Reflections from STIR’s Shadow Report to CERD: When the Crown steps away fromTiriti and racial justice

It has been more than a decade since we formed STIR – Stop Institutional Racism, a collective of public-health practitioners, scholars, and activists committed to ending racism in the health systems meant to care for us. Our latest shadow report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) lays bare what many of us already know: the Crown has chosen regression over Tiriti and racial justice.

Across constitutional, policy, environmental, and health domains, we are witnessing the deliberate re-entrenchment of colonial power. Successive governments have shelved transformative pathways such as Matike Mai Aotearoa and He Puapua, preferring to preserve a system where Pākehā institutions continue to dominate Māori futures. This is not policy drift – it is an intentional refusal to share power.

At the heart of this regression is the Crown’s ongoing denial of tino rangatiratanga affirmed in the Waitangi Tribunal WAI 1040 report. By ignoring Matike Mai Aotearoa – which offered multiple Tiriti-consistent models of shared governance – and burying He Puapua, the government has signalled that Māori participation will continue to be conditional on Crown permission. It breaches not only Te Tiriti but also CERD and UNDRIP obligations that demand equality in public and political life.

Decolonisation is not optional; it’s a legal and moral requirement. Yet, in Aotearoa 2025, we still have a governance system designed to exclude Māori authority. Two Cabinet Circulars illustrate how this backlash works. CO(19)5 repackaged Te Tiriti through the narrow “principles” lens, redefining partnership as consultation. CO(24)5 went further, directing public servants to design services on “needs, not race.”

Both sound neutral, even benevolent. Both are deeply racist. As our analysis in Ethnicities (Came et al., 2025) shows, these policies erase the structural nature of racism, strip collective Māori rights from their constitutional base, and recast equity measures as unfair advantages. Together they form a bureaucratic mechanism of recolonisation – polite, procedural, and devastatingly effective.

The so-called Fast-track Approvals Bill and Regulatory Standards Bill further concentrate decision-making in ministerial hands, prioritising corporate interests over community and environmental wellbeing. Both omit Te Tiriti entirely. Both sideline Māori leadership. Both repeat the old colonial pattern: extractive industries flourish while whenua, wai, and whānau bear the costs.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking regression has been in health. After decades of evidence, advocacy, and Tribunal findings, Te Aka Whai Ora – the Māori Health Authority – was finally established to begin righting systemic inequities. Its disestablishment in 2025 represents a profound betrayal of Māori health rights.

It tells every Māori provider, clinician, and patient that the Crown values control more than equity. We’ve seen the same pattern across cancer screening, prevention, and workforce equity: inequitable funding, pay gaps, weak accountability, and token representation. The result is predictable – Māori die younger, wait longer, and are paid less.

Our report also shines light on tāngata whaikaha Māori and takatāpui communities, whose experiences of racism intersect with ableism, cis-heteronormativity, and state neglect. Generic disability and rainbow policies erase Māori worldviews, leaving whānau without culturally safe care or recognition. True equity means confronting these intersections, not papering them over with “one-size-fits-all” rhetoric.

Despite years of recommendation, Aotearoa still has no National Action Plan on Racism. Without a Tiriti-grounded plan, antiracism work remains piecemeal – a patchwork of pilots that neither redistribute power nor demand accountability. CERD called for coordinated action. The Crown responded with silence.

We are not powerless. Our report calls for clear, practical steps:

• Endorse Matike Mai Aotearoa as the foundation for constitutional transformation.

• Reinstate Te Aka Whai Ora with independent powers.

• Withdraw CO(24)5 and rewrite policy guidance to require genuine shared authority.

• Co-design a National Action Plan on Racism grounded in Te Tiriti and UNDRIP, with Māori-led monitoring and enforceable targets.
  

These are not radical demands – they are the minimum requirements of justice. STIR’s work has always been about truth-telling. Our 2025 report is not a cry of despair but a call to courage. It reminds us that honourable kāwanatanga – the kind that upholds Te Tiriti and human rights – is still possible. But it will not come from within the machinery of the Crown; it will come from us – from the people, from iwi, hapū, and movements that refuse to forget the promises made in 1840 and renewed in every generation since.