Another example of Government ignoring experts to push culture war spite

Ministers were warned against removing schools’ Treaty obligations

An Education Ministry report shows officials strongly warned the government against removing schools’ Treaty of Waitangi obligations.

The proactively-released document said changing references to the treaty in the Education and Training Act was significant and controversial and could lead to conflict that would distract from the government’s education goals.

The advice preceded the government’s surprise decision to delete a clause in the act that required schools to give effect to the treaty.

The government said the treaty was the Crown’s obligation, and the clause could be confusing for schools’ governing boards.

The ministry report dated 19 September said the treaty’s articles were relevant to education in multiple ways.

It said the Crown had an obligation to support Māori educational success and to support kaupapa Māori education.

“In summary, we do not recommend changes to Te Tiriti provisions in the Act without further engagement and design with Māori. This is because of the clear guidance to Ministers and public service departments on the constitutional position of Te Tiriti,” the report said.

Evidence supported the importance of reflecting students’ language and culture to achieve good results, it said.

“We recommend retaining an emphasis on inclusivity in schools, including providing an environment that recognises and values a Māori student’s culture, and, where possible, uses te reo Māori. While this principle of inclusivity can be applied to any group of students, the rationale for having legislative codification of this for Māori is based on the Crown’s obligations towards Māori under Te Tiriti.

“Whether to change the existing legislation, as with questions of fairness, turns on the constitutional position of Te Tiriti. Under current constitutional settings, we recommend retaining reference to the role of Tikanga and te reo in supporting the educational success of ākonga Māori,” the report said.

The education system included multiple taonga and the Crown was obliged to ensure Māori had the right to make decisions over resources and taonga they wished to maintain, it said.

Everyone in the homelessness sector told the Government that their revised thresholds for Emergency Housing would create a tsunami of homelessness.

Everyone in the homelessness sector said cutting $20million from food banks would make those homeless more desperate.

Everyone in the homelessness sector said cutting back on community outreach programmes for the homeless would mean those homeless had no access to off ramps via wrap around services.

Despite everyone telling them this, National did it all anyway resulting in an obscene spike in homelessness to the point their poverty, addiction and mental health issues explode shamefully across our streets in a way that embarrasses us in front of the Tourists.

So embarrassed are they by the realities of their policy cruelty they now put forward a solution to simply arrest the homeless.

This isn’t a once off, the Government is advised time and time and time again to not embark upon some bullshit culture war revenge fantasy masquerading as social policy and they fucking do it anyway, creating a predictable problem which they then have to double down on with some aggressive over reach like a threatened Boomer in a shopping mall car parking dispute.

They were told not to attack the Treaty inside eduction and they did it anyway because Erica’s advisers are all hard right education activists who see indigenous cultural identity as a radicaliser of students who will fight resource stripping in the future.

It is no coincidence that the Atlas Network adjacent think tanks all desire to stamp out indigenous identity inside education because long term it is in the interests of those donors to have a compliant citizenry, not a hostile one.

Especially as climate change starts to ramp up those hostilities.

These are people thinking ten years ahead.

We have a Public Service who has experience and wisdom on these matters being undermined by alt-Right culture war extremists and the Government is happy for attention to be on these culture war talking points rather than on their economic vandalism.

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