Goals conference a success.

May 27, 2025

Hau Taki Haere | Tertiary Update Vol 29, No 9

Another successful Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union annual conference was held last week at Wellington’s Brentwood Hotel.

Most delegates agreed that the best highlights were the two pay equity protests we participated in – one organised by the CTU on Parliament’s grounds prior to the budget, and the other our own on the intersection of Cobham Drive and Evans Bay Parade as airport traffic from all over Aotearoa drove past tooting in support.

But the conference wasn’t all about today’s struggles. We also had hard future focussed mahi to do. Most importantly, delegates were tasked with coming up with and prioritising relevant and achievable goals for our union to aim for over the next five years.

After two days of discussion and deliberation, the conference floor passed four key goals designed to ensure we:

Further integrate the intent of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in everything we do.
Fight for an accessible, inclusive and public tertiary education sector.
Ensure we are an accessible and inclusive union of active and engaged members.
Achieve ethnic and gender pay equity and pay parity across the sector.

On the Te Tiriti goal, Santana Ammunson, a conference delegate and Te Uepū Representative from Toi Ohomai says “being a strong Tiriti-led union is a natural promotion of equity and fairness. To be co-governed highlights the mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation our members exert — whether they are tangata Māori or tangata Tiriti — fostering a more inclusive and united society. Tātou, tātou e!”

Locke Unhold from Otago Polytechnic is especially proud of our commitment to ensure we are a more accessible and inclusive sector and union. He says “We have seen from recent Stats NZ and Counting Ourselves data that an increasing number of our population identify as LGBTQIA+, and specifically as gender diverse. We must keep fighting to ensure that our tertiary education system is not only welcoming and accessible for these people, but champions their unique perspectives. As a transgender worker, I wish I had been able to see more people like me in tertiary education when I was younger.”

On becoming a union with more members who are active and engaged, Brent Burmester, Branch Co-President at Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland says “the TEU’s strength is a function of its members’ active citizenship. Union membership is not like joining Airpoints so you get access to the Koru lounge – it’s a commitment to link arms with your colleagues to become something stronger. Membership for the discounts and the free advocacy in workplace disputes plays right into the hands of our employers who take the same transactional view of the world.”

And Dadon Rowell, member of TEU’s National Women’s Committee and Branch Co-President at Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato | The University of Waikato is “thrilled that our conference identified pay equity as a priority goal for TEU. It shows that this coalition has only strengthened our commitment to achieving pay equity for all workers in female-dominated workplaces, and that legislative changes will not deter us from ensuring that our systemically targeted comrades/colleagues are treated with dignity and renumerated fairly for the incredible mahi they do.”

The goals will now be finalised by the TEU’s governing Council and reported back to members later this year.

Goals conference a success.

Hau Taki Haere | Tertiary Update Vol 29, No 9

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