by Judy Gill
Across New Zealand, schools are declaring that they will “give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi” but what does it actually mean?
Many parents assume this means teaching New Zealand history or acknowledging Māori culture. In reality, in modern policy language, it means something far more structural.
To “give effect” to Te Tiriti generally means embedding Treaty ‘principles’ into governance, leadership, and decision-making. It often involves defining power-sharing arrangements, treating Māori as governance partners, and redesigning institutional systems around ‘Treaty-based’ frameworks.
This is not merely education. It is a constitutional and governance shift.
The idea of “partnership” is modern — not original
New Zealand did not operate as a partnership state for most of its history.
The modern concepts of “partnership”, “principles of the Treaty,” and co-governance emerged largely in the 1980s through court decisions and Waitangi Tribunal reports. These ideas are not written into the original 1840 texts.
What is happening now is not preservation of an old system. It is the adoption of a modern constitutional interpretation that remains highly contested within public debate.
School Zoning denies parents real choice
This is the crucial issue.
Families are legally compelled to send their children to their zoned state school, unless they can afford private or integrated alternatives.
In practice, parents now face only four options:
- Accept their ZONED co-governance state school
- Pay for private schooling
- Accept an integrated faith-based school
- Or home schooling.
That is not freedom. That is coercion through zoning.
If schools are fundamentally diverging in governance model, worldview, and constitutional philosophy, then zoning must not be used to trap families into schools they did not choose.
Parents must be emancipated from zoning where philosophical divergence exists.
Governance and consultation problems
Many Boards of Trustees have not held public meetings since the 4th November 2025 government announcement of law change, yet declarations have already been issued.
This raises serious questions:
- Were full board meetings held?
- Were votes taken?
- Were parent representatives consulted?
- Were families asked their views?
There appears to be no evidence of meaningful community consultation before these commitments were made.
Public schools do not belong to administrators. They belong to families and the public.
Structural failures inside Boards of Trustees
Boards depend almost entirely on unpaid parent volunteers.
Many schools struggle to attract candidates.
Many elections are uncontested.
Some boards cannot fill positions at all.
Where parent governance is weak, real authority naturally shifts to those who are:
- Paid
- Trained
- And present inside the system every day
This means professional education staff increasingly shape governance direction. This is not a criticism of principals and teachers. It is a structural design flaw.
Barriers to access and transparency
In many schools there is:
No public phone contact for the Board
No direct public email address
No transparent route to communicate directly with trustees
Parents are forced to funnel concerns through school offices.
There is no assurance concerns reach elected trustees.
That is not democratic governance.
Where real power now sits
The speed with which more than a thousand schools issued these declarations matters. It suggests decisions were driven administratively, not democratically.
When constitutional-level statements can be issued without visible parental mandate, the governance model no longer matches what parents were told it was.
This is the real issue.
Reform is necessary
If schools are adopting divergent constitutional and governance models, then:
- Parents must be clearly informed
- Zoning must not be used to trap families
- Governance must be transparent
- Community consent must be real
Either parent trustees must be paid and professionalised, or the governance model must be redesigned completely. Public education cannot function long-term without legitimacy.
Parents deserve transparency. Parents deserve choice. Parents deserve an education system that does not coerce them through zoning.
Below is one of 17 pages of the list of schools that are going to include so-called ‘principles’ of Te Tiriti (both Waikanae schools are on the list). Tania Waikato is a lawyer with stranglehold influence over NZ schools.
Seems like homeschooling is the best option but who can afford to have only one parent working ?
Home schooling has existed in NZ for about 45years and has become quite well organised with group activities. information and materials.
Really only 2-3 hours /day of school work, is enough to cover the basics of primary school. Quality workbooks mean children can work at their own pace . Eg are the Excel Australian workbooks and Scholastic workbooks both have answers. Singapore Maths and Khan Academy are free on line. There are generous American Universities like the university of Miami providing free materials for reading instruction in phonics and with reading books . .
Another alternative is to have children do workbooks everyday after school for a couple of hours and the weekends if they have after school activities.
Cooperation with other parents to share supervision of structured workbooks would be a good idea.
indoctrinating children into Maori gods is intolerable . What in all honesty does a primitive Maori spirituality offer our children ? Maori feature , disproportionately in bad social statistics like welfare , prison , child abuse and more . This indicates there is a lack of morality such as most of the maior religions have . It also appears to relate readily to Marxism and other destructive ideologies.