The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) opposes the ACT
Party’s recent policy announcement that would disestablish
the Waitangi Tribunal.
“This is more regression that
reeks of MAGA-style politics which ought to find no home in
Aotearoa,” says TEU National President-Māori Garrick
Cooper.
Cooper, who is also an Associate Professor in
Māori Studies at the University of Canterbury says, “Te
Tiriti o Waitangi is the foundational document of this
nation, and indeed the foundation of Parliament
itself.”
“The role of the Waitangi Tribunal is to
provide a check against the government’s excesses and
transgressions of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. These transgressions
are not only historical but ongoing.”
Cooper says the
ACT Party’s policy would remove this oversight.
“With
this policy, what ACT is saying is they want to abolish Te
Tiriti o Waitangi. If that’s what the ACT Party want they
should be more honest about something so foundationally
consequential.”
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