Summarised by Centrist
Michael Laws has accused leading Māori academics of “almost traitorous” behaviour after they told the UN that New Zealand is a racist, backwards regime guilty of cultural genocide.
Laws called the claims “a woeful and appalling misrepresentation of equality and democracy.”
“There is no rights being stripped from Māori… one might well argue that Māori actually have more rights than non-Māori in this country,” he added.
Auckland law professor Claire Charters called the coalition’s agenda “the most regressive policies I have ever seen” and urged the UN to send a special rapporteur and impose the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on New Zealand.
“This is from Professor Claire Charters… funded agreeably by the New Zealand taxpayer… now selling us down the river,” said Laws.
Janelle Dymus-Kurei also criticised the government at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, accusing it of racial discrimination and dehumanising Māori patients by downplaying cultural training in clinical care.
He slammed the irony of publicly funded activists denouncing the very system that elevated them: “If this is the nature of Māori activism… to run this country down in international fora and seek the intervention of outside powers… then we’re in a pretty [bad] state.”
