DON BRASH: Yet another reason the Waitangi Tribunal must go

Just when you think the Waitangi Tribunal has reached the absolute outer limit of its overreach, it manages to outdo itself.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Tribunal has – as pretty much always - found the Crown in breach of the Treaty.

The latest is that the Tribunal has now issued a finding claiming that the Coalition Government’s draft school curriculum rewrite breaches the Treaty of Waitangi. Their complaint is that an emphasis on a knowledge-rich curriculum—one structured around fundamental skills like reading, writing, science, and mathematics—is somehow an ideological violation of Treaty principles.

The irony is staggering. The Tribunal accuses the Government of being "ideological," yet it is the Tribunal itself that operates as a deeply activist, unelected body attempting to dictate national policy from the fringes.

According to the Tribunal's line of reasoning, directing instructional time toward foundational literacy and numeracy leaves less room for te reo Māori, tikanga, and mātauranga Māori. Strip away the bureaucratic jargon, and the message to New Zealand parents is crystal clear: the Tribunal would prefer your children and grandchildren spend their school hours focused on cultural indoctrination rather than acquiring the hard skills required to navigate and thrive in a modern, highly competitive world.

In their worldview, traditional belief systems and mythology are given equal—if not superior—footing to physics, chemistry, and biology. They are effectively asking our education system to trade rigorous scientific inquiry and basic foundational learning for political and cultural ideology.

Furthermore, we have seen disgraceful personal attacks levelled against Dame Elizabeth Rata simply for her involvement in guiding these educational reforms. Dame Elizabeth is one of New Zealand’s most distinguished and respected educational academics. The fact that her expertise is being dismissed and attacked by the Tribunal and its echo chamber tells us everything we need to know about their true motivations. It is not about excellence in education; it is about preserving cultural control.

Speaking of Dame Elizabeth, she has just dropped her first three YouTube videos as part of her The History of New Zealand Education series. These are important, informative, and deeply historical videos. We strongly recommend you check them out. View the videos here.

As always, the Tribunal falls back on the tired grievance that the Crown "failed to meaningfully engage" with Māori. One has to ask: what does "meaningful engagement" actually mean to this body? Experience shows us that no amount of consultation is ever deemed sufficient unless the outcome yields completely to their demands. It is simply a convenient catchphrase used to undermine the authority of a democratically elected government.

This latest intrusion into national education policy underlines a far broader and more dangerous trend. The Waitangi Tribunal was originally established to hear specific, historical land grievances against the Crown. Today, having largely exhausted its original purpose, it has mutated into an activist body sticking its nose into an ever-expanding range of government decisions.

It is behaving as though it were a government unto itself—or worse, a body standing above Parliament and the electorate.

Last week, Richard Prebble highlighted this exact crisis in an incisive op-ed for the New Zealand Herald. He pointed out that the Tribunal is now actively investigating whether our very democratic system is "fit for purpose." Let that sink in. An unelected, unaccountable tribunal is positioning itself to pass judgment on New Zealand's parliamentary democracy. As Mr Prebble rightly warns, we are heading toward a scenario where this body recommends that our electoral system, our constitution, and our democratic rights be overhauled and divided along racial lines.

We are seeing this divisive mentality play out at local government levels as well. Around the country, courageous individuals are standing up against the erosion of equal voting rights. Councillors like Davina Smolders have been leading the charge locally, fighting tirelessly to ensure that every citizen’s vote carries equal weight on local councils, regardless of ancestry. But local efforts can only do so much when the ideological engine in Wellington continues to push for co-governance and division.

We cannot afford to keep tinkering around the edges while an unelected tribunal systematically undermines democratic governance, equal citizenship, and the educational standards of our children.

The Waitangi Tribunal has completely outlived its purpose, and it is time for it to be wound up permanently.

ACT’s policy to abolish the Waitangi Tribunal is the right path forward, but we need the full Coalition Government to stand firm. While NZ First has indicated they want to limit the Tribunal’s scope and National has been silent on the matter, we agree with ACT that once historical settlements are completed, the Tribunal should be fully abolished.

Our children deserve an education system focused on knowledge, excellence, and opportunity—not cultural politics. And our country deserves a constitutional system based on equal rights for every New Zealander, without exception.