Education Minister Erica Stanford says Hobson’s Pledge is spouting "utter garbage". Photo / Mark Mitchell
Lobby group Hobson’s Pledge and Education Minister Erica Stanford have clashed over a claim the minister is sneaking a “radical” Treaty of Waitangi clause into legislation.
The allegation has been rejected by Stanford, who criticised Hobson’s Pledge for whipping up “hatred”, “frothing at the mouth”, and “spouting complete and utter garbage, lies”.
The lobby group says it is “not backing down on this”, but has acknowledged the clause already exists in legislation.
The group’s issue now appears to be that the clause is being elevated to “paramount” status, despite the legislation referring to it as a “supporting objective”.
The Government says it’s already reviewing these types of Treaty clauses through a workstream Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has set up.
But the Act Party revealed on Monday that it wanted the education Treaty clause removed immediately. Instead, it had to settle with it being dealt with in the wider review.
The heated war of words revolves around Section 127 in the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2), a piece of legislation proposed by Stanford making changes to the current law that governs New Zealand’s education system.
Section 127 – as it already stands in law – outlines the objectives of school boards. The board’s “primary objectives” currently include ensuring every student is at school to “attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement”, the school is “physically and emotionally safe”, and they cater for students of different needs.
The current law also says one of the “primary objectives” is to ensure “the school gives effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
This should be done, according to the law, by having plans, policies and local curriculum that “reflect local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori”, taking reasonable steps to make instruction available in “tikanga Māori and te reo Māori”, as well as “achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students”.
The bill introduced by Stanford in April makes several changes to this section.
Section 127 in Stanford’s legislation refers to the “paramount objective of boards in governing schools”. It says a “paramount objective” means “the highest-priority objective”.
“A board’s paramount objective in governing a school is to ensure that every student at the school is able to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement,” the bill says.
Following this, the modified Section 127 says to fulfill this “paramount objective”, a board must meet several “supporting objectives”. A “supporting objective” is one that “is essential and supports the paramount objective”.
While some of these objectives are worded slightly differently to the current law, they follow similar principles around ensuring students attend school when it’s open, student progress and achievement is assessed and schools take steps to eliminate racism, stigma, bullying and other discrimination.
There is also a responsibility to ensure “the school gives effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
However, unlike the current law which calls this a “primary objective”, in this new piece of legislation it is a “supporting objective”.
The way this should be achieved is essentially the same as the current law but puts “achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students” at the top of the list.
Hobson’s Pledge began drawing attention to Section 127 last week.
In an email last Wednesday, trustee Elliot Ikilei – a former leader of the New Conservatives political party – described Stanford as National’s “wokest” minister and alleged she had “quietly introduced a radical rewrite of our school governance laws”.
He pointed to the “rewritten” Section 127, which he claimed represented “one of the boldest attempts yet to entrench co-governance and identity politics in the classroom”.
“Erica Stanford has slipped this radical section into the legislation — and yes, she did it quietly.
“No fanfare, no press release, and certainly no warning to the public,” Ikilei said, though there was a press release announcing the bill in April.
“Just a quiet move that will force every school board in the country to reflect ‘local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori’ in their policies, plans, and classroom teaching.”
He said the bill was not a “minor amendment”, but a “full-blown cultural mandate”.
In the minister's own words... If you have concerns about section 127 send Erica Stanford an email here www.stopstanfordssneakysellout.nz
Posted by Hobson's Pledge on Wednesday 25 June 2025
The email called on supporters to email the minister and other politicians to make their views clear. A website called “Stop Stanford’s Sneaky Sell-out” was also launched helping people submit and the group began posting about the matter on its social media channels.
One post from Hobson’s Pledge on Thursday included a video of Stanford speaking at a select committee about Section 127 and her desire to prioritise achievement.
Asked if her changes devalued the Treaty, Stanford said she disagreed.
“It is still there. It is still a crucial contributing factor to achieving student outcomes and student achievement,” the minister said.
She said she was proud of re-ordering the clause to put “achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students” at the top of the part about giving effect to the Treaty.
“If you want to honour the Treaty, making sure there are equitable outcomes for tamariki Māori is crucial. That is why we are doing all the things we are doing in our education reform package,” Stanford said.
The Education Minister appeared on Newstalk ZB on Friday to address the claims coming from Hobson’s Pledge.
Asked about outrage over her proposal, Stanford said: “This is what happens when you get a bunch of people who get all whipped up with hatred and frothing at the mouth and spouting complete and utter garbage lies”.
“I get sent emails and messages and all sorts of things telling me what an awful person I am, but all based on complete and utter rubbish, complete lies.”
She said giving effect to the Treaty “was an existing clause”, but acknowledged there were “some legitimate questions raised” about whether it was needed.
“This whole piece of work has been included in the work that Paul Goldsmith is doing with his review of treaty clauses, not only in the Education Act, but in lots of pieces of legislation. So, they’re all up in arms about absolutely nothing.”
Stanford said there are several references to the Treaty throughout the current law beyond Section 127.
“You take it out of there, it exists somewhere else. That’s why we need to have a proper, thorough review of all of these clauses, where they sit, what is the purpose, and what are they leading to,” she said.
Following Stanford’s radio interview, Hobson’s Pledge sent out another email acknowledging the minister’s remarks and calling on her to remove the reference to boards’ Treaty obligations.
“In response to Minister Stanford’s claim that the clause was already in the Act and she didn’t sneak it in, I will say this; yes, the clause the existed, but Stanford’s Amendment Bill elevates it to ‘paramount’ status.”
However, the legislation is clear in that it is a “supporting objective” and differentiates that from the “paramount objective” of ensuring students “attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement”.
Speaking to the Herald on Monday, Ikilei said the difference between it being a “supporting” and “paramount” objective was “a nonsensical distraction”.
“What we should be focusing on is [science, technology, engineering and mathematics], is linguistic capacity, is the ability for our children to be highly literate,” he said.
“What we need to do is focus on our educational achievement, not for subjective activist-based beliefs on what the Treaty may or may not be involved in.”
Asked about the minister’s response to the lobby group, Ikilei said: “We don’t care about personal insults, we care that our children should be treated as equals”.
According to its weekly newsletter, the Act Party argued the clause should be removed now, but had to settle to it being included in the wider Treaty clause review.
Speaking to the Herald, Act leader David Seymour said it wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Act would prefer to remove the clause straight away.
“But we are also team players in a coalition Government and not everything goes the way that Act wants,” he said.
Seymour said education should be for children’s benefit and to provide them with skills that are essential in the 21st century.
“When it comes to cultural and spiritual beliefs, those aren’t essential. They are things that some people sign up to,” he said.
He didn’t believe anyone should “be forced to learn about a set of spiritual beliefs or culture because somebody else thinks it’s important for them”.
The Treaty clause “competes” with the objective of prioritising achievement, Seymour said.
“This morning, I gave an opening speech to the Medical Technology Association of NZ, and I told them that I want NZ to be a centre of science and technology to solve our healthcare problems,” he said.
“We’re never going to achieve that if we don’t get serious teaching kids proper academic knowledge.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the Government wanted to deal with the Treaty clauses in a “comprehensive and co-ordinated way” rather than “touching it on every single piece of legislation, every time we make a change”.
“We would sooner comprehensively deal with it in one go and through a proper process,” Luxon said.
He emphasised the changes to the education legislation were about ensuring the school boards were focused on academic achievement.
Goldsmith, speaking at a press conference on Monday, said the review of Treaty clauses is under way with a panel appointed to consider them. He said there were about 20 pieces of legislation being scrutinised.
“We want to be clear about we do and what we don’t mean,” he said.
Also at that press conference was NZ First leader Winston Peters, who jumped in to say: “If they should be there, they will be there. If they shouldn’t be there, they won’t be”.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said it was a “good thing” for school boards to “be asking the question, ‘why are Māori kids not achieving at the same level as non-Māori kids?’”
He said removing that clause would be a “step backwards”.
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. In 2025, he was a finalist for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.
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