Yearly Meeting Statements

Yearly Meeting Statements:

From time to time, Quakers in Aotearoa/New Zealand have found it necessary to issue statements on topical issues of social concern. These arise from our long-held Testimonies of peace, integrity, simplicity, equality, sustainability and community, and are often prepared at Yearly Meetings. They may be published as embodying the current view of the national body.

Yearly Meeting Statements form part of the Quaker Handbook (Appendix 1). 

A. PEACE

• STATEMENT ON INDEFENSIBLE AGGRESSION TOWARDS PALESTINIANS IN GAZA, Made by Yearly Meeting May 2025
• LEST WE FORGET, Statement made by Yearly Meeting 2014. On the eve of commemorations of World War I, Quakers in Aotearoa New Zealand are concerned that history is not reinvented to glorify war.
• STATEMENT ON PEACE, Made by Yearly Meeting 1987

B. TREATY ISSUES

• STATEMENT ON TANGATA WHENUA RIGHTS AND THE CONSTITUTION, Made by Yearly Meeting 2008
• STATEMENT ON MAORI-PAKEHA ISSUES, Made by Yearly Meeting 1995
• STATEMENT ON BI-CULTURAL ISSUES, Made by Yearly Meeting 1988-89

C. RELATIONSHIPS

• WALKING IN THE LIGHT UNDER THE RAINBOW: A QUAKER STATEMENT OF COMMITMENT AND INCLUSION, 2023
• STATEMENT OF AFFIRMATION AND RECONCILIATION, Made by Yearly Meeting 1992

D. SOCIETY

• A CALL TO ACTION AFTER COVID-19, Agreed by Yearly Meeting during 2020
• STATEMENT - TOWARDS TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE, 1999
• STATEMENT OF SOCIAL CONCERN, Made by Yearly Meeting 1998

E. ENVIRONMENT

• STATEMENT ON ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY, Made by Yearly Meeting 2000

F. ECUMENISM

• STATEMENT ON ECUMENISM, Made by Yearly Meeting 2003