A final reminder that our Maungakaramea event is tonight, 7pm in the Maungakaramea Hall.
This is a famous part of heartland New Zealand, with farming families who can trace their heritage back to the first settlers.
It’s going to be a great night.
For those who have not organised an event in your area / suburb, now is the time to take action!
It only takes one motivated person to make things happen.
This is the procedure. It’s not hard.
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Please sign these two petitions and email them both for other to sign. Just click on the titles below to open the petition and read about it. Thanks.
2. Only New Zealands official flag to Fly on Public Buildings and Structures
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The campaign we are running, these meetings all over the country, are about raising public awareness. The public just don’t know the truth and realities of co-governance, and this is the way the government and tribal leaders want it.
To counter this we all have to participate, and be active all the time. How?
- Giving out our business cards regularly. View them HERE. If you want some delivered for you for free, call Geoff on 021 1428750
- Inviting people to events
- Helping set up events. If you want to know who to call in your area, email me and I will put you in touch with people. julian@stopcogov.kiwi
- Financing the tour. Please don’t stop giving. We need finance to pay the bills and open up new places for me to speak. Plus I have my own living expenses to take care of.
If all of us could do all four, we are going to make a massive impact, and in doing so will stop co-governance.
Our biggest challenge is that we only have a limited amount of time to do this. We have a small window between now and the next election. It’s now or never.
We need $700 to make 5000 hard copies of my book. $4000 has been kindly donated already by generous people. One donor gave $2300. Can someone come up with the $700 please? You can read it HERE
The strategy is to print five thousand. Then ask supporters to buy copies at $1.50 each which will provide funds for a reprint. The supporters can then deliver the books to people in their neighbourhood.
The goal is to go around the main stream media, bye pass. them, and get to the people directly.
It’s a great plan. It will work. We just need all the people who hate co-governance to rise up and become active.
I am asking each of the people who are getting to this blog to make the time and financial sacrifice to make this happen.
Nothing happens without sacrifice.
We have to be more determined to stop co-governance than the tribal representative are to keep it going.
Only one side can win here.
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To get more Stop Co-governance news, click HERE
A big shout out to the teams around the country who are up and running. They have hired a hall and set their date and their flyers are underway.
Never forget, members of the public who receive a flyer in their letter box are shown how they can learn the truth about co-governance and why it’s so wrong. Through QR codes they can 1. Watch the video of me speaking in Warkworth 2. Read my on-line book on Co-Governance. Why it’s wrong and why it must be stopped 3. Learn about our web site and thus sign up to my blog.
This is huge! Why? We are bring public awareness.
Maungakaramea 20th February, Maungakaramea Hall, 7:00pm
Dargaville 9th of March,
Kerikeri 12th of March,
Mangawhai 13th March,
Orewa 18th March,
Mt Eden, 28th March,
Freemans Bay Auckland, 30th March,
Cambridge Town Hall, 16th April, 3pm
Welcome Bay Tauranga, 22 April,
Mt Maunganui Tauranga, 23 April
Rotorua, 30 April
Taupo, May 14
Cromwell, June 27
If you are one of the event centres not up and running yet, take action! Book your hall and get going!
Email THIS FLYER to anyone you know in Northland so that they can attend our Mangakaramea event which is on the Monday 20th February, Mangakaramea hall, 7pm.
As soon as flyers are designed and up and running for all the other events, we will post them on here too.
If you live a long way away from Mangakaramea, you can still invite people who you know in Northland to come to one of these events.
It does not matter if you live a long way from Whangarei. You might have people you know in Northland. Please invite them.
I readily acknowledge past and present injustice to Maori. I applaud the fact that Maori have a ‘ voice.’
However:
Having been subjected to much revisionist, highly selective and biased, material as a university student and trainee teacher, over 30 years ago, I was subjected to yet more as a public servant. All very one sided and often highly inaccurate. The basic message throughout was invariably ” Maori good—— British ( or often refined to English) very bad.” Little, if any, middle ground. No acknowledgements of the benefits of a highly developed and sophisticated addition to the history of our country. This was accompanied by a total failure to recognise the brutal aspects of pre colonial life in this land, or the questionable behaviour of certain Maori during the early days of colonisation. ” Don’t talk about the inconvenient nasty stuff.”
Atareta Poananga, Titewhai and Hone Harawira, Tame Iti , Donna Awatere. Annette Sykes. Ken Mair, The Jacksons and their ilk. All preach vitriolic, divisive , racist themes. Quite ironic really.
I despise injustice and admire those who speak out against it. By the same token revisionist , inaccurate ranting will never have a positive outcome.
There is an elite element who crave the limelight and all that goes with it.
I’m intrigued by the fact that so many Maori fail to include European tupuna in their whakapapa. Very Freudian ? At least Annette Sykes admits so ” Some pakeha ancestry. ” In fact at least 50 per cent. Her paternal grandparents were English. Whether she likes it or not.
Whina Cooper used to say ” The best way to get rid of Pakehas is to marry them.” She was a grand old lady.
Last year the radical proposals of Nanaia Mahuta’s ‘Review into the Future of Local Government’ is proposing. While Ms Mahuta is no longer the Minister of Local Government, the Panel is continuing its work anyway! The proposals include:
Lowering the local voting age to 16 without a referendum.
Bringing in unelected mana whenua appointees for all of New Zealand’s councils who would be given equal status and voting rights as elected members, but unlike the councillors, cannot be removed at the ballot box.
Giving councils the power to introduce ’new funding mechanism’ – new council taxes – without a binding referendum.
Removing the requirement for local referenda before changing the voting system by imposing STV across the country.
Introducing randomly selected ‘citizens’ assemblies’ that you cannot vote out.
The Panel has the temerity to say these proposals “strengthen democracy”, but advocates introducing unelected mana whenua representatives onto councils and their committees with the same status – and voting rights – as elected councillors.
Meng Foon – Race Relations Commissioner
6 February ·
The release of these reports has given voice to communities who have historically not had one. Respectful conversations around this issue must be held. We cannot address something we do not acknowledge.
“Racism is about power and control; it is about exploitation. It is about the rules we put in place, the design (of) our organisations and institutions. It’s about a culture and way of thinking that is transmuted from generation to generation, an embedded notion of one race being superior to others.”
Two reports released last week show that racism exists in Aotearoa in many forms – from the interpersonal to the structural.
I wonder who wrote this for him ? Can anyone see the irony? Look no further than Ti Pati Maori and it’s goons. Oh no !!!! let’s not forget the Maori Caucus.
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6 days ago
5 min read
Professor Elizabeth Rata et al: Open Letter to the PM
Corresponding Signatory
Professor Elizabeth Rata
e.rata@auckland.ac.nz
The Rt Hon Chris Hipkins
Parliament Office
Freepost 18 888
Parliament Buildings
Wellington 6160
chris.hipkins@parliament.govt.nz
cc. Hon Jan Tinetti
j.tinetti@ministers.govt.nz
8 February 2023
Dear Prime Minister Hipkins,
We, the undersigned, draw your attention to two major problems in the Ministry of Education’s Curriculum Refresh policy and in the associated NCEA qualification reforms. These problems were created during your tenure as Minister of Education and can only be solved by calling an immediate halt to the radical initiatives causing the problems. Because the matter is of such urgency, this letter is an open one and will be made public.
The first problem is the fundamental change to the purpose of New Zealand education contained in the Curriculum Refresh document, Te Mātaiaho: The Refreshed New Zealand Curriculum: Draft for Testing, September 2022.
The second problem is an effect of the first. It is the insertion into the curriculum of traditional knowledge, or mātauranga Māori, as equivalent to science.
Problem 1: Changing the purpose of New Zealand education
Since the 1877 Education Act, the purpose of education has been to build our nation upon the accumulated knowledge of humanity. The intended benefits of this universal education system are numerous. Six generations of New Zealanders are educated; a robust economy is developed; stable democracy is secured through secular institutions – all enabling the social cohesion of a multi-ethnic population with different backgrounds but united in its commitment to our nation.
The Curriculum Refresh has abandoned this goal of unity. Instead, the democratic idea of the universal human being upon which the education system was founded is replaced with a localised system that classifies children into racialised groups with, as the Curriculum Refresh states, ‘diverse ways of being, understanding, knowing, and doing’. (Our emphasis).
The ‘Kaupapa Statement’ that guided the Curriculum Refresh development makes this revolutionary new purpose perfectly clear:
We are refreshing the New Zealand Curriculum (the NZC) to better reflect the aspirations and expectations of all New Zealanders. The refresh will adorn our ākonga with a 3-strand whenu (cord). This korowai will be layered with huruhuru (feathers) representing who they are, who they can be, their whakapapa, and their connection to our whenua (lands). The whenu tying it together is made up of whānau (family), ākonga, and kaiako (teachers) working as partners to use and localise the NZC. The refresh will ensure that the NZC reflects diverse ways of being, understanding, knowing, and doing. It helps us inclusively respond to the needs of individual ākonga, who are at the centre of all we do. Ākonga will be able to see their languages, cultures, identities, and strengths in what they learn at school. This will empower ākonga to go boldly into an ever-changing future and contribute to local, national, and global communities. This vision will primarily be realised by kaiako and school leaders, in partnership with iwi and their school communities. However, it will be important for all New Zealanders to be part of this journey and help create multiple pathways towards equity and success for all ākonga. (Our emphasis.)
A racialised curriculum
After classifying children racially, the Curriculum Refresh embeds this identity categorisation. We are to be recognised in the education system as either Māori or not. Yet the reality is that modern individuals choose which identity matters to them, a choice informed by personalities, capacities, interests, goals, family, communities and heritages, and likely to change during the lifespan as circumstances change. At school we share the identity of pupil and student.
In contrast, the culturalist ideology now informing education policy places our identity as an ethnic one, a view that risks perpetuating fixed racial stereotypes. More seriously, it links culture to race, a link justified by the belief that how individuals think, behave, and relate to others is pre-determined by their genetic ancestry.
This race-culture link is seen in the Kaupapa Statement that ‘Ākonga will be able to see their languages, cultures, identities, and strengths in what they learn at school’. It is a pre-modern race ideology that will destroy our modern future-oriented education system and should be seen for the revolution it is.
Problem 2: The effects of radical change
The second problem to which we draw your urgent attention is the effects of this radical transformation of New Zealand education. They include ‘culturally responsive pedagogies’ – the idea that diverse way of ‘being, knowing, understanding and doing’ require different learning approaches. An example of this is the misguided belief that Māori- and Pacific-heritage children learn better in groups. Literacy too is under attack by those seeking to ‘decolonise’ reading and writing – see https://nzareblog.wordpress.com/2022/03/22/maori-literacy/
The knowledge equivalence error
We draw your attention specifically to the effect on the curriculum caused by the false claim that traditional knowledge and modern science are equivalent (mana orite). This is damaging, not only to science education within New Zealand but to our nation’s international reputation.
The damage occurs in two ways. First, the interweaving of mātauranga Māori across the science curriculum forces a comparison between the two knowledge systems in ways that do justice to neither. Traditional knowledge has its own value and purpose and belongs in curriculum subjects such as social studies, geography, and literature. But it is not science and does not belong in the science curriculum.
Second, the NCEA Reform and Curriculum Refresh bring pseudoscientific ideas into science due to the poor transposition of some concepts from mātauranga Māori. For example, the NCEA Chemistry & Biology Glossary introduces the idea of mauri as a relevant concept in biology and chemistry. It defines mauri as:
The vital essence, life force of everything: be it a physical object, living thing or ecosystem. In Chemistry and Biology, mauri refers to the health and life-sustaining capacity of the taiao, on biological, physical, and chemical levels.
Vitalism, the idea of an innate ‘life force’ present in all things, has surfaced in many cultural knowledge systems, including European, but has been soundly refuted and is not part of modern science. Inserting mātauranga Māori into the science curriculum will, not only lead to confusion in our schools and for our students, but will destroy our nation’s reputation for quality science.
A scholarly account of the difference between mātauranga Māori and modern science which compares the properties of each knowledge type, their differences, their relationship, methods and procedures for their development, and policy implications is available on pages 13-21 in https://www.hpsst.com/uploads/6/2/9/3/62931075/2019nov.pdf
Please halt the Curriculum Refresh
Asserting that the Treaty of Waitangi is ‘a fundamental component of our constitution’, Te Mātaiaho: the Curriculum Refresh’s radical goal is to ‘foster the next generation of Te Tiriti partners by moving beyond the rhetorical notion of “honouring” Te Tiriti to giving effect to it’ (p. 5).
But the status of the Treaty is subject to unresolved political contest. It is undemocratic to engineer a revolutionary constitutional change through the educational curriculum. We ask for the restoration of an academic curriculum and qualification system based on the democratic principles of universalism and secularism; a system that enabled generations of New Zealanders to acquire the universal knowledge of humanity. It was the reason for the nation’s successful education system that has lasted nearly one hundred and fifty years. The transformative Curriculum Refresh will undo the principles and practices that made such success possible with dire consequences for New Zealand’s future.
Prime Minister Hipkins, the Curriculum Refresh and the NCEA Reforms were developed on your watch as Minister of Education. It is, therefore, incumbent on you to repeal them before irrevocable damage is done to our country. As Prime Minister, you are certainly in a position to do so.
Signed
Professor Elizabeth Rata
Director of the Knowledge in Education Research Unit
Faculty of Education and Social Work
University of Auckland
Distinguished Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Director of the Centre for Theoretical Chemistry and Physics
Massey University Auckland
Dr Raymond Richards
Research Associate (retired Senior Lecturer in History)
University of Waikato
Dr David Lillis
Retired Senior Academic Manager and Senior Lecturer in Statistics and Research Methods
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This is an interesting article I have just received from the Prime Minister’s Office.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/judicial-systems/page-4
History of the courts
Supreme Court
The first courts in New Zealand were established under authority of the sovereign, Queen Victoria. The Letters Patent of 16 November 1840 (the Royal Charter) empowered the governor to constitute courts and appoint judges to administer justice in the colony. In 1841 an ordinance of the Legislative Council established the Supreme Court of New Zealand, which continues in existence as the High Court. The Supreme Court was modelled on the superior courts in the United Kingdom, except that the court had jurisdiction in both common law and equity (legal principles that supplement and soften the rigor of the common law). Two successive consolidating acts reconstituted the court and carried over its jurisdiction. The High Court is constituted under the Judicature Act 1908, which vests in the court ‘all judicial jurisdiction which may be necessary to administer the laws of New Zealand’.