Open Letter: Standing In Solidarity With Te Pūkotahitanga
Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki, Te Whakaruruhau Waikato Women's Refuge and The Basket Hauraki (Tangata Tiriti Rōpū), stand in solidarity with Te Pūkotahitanga following the Crown's unilateral disbanding of this critical tangata whenua collective.
As collectives serving whānau across Hauraki and Waikato, we speak alongside our wider hapori and social service partners, in our concern about the Crown's ongoing failure to honour Te Tiriti based partnership and Te Aorerekura commitments.
What Happened
On 26 June 2025, Te Pūkotahitanga formally advised Minister Chhour of their decision to reclaim the gifted names Te Pūkotahitanga and Te Puna Aonui from all Crown use. These names were not branding assets but taonga, gifted with purpose, tikanga, and expectation. When the Crown failed to uphold those responsibilities, Te Pūkotahitanga exercised their customary right to reclaim them.
The following day, Minister Chhour announced she was disbanding Te Pūkotahitanga and dropping the names from government use, without acknowledging that tangata whenua had already reclaimed these taonga or the tikanga based reasoning behind this decision.
Upholding Te Tiriti Obligations
Te Pūkotahitanga was established under Te Aorerekura as a critical mechanism to ensure Māori led solutions, shared leadership, and cultural integrity in our national strategy to eliminate family and sexual violence. This is a serious breach of Te Tiriti obligations and Te Aorerekura commitments.
The reclaiming of the gifted names by tangata whenua leaders is not a political gesture. It is a tikanga based response to the Crown's failure to honour its responsibilities. Decisions of this significance must be made in partnership, not imposed unilaterally.
Supporting Māori Led Solutions
Our experience a cross our communities demonstrates that effective responses to violence require cultural frameworks that acknowledge whakapapa, whanaungatanga, and tikanga. We reject any suggestion that Māori names or tikanga based leadership exclude others.
Many of our hapori partners carry their own intergenerational experiences of violence, healing, and whakapapa responsibilities. We uphold tikanga not to exclude, but to ensure that solutions reflect the lived realities of the whānau most affected. The lived experience of tangata whenua IS the expertise required to address intergenerational trauma and violence and is essential to achieving the vision of Te Aorerekura. To remove this voice from national decision making is not just short sighted; it is grossly negligent when whānau safety is at stake.
Our Resolve
We, as collectives across Hauraki and Waikato, remain committed in our support for Māori led approaches and advocate for the reinstatement of meaningful Māori leadership mechanisms in national governance. We will continue our mahi to protect and heal our whānau through culturally grounded practices and call on the Crown to honour its Te Tiriti obligations.
We are not stepping back. We are stepping forward to protect the mana of our mokopuna.
Call for Accountability
We call on Minister Chhour and the Government to acknowledge the essential role of Te Tiriti based partnership in addressing family and sexual violence. They must reinstate meaningful mechanisms for tangata whenua leadership and recognise that effective solutions require the expertise and leadership of those most affected.
We will continue to stand with Te Pūkotahitanga and all those working to ensure that tangata whenua voices remain central to the kaupapa of ending family and sexual violence across Aotearoa.
Ngā manaakitanga
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In other words, the centre-right formula of holding the funding at current levels – and looking to the market and/or the community for extra money – is unlikely to result in (a) quality (b) diversity and (c) anything other than the recycling of the known and the safe. All of which would quickly erode the option value and the cultural capital of our art, both here and overseas. It would be self-defeating, in that it would diminish/destroy the value of the product. Besides…at the very worst, an added investment by the state in art and culture is certain to deliver better social and economic returns than gifting landlords with a $3 billion handout. Footnote : Australia is a wealthier country than New Zealand. Yet its artists hardly have it easy. According to the SMH article linked to above, the average annual income of professional artists in Australia is $A54,500, earned via insecure projects and commissions. A writer's average annual income is just $A18,000, and the median annual income for musicians is $A15,000. Plainly, starving in a garret for your art isn't a lifestyle ' choice' that died out at the end of the 19th century. Needing The Love There's no particular reason for linking to this, beyond it being an all-time favourite video. Oh baby lady girl. Art is its own reward :
