full stop. A curriculum should be free of ideology.

But that’s only the start. The recolonisation influence of Professor Elizabeth Rata is laid out for all to see.

Here is Brie Elliott’s take:

‘I’m sitting here staring at the new Social Sciences curriculum our kids are supposed to start learning from next year. And I don’t know whether to scream or cry.

The Minister pushed it through on 12 August, despite the Waitangi Tribunal explicitly urging a pause. The Tribunal expressed deep concern that the reforms would “dilute the place of local te ao Māori content”. They said insufficient Māori engagement would “result in flaws”.

 They told the Minister to wait until their full report on 9 September. She ignored them.

Now experts are calling the final version a “sanitised view” of New Zealand history. Let me show you what they mean.

On Te Tiriti o Waitangi:

– The curriculum presents it as a response to concerns about “lawlessness”. But it conveniently leaves out that the lawlessness was among British settlers…

Read that again. 

Our children are being taught that Te Tiriti was signed because of “lawlessness” – without being told that it was Pākehā whalers, traders, and settlers who were causing the chaos. 

The omission gives the impression that pre-European Māori society was “lawless”.

On the New Zealand Wars:

– The curriculum says “conflict grew because Māori and European settlers had different ideas about land, authority, and te Tiriti”.

“Different ideas.”

Not Crown confiscation. Not raupatu. Not the forced seizure of millions of acres. Not the invasion of the Waikato. Not the burning of villages. Not the displacement of entire iwi.

The curriculum reduces government acquisition of Māori land by force to “a kind of misunderstanding”.

On Māori farming:

– The Year 3 content says settlers “introduced new foods and farming practices” and that “trade between Māori and settlers was important.”

As if Māori didn’t know how to farm. As if they were passive recipients of European knowledge. They weren’t. 

They’d been farming this land for centuries – kūmara, taro, irrigation, sophisticated storage. They kept settlers alive. Many of those early towns would have starved without Māori knowledge. The curriculum turns that into a friendly exchange between equals.

This isn’t history. This is propaganda.

Te Akatea, the Māori Principals’ Association, called the rushed rollout “an act of bad faith” and described the curriculum as “recolonised”. They said it “undermines te ao Māori” and ignores “decades of evidence-based practice”.

The New Zealand History Teachers Association said the draft breached principles derived from Te Tiriti.

NZEI Te Riu Roa, the country’s largest education union, backed the Tribunal’s call to pause.

And the Minister just… kept going.

What are we doing????

Our tamariki deserve the truth. 

The full, messy, painful truth. Not a story that makes colonisation comfortable for the descendants of colonisers.

The Tribunal’s full report drops 9 September. 

Will the Minister listen then? Or will she keep steamrolling over Treaty partnership?

Read the curriculum. Share this. Make noise.

Because silence is complicity. And our kids deserve better.’

So can someone please tell me why this is acceptable? Why should our kids be fed a white centric view of New Zealand history?  What’s wrong with objective history?

The Aotearoa Educators Collective (AEC) has also written about this. As usual I will highlight sections; however I encourage you to read the full article.

Politicising the Classroom: Why the Centralisation of Curriculum Sign-Off Should Worry Us All

‘The Ministry of Education has released the updated draft of The New Zealand Curriculum: Social Sciences Years 0–10 (August 2026), set for mandatory implementation starting in 2027. On page 30, under the Year 8 Civics and Society strand, sits an explicit reference to a specific political lobby group:

“The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union aims to influence government spending, through public campaigns, media engagement and direct lobbying.”’

Further:

“Normally, when political and economic actors are introduced in social studies, they are discussed broadly through their institutional, socio-political, and historical roles in a functioning democracy. For example, curricula have long covered the role of trade unions in advocating for worker protections, fair wages, and collective bargaining.’

However:

‘The Taxpayers’ Union is not a neutral public service organisation or a broad civic institution. It is an explicitly right-leaning political advocacy group, funded by private donors, designed to promote a specific fiscal and political ideology. It exists to selectively pick stories, follow specific interest avenues, and run public relations campaigns that directly align with its ideological agenda.

By embedding a specific, politically active lobbying outfit directly into the prescribed teaching text as a landmark example of active citizenship, the government is effectively normalising political PR as core educational content.’

If this is ok, what is to stop a future government citing a fundamentalist Christian group as an influence? 

Ok with that? Let’s modify the statement. 

If this is ok, what is to stop a future government citing a fundamentalist Islamic group as an influence? 

 Or:

If this is ok, what is to stop a future government citing an extreme right/left wing group as an influence? 

Happy now? Get the point?

Citing the TPU opens the door to future governments citing the lobby group of their choice.

Are you angry yet? Why not? What will it take?

‘The inclusion of party-aligned lobby groups isn’t the only ideological shift creeping into the draft.

Aotearoa has the opportunity to offer a world-class, unique education system – one deeply rooted in our specific cultural heritage, history, and natural environment, designed to grow the exact types of critical thinkers our country needs (check out our vison). Instead, these recent revisions move us closer to an “off-the-shelf,” imported model borrowed from overseas that fails to recognise the uniqueness and specialness of who we are.

When curriculum design is centralised and politically directed, we swap an ambitious, Aotearoa-centric vision for a generic, cookie-cutter approach that silences critical perspective.’

Reflect on that. 

I’ve argued before, that the intent of this government, as with its National led government predecessors, and in common with centre-right governments world wide, is to restrict children’s education to the basics only, to avoid them developing critical thinking skills that might mean they grow up to question the prevailing neoliberal ideology. I’ve previously cited Paulo Freire and his book ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, where he discussed this.

The article continues:

‘Under the previous, more decentralised and independent curriculum oversight frameworks, attempts to inject partisan groups or strip out essential content would have faced robust critique and pushback from educational experts, subject associations, and independent curriculum bodies. The systemic buffers were designed to insulate the nation’s classrooms from whichever political party held the ministerial warrant.

Those safeguards have now been stripped away. With decision-making powers centralised at the top, political interference can seep directly into what every single school in the country is expected to teach.

When the authority to dictate “knowledge” sits entirely in political hands, the line between civic education and political indoctrination becomes paper-thin. Today, it’s an explicit shout-out to a right-wing lobby group. Tomorrow, it could be whatever ideological pet project the government of the day decides to enforce.’

Teachers, parents, and citizens who care about objective, balanced education must pay close attention.’

That means YOU.