Quakers in Auckland and north write to Party Leaders reaffirming their commitment to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi
Quakers
Te Hāhi Tūhauwiri
The Religious Society of Friends – Aotearoa New Zealand
Northern Monthly Meeting
115 Mt Eden Rd
Auckland 1024
Aotearoa New Zealand
Email:clerk@nt.quakers.nz
To:
Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister and Leader of the National Party
David Seymour, Leader of ACT
Winston Peters, Leader of NZ First
Chris Hipkins, Leader of Labour Party
Marama Davidson, Co-Leader of the Greens
James Shaw, Co-Leader of the Greens
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Co-Leader of Te Pati Māori
Rawiri Waititi, Co-Leader of Te Pati Māori
And copied to MPs whose electorate is north of the Bombays
Kia ora koutou
Northern Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) wishes to affirm our
commitment to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
We will continue to work towards honouring, supporting, and enabling the promises made in Te
Tiriti, the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand, and we call on all people to do likewise.
We disagree with the proposed policy direction of the coalition government, which will
undermine the rights of Māori as agreed in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We are deeply disappointed and
concerned that this policy direction will result in a major step backwards in the ways in which we
give effect to te Tiriti in our constitutional arrangements.
From our experiences we believe there is nothing to fear from the prospect of Māori being
empowered to take control of their own affairs and manage them in their own ways. This is what
was agreed to with the signing of Te Tiriti, which is a living document. We value te reo Māori as
te reo rangatira, a taonga and one of our national languages. We commit, to the best of our
abilities, to using te reo Māori words and phrases as part of our everyday language.
Toitū te Tiriti
Lesley Young
Clerk
Northern Monthly Meeting