Greg Bouwer
IINZ
When 21,000 secondary school teachers are set to strike, parents could be forgiven for assuming the focus is pay, workload, or classroom resources. Yet, according to Minister for Public Service Judith Collins, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) had something else at the top of its agenda when it met with the government this month: Palestine.
In an open letter to New Zealanders, Collins revealed that “the number one item on their agenda for a meeting with Education Minister Erica Stanford was Palestine. Not terms and conditions. Not student achievement. Not the new curriculum. Palestine.” She called the impending strike “politically motivated”, noting that it falls conveniently before a teacher-only day and Labour Weekend – maximising disruption while minimising lost paydays.
The PPTA president, Chris Abercrombie, has since confirmed that Palestine was indeed on the agenda, though he downplayed its priority. Even so, the very inclusion of a contentious foreign conflict in a meeting ostensibly about New Zealand education speaks volumes about how far some public unions have drifted from their professional remit.
A Classroom Agenda Disguised as Solidarity
This is not the first time the PPTA has waded into Middle Eastern politics. In recent years, the union has issued statements condemning Israel, called for “solidarity with Palestine”, and circulated educational materials framing the conflict in starkly one-sided terms. Such advocacy – under the banner of teachers’ representation – risks turning the classroom into a platform for political indoctrination rather than intellectual formation.
Teachers hold enormous influence over how young New Zealanders understand the world. With that comes responsibility: to teach students how to think, not what to think. Yet when a teachers’ union elevates “Palestine” to the top of its political agenda, it signals to thousands of educators that advocacy on an international conflict is part of their professional identity. It is not.
The Politicisation of the Profession
Unions have every right to advocate for fair pay and safe working conditions. What they do not have is a mandate to pursue ideological crusades unrelated to education. The creeping insertion of foreign political causes into teachers’ advocacy mirrors a wider trend across the public service, where institutions increasingly take positions on global issues – Israel, climate activism, colonialism – rather than focusing on the services they exist to deliver.
This politicisation corrodes public trust. Parents send their children to school expecting neutrality and professionalism, not exposure to imported narratives about the Middle East. When the union representing those teachers prioritises “Palestine” over pedagogy, it sends the opposite message: that activism trumps education.
A Distorted Moral Compass
New Zealand’s teachers’ union should be especially wary of adopting the language and symbolism of the “Free Palestine” movement, much of which is rooted in hostility to Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state. The slogans that dominate global protests – “From the river to the sea,” for example – are not calls for peace, but for Israel’s elimination. By aligning even rhetorically with such movements, educators risk amplifying a narrative that demonises one nation while excusing the terrorism of groups like Hamas.
It is telling that the PPTA sought to raise “Palestine” just weeks after the world marked the anniversary of Hamas’s 7 October massacre – a day when Israeli children, teachers, and families were murdered or kidnapped by the very militants whose cause the “Palestine” slogan now implicitly defends. For a teachers’ union to ignore that moral reality while using its platform to advance the Palestinian cause is not solidarity – it is selective empathy.
Keep Politics Out of the Classroom
New Zealand’s education system faces real challenges: declining literacy, overstretched teachers, and a widening gap in student achievement. These issues demand attention, not diversion. Every hour spent debating Palestine in Wellington is an hour not spent improving education for New Zealand children.
Public servants, and especially educators, must remain politically neutral in their professional roles. That is not censorship: it is civic duty. A healthy democracy depends on schools that nurture curiosity, not conformity.
The PPTA should return its focus to what it exists to do – support teachers and strengthen education – not to posture on the international stage. New Zealand’s classrooms are not political battlegrounds. They are places for learning, not lobbying.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
