Labour’s Māori Manifesto 2020 recommits to the partnership path with Māori. They will continue to support the role of Māori Crown relations – Te Arawhiti in growing the capability and capacity of government departments and organisations to be better Treaty partners, promising to look to take even bolder steps to create change. Continue reading

The Ministry of Education is about to implement a programme to radically change our education system. True to the doctrine of a Treaty partnership, the Ministry has been working with Māori academics and educationalists to design a blueprint for a ‘transformative shift’ in the education of our children and grandchildren. Continue reading

Every six years local bodies are obliged to review the ward system. We have seen a flurry of such activity over the past few months, with both New Plymouth and Tauranga acting to establish Māori wards, and others considering whether to follow suit.  Continue reading

We are getting close to the big day, Saturday 17 October, the day when we exercise our right to choose who will make the decisions that will affect our lives, our country. With the election campaign well underway, we have been looking at each party’s policy statements specifically relating to democracy and the equality of citizenship on which it is based. Continue reading

Today we release an important document that we've been working on for some time. Our paper, titled Atawhai: Generosity for some, shows how, in just six years, Auckland Council spent at least $129 million on iwi consultation and targeted Māori spending. Continue reading

Democracy Action strongly opposes the decisions of District Health Boards to prioritise Māori and Pasifika patients on elective surgery waiting lists. We believe priority should be based on clinical urgency and the time a patient has waited, not race. When someone is bumped up the list, someone else must be moved down. Continue reading

We are asking for your help to fight against legislation currently being drafted by the Government which clearly discriminates in favour of iwi, while the rest of us would effectively be marginalized. The issue is urgent - the Government plans to push this legislation through by late June - under urgency and with minimal public input under the pretext of COVID-19. Continue reading

The Waikato Regional Council is planning to outsource the monitoring of the waters in and around Lake Taupo and its tributaries to the Tūwharetoa Maori Trust Board. This is despite the Council having identified the risk that it may be expected to undertake similar agreements with other iwi authorities or local authorities that may result in not being able to deliver on expectations due to competing priorities.   Continue reading

Two Labour Members of Parliament have confirmed the claim by Democracy Action that the Government and Police condoned the illegal iwi roadblocks on public roads. Tamati Coffey (Labour - Waiariki) and Kiri Allan (Labour – List MP living in the East Coast) have stated that these roadblocks were “well supported” by the Government and that police “helped with the checkpoints”. Continue reading

Meng Foon and Paul Hunt of the Human Rights Commission use the illegal roadblocks as an admirable illustration of the Treaty of Waitangi 'partnership' principle. It is a model they would like to see replicated. “The two treaty partners collaborated – with kāwanatanga, or governorship, represented through local councils, Civil Defence and the Police, and rangatiratanga, the authority of chiefs, upheld by hapū and iwi”.  “This relationship between rangatiratanga and kāwanatanga is ready to be used across all aspects of government during the recovery programme. The time has come,” they write. Continue reading