TEU Opposes ACT Party's racist plan to abolish Waitangi Tribunal.

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."

ENDS