MURIEL NEWMAN: Cultural Capture

Earlier this year, at a time of rising geopolitical tension and increasing regional insecurity - with China flexing its muscles and our allies expanding combat readiness - New Zealand’s Army hit the headlines for forcing soldiers to sing waiata!

The Army had gone down the vortex of cultural indoctrination.

On 26 January 2026 “Army General Orders Personnel, Part 1 - Ngati Tumatauenga” had been issued to introduce the “Ngati Tutanga Policy”, which imposed a new Cultural Skill Framework across all ranks of the army, ostensibly to strengthen biculturalism, but in effect paving the way for the separatist capture of the institution.

Under this new framework, cultural compliance was elevated above operational competence, embedding ideological requirements into promotion pathways and diverting attention from core activities.

Instead of focussing on fieldcraft, weapons training, tactical planning, and the extensive skillset required for operational excellence, soldiers were required to memorise and sing up to six waiata, to perform karakia, recite Maori spiritualism and cosmology, and learn te reo – not just in-house, but by enrolling in night classes and residential immersion programmes. They were also forced to accept the nonsense that Treaty is a “partnership” between Maori and the Crown, that “colonisation” has had a negative impact on Maori, and that all Maori political activism is inherently beneficial. 

Senior personnel were required to “unlearn” ‘western’ approaches in order to actively integrate Maori cultural values and a Maori world view into every aspect of their work.

To better understand how this came about, this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator Retired Colonel Bernard Isherwood explains what’s been going on:

“The New Zealand Defence Force conducts ‘Satisfaction Surveys’ - recently re-named more benignly as ‘Pulse Surveys’. The surveys have consistently shown a significant loss of confidence in the NZDF’s senior leadership, and a view, shared across all ranks, that training for war has been replaced by a preoccupation with gender and cultural inclusivity and a creeping ‘corporatisation’. 

“The current Chief of Army has doubled down on cultural priorities, notably championing Wai 2500, a Waitangi Tribunal claims hearing concerning Maori veterans. Her husband, previously a serving Lieutenant Colonel, and for a time the NZDF’s Senior Maori Advisor, has been instrumental in helping develop the new NZDF policy; a policy that has been embraced by the current Chief.

“The policy embeds indigenous culture throughout initial and ongoing training and in all formal and informal meetings and ceremonial activities. It has resulted in the Army now having a proliferation of ‘Cultural Advisers’ whose place in the command chain is unclear.

“Addressing the place of Maori culture in the NZDF is legitimate – Maori make up about 18 percent of the Army - but treating it as a response to historic racism within the NZDF is not.”

With Bernard pointing out that the current Army attrition figures for 2026 are expected to be almost 15 percent, with over 600 personnel having submitted release requests, many of whom have served for 10 to 20 years, one can’t but help wonder whether the Army’s surrender to Maori activism, and the absurd requirements being forced on personnel by senior leadership, has been driving good people away.

Full marks go to ACT MP Todd Stephenson for drawing all of this to the attention of the former Minister of Defence, Judith Collins, as soon as he became aware of what was going on:

“I am writing regarding the New Zealand Army’s new internally circulated Ngati Tumatauenga bicultural policy and its associated Cultural Skills Framework. This policy appears to embed ideological and cultural requirements that go well beyond the Government’s expectations for a professional, politically neutral public service.

“Rather than focusing on operational effectiveness and merit, the framework imposes a set of cultural competencies that would not normally be expected of public servants…

“In addition, the policy advances a particular interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi that is far from settled and should not be treated as authoritative within a state institution such as the Defence Force.

“Taken together, this framework risks prioritising cultural conformity over competence, neutrality, and operational focus. That is not what New Zealanders expect from their Armed Forces, nor is it consistent with the Government’s direction for the public service.

“I ask that this policy and framework be reviewed as a matter of priority to ensure they align with the Government’s expectations and the principle of equal treatment regardless of background or belief.”

The Minister’s reply indicated she had not been briefed on the development, but had immediately put a halt to the policy pending further investigation:

“Thank you for your correspondence of 10 February 2026 raising concerns over the New Zealand Army’s Bicultural Policy and Cultural Skills Framework.

“This Framework was not previously brought to my attention, and I have today sought further information from Army leadership. I am advised that the implementation of this Framework has been paused to enable broader consultation. The Army leadership agrees that this policy needs further consideration.”

The Minister should not have stopped there. Biculturalism has been entrenched throughout the entire Defence Force by their 2023 Maori Strategic Framework, Kia Eke. In comparison to the Army, the Navy is focused on maritime protocol and international diplomacy, anchoring ceremonial training at their Te Taua Moana Marae in Devonport, while the Air Force has taken an education-first approach via its Turangawaewae facilities at Ohakea, prioritising voluntary rather than mandated involvement.

Historically, the New Zealand Defence Force — like the Police — sat outside the core public service, to protect it from political influence. All of that changed when Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government brought both institutions under the Public Service Act 2020 as non‑public‑service departments.

This enabled Defence to be subjected to the same race‑based ideological programming that was being imposed across the public sector by Te Arawhiti, the Office for Maori Crown Relations. While the ‘official’ purpose of this 200-strong agency, which had been established by Labour in conjunction with iwi leaders, was to strengthen the Maori-Crown relationship, in reality, its objective was to embed the notion that the State must operate as a partnership of equals with Maori.

Through the application of Te Arawhiti’s Public Service Maori Crown Relations Capability Framework, almost the entire machinery of government was captured – including the Office of the Auditor General, the Reserve Bank, Crown Law, and many professional regulators such as the Real Estate Authority that licenses real estate agents. All of these bodies were required to embed cultural‑competency regimes mirroring those seen in the Army.

Other core members of New Zealand’s national security network - the Government Communications Security Bureau and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service - were also caught in the tribal net, required by legislation to treat Maori as equal partners to the Crown, and to submit to their cultural indoctrination programmes.

In fact, in their 2025 Annual Report, the NZSIS details their close relationship with tribal leaders: “We continued to engage with Iwi Chairs and strengthen relationships with mana whenua this year. Work remains underway to enhance our service delivery to improve national security outcomes for Maori.”

Such developments raise serious concerns. Through the systematic implementation of a cultural skills framework developed by an agency pushing the radical Maori sovereignty agenda of tribal leaders, New Zealand’s entire National Security Sector has embedded parallel accountability structures under the guise of culture.

Driving all of this is the Public Service Act 2020. While parts of the Act were amended by the Coalition earlier this year, those sections responsible for the “Maorification” of public agencies have remained intact - despite the expectation of voters that racist agendas were going to be eliminated.

To return the public service being strictly colourblind – as it used to be - Parliament would need to pass a law to strip all race and Treaty obligations from the Public Service Act 2020. That would involve repealing Sections 14 and 15 to eliminate mandatory Maori-Crown capability requirements for chief executives, and rewriting Section 73 to strip out race-based hiring targets.

By also amending Section 19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights to prevent positive discrimination based on race – and to instead re-focus the government on socio-economic disadvantage – New Zealand’s state sector, like those in many other countries around the world, could begin to transition into one that is structurally neutral and identity-blind. 

So, with the 2026 election only a few weeks away, are any of our main political parties promising such changes?

To see where the Parties stand on Maori and Treaty matters, we examined the policies of each of the main political parties contesting the 2026 Election and compiled a summary for NZCPR readers - click HERE.

What we found is deeply concerning.

If there is a change of government, an influential faction of the left bloc will not be satisfied with simply further entrenching the tribal takeover of our public institutions — they have categorically stated they intend to reshape the country itself.

While Labour hasn’t publicly revealed much policy in this area, it is important not to forget that nor did they in 2020. The first we knew about their radical plan to replace New Zealand’s Westminster democracy with tribal rule, was when they began imposing He Puapua onto the country after they’d won the election.

And since the Opportunity Party’s fourth ranked candidate, Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, was a co-author of He Puapua, voters should be under no illusion about the constitutional upheaval that could lie behind TOP’s seemingly moderate political image.

The Greens and the Maori Party on other hand have not tried to disguise their ambition to replace Parliamentary sovereignty with tribal supremacy. With the country’s highest Court already captured by activist judges who consistently find in favour of Maori rights, the step to achieve tribal rule is chillingly simple: all it would take is to replace New Zealand’s unwritten constitution with a new written version based on the Treaty.

If that occurs, the consequences would be permanent. Any decision made by Parliament could be struck down by the Supreme Court if it was deemed to be insufficiently favourable to Maori. Worse still, any attempt by MPs to restore Parliamentary sovereignty would itself be ruled unconstitutional.

So, with the left bloc of Labour, the Greens, the Maori Party and TOP strongly aligned towards Maori supremacy, where does the right bloc of National, ACT and New Zealand First stand?

While all three parties support Parliamentary sovereignty, equal rights, and the rule of law, only ACT is promising to amend the Public Service Act 2020 to remove race-based requirements. While what they’ve identified wouldn’t go far enough, it is nevertheless a step in the right direction.

To their credit, ACT has also pledged measures to rein in activist judges.

While both ACT and New Zealand First are promoting a referendum on the Maori seats, and the abolition of the Waitangi Tribunal, given the widespread and deeply embedded cultural capture of our institutions, that will not be enough to stop the tribal takeover of our country. 

In 2023 New Zealanders voted to end the “Maorification” of New Zealand. They wanted race and culture eliminated from the operation of government. While various attempts were made by the Coalition, they did not go far enough - nor quickly enough - and National is now bleeding support as a result. Maybe they underestimated the size of the problem and the strength of the resistance they’d encounter from within the public service - but maybe National did not have the backbone to do what voters were demanding.

What is now very clear, is that with the left driving an agenda that could destroy democracy as we know it, the country needs ACT and New Zealand First in particular, to step up and pledge, that if they win the 2026 election, they will use their combined influence to remove race and culture completely from our statutes in order to restore a state sector that serves every New Zealander as equals.

This article was first published at NZCPR. Dr Muriel Newman established NZCPR as a public policy think tank in 2005 after nine years as a Member of Parliament. A former Chamber of Commerce President, her background is in business and education.