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Summarised by Centrist
Asked whether he takes the UN report warning that New Zealand is “weakening Māori rights” seriously, David Seymour replied: “No.” Why not? “Because it’s the United Nations.”
“Let’s be realistic. This is an organisation that puts people from Zimbabwe in charge of the environment, that has people from Middle Eastern countries that have no regard for women’s rights, go on the Human Rights Council. I mean, the UN’s a joke,” he said.
Seymour argued that if Māori activists were taking their complaints offshore, it may reflect the weakness of those claims rather than the strength of the UN’s findings.
“It’s just a bunch of activists who didn’t get a hearing in their own country going and lecturing others,” he told reporters.
Pressed on whether external voices should help shape New Zealand’s race relations policy, Seymour doubled down.
“There aren’t many countries that should lecture New Zealand on race relations,” he said.
He pointed to his time living overseas:
“Canada has no right to lecture New Zealand on race relations. Australia… the United States… none of them have the kind of settler–indigenous relations that New Zealand has.”
Seymour said the UN still has narrow functions worth keeping, identifying refugees, providing a global forum, and running practical agencies like the Food and Agriculture Organization, but that its political interventions should be ignored.
“Whenever they get into political causes and try to tell us how to run our country… that’s a joke.”
