Quakers in Auckland and north write to Party Leaders reaffirming their commitment to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Northern Monthly Meeting (NT)

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

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