OPINION

There are some folk who haven’t realised that Kiwis rejected racism, separatism, and segregation at the last election. The parties which promoted those policies, Labour, Green and Maori, got bundled out of office. Now a storm has erupted over a sign at Auckland University.

Act got into the debate, as has Winston Peters:

Imagine if that sign said something different:

This is the exact thing that Winston Peters warned about in his State of the Nation speech, which the media widely condemned, but most people agree with Peters.

Now, I could have some fun, get all camera’d up and go in there and wait for the ensuing fuss to occur, at which point I will point out that I am actually Fijian.

The response from other parties is as sad as it is predictable:

Labour’s tertiary education spokesperson, Dr Deborah Russell, said there is a long standing need to ensure more Maori and Pasifika students enrol in university education and complete their qualification. “If providing spaces where Maori and Pasifika students can meet helps with enabling them to complete their degrees, then it’s worth doing so.”

Green Party Maori development spokesperson, Huhana Lyndon, said: “We support designated safe spaces for tauira [students] to gather to freely express themselves and their cultural practices in an academic setting. This is integral to supporting student well-being and academic achievement.”

A Te Pati Maori spokesperson called ACT’s assertion “damaging and inflammatory“, and an attempt to misrepresent tangata whenua and paint a picture of preferential treatment for Maori. Safe spaces for minority groups in university aren’t new, the spokesperson said. ”Creating safe spaces to empower minority communities to thrive and achieve whilst creating a sense of interconnectedness should be celebrated.“

Stuff

Their responses are racist, disabling, patronising and pathetic. They actually want segregation and access based on race!

It says that Maori and Pasifika students are so dumb they need “safe spaces” because they are “special”.

Winston Peters speaks plainly:

New Zealand First leader, and Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters said that if true, the setting aside of space for a group “is the seed of segregation”. Some universities have become “a haven of woke cultural brainwashing” and “try to justify their actions by attributing it to some sort of ‘moral cultural crusade’ and wilfully ignore the direct comparisons to the KKK and the apartheid way of thinking where we are divided by race”.

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There is no place in New Zealand for this nonsense and Auckland University needs to pull their collective heads in. The Government should look at any and all funding Auckland University gets from the Government and they need to communicate with Auckland University that the funding is at risk.

This crap needs to stop and stop fast. It is creating division when there is no need for division.

Enough is enough.

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As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news,...