Geoff Parker
Geoff Parker is a passionate advocate for equal rights and a colour-blind society.
Jack McDonald says voters are “looking forwards, not backwards”. He’s partly right. New Zealanders are looking forward – but what they’re leaving behind is a decade of cultural and ideological overreach that crept into public policy with little public consent. The 2023 election result wasn’t a fluke. It was a reset. Voters had grown weary of seeing government departments, schools, councils and funding systems quietly reshaped around an expansive and contested interpretation of Te Tiriti – one never clearly endorsed by parliament or put to voters. That backlash wasn’t extremism or ‘right-wing populism’. It was ordinary people signalling they’d had enough.
What the Treaty-in-Schools Debate Really Shows
McDonald points to a petition signed by school boards as evidence of broad public support. What it actually highlights is how politicised parts of the education sector have become. Parents sense it. Teachers who question the direction feel it. And the government knows it.
The change Education Minister Erica Stanford announced did not strip away Māori rights. It removed a legal requirement for school boards to “give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi”, with the government stating that the Treaty is a Crown obligation, not one for parent volunteers. In practice, that phrase became a gateway for political content well beyond what many families consider appropriate for classrooms.
The government’s move was about refocusing schools on fundamentals: literacy, numeracy, attendance and behaviour – the things parents consistently say matter most. Describing that as an ‘attack on Māori’ is exactly the kind of rhetorical escalation voters are rejecting.
Yes, Stanford met with iwi. That’s part of being a responsible minister. Listening respectfully doesn’t mean handing over policy-making authority. Engagement is not the same as allowing interest groups to set education law for the whole country.
Māori Wards and Democratic Choice
McDonald points to the retention of Māori wards in some areas as proof of public support for his wider constitutional vision. It proves something else: New Zealanders value local choice.
Where communities wanted Māori wards, they voted to keep them. Where they didn’t, they voted them out. That’s democracy – even if the outcome isn’t always what activists prefer. Notably, referendums were only labelled ‘racist’ when they produced the ‘wrong’ result.
The pattern wasn’t ideological. It was practical, local and grounded in community priorities. That’s the kind of decision-making this government has moved back toward.
The Real Divide Isn’t Ethnic – It’s Practical vs Ideological
McDonald frames the government as “anti-Māori” while sidestepping the issues voters are actually focused on:
- the worst school attendance rates in decades
- falling academic achievement
- soaring grocery and power bills
- overstretched hospitals
- and a public sector increasingly crowded with consultants while frontline services struggle
People aren’t voting on academic theories. They’re voting on whether the country is functioning.
Most Māori families want what everyone else wants: safe neighbourhoods, decent schools, reliable healthcare and real opportunities to get ahead. These aren’t ‘culture wars’. They’re everyday expectations – and for many, they’ve been buried under layers of compulsory ritual, bureaucratic Treaty directives and identity-driven policymaking.
Moving Forward – Just Not the Way McDonald Imagines
McDonald argues that opposition to ideological policy is an imported ‘culture war’. But the push for race-based governance, ancestry-based co-governance and ever-expanding Treaty obligations owes more to activism than to everyday New Zealanders.
What voters are asserting is a simple, enduring, principle: equal citizenship, equal treatment under the law, and a public service judged by outcomes, not symbolism.
New Zealanders aren’t going backwards. They’re rejecting the idea that national identity and public policy must be filtered through a single ideological lens. They want a government that governs for everyone – not just for the loudest or most organised voices.
The government isn’t being ‘left behind’. It’s doing what voters elected it to do: bring the focus back to delivery, fairness and common sense.
And that – far from being backward – is how New Zealand actually moves forward together.
A version of this article was published on Breaking Views.
