MATUA KAHURANGI: The PPTA’s political circus
- Administrator
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
Teachers turn activists on the public’s dime
The Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) used to represent educators. Today, it’s a political pressure group masquerading as a union, and its latest stunt confirms just how far it’s drifted from neutrality.
The PPTA is now selling Toitū Te Tiriti merchandise through its website - complete with slogans, banners, and talking points straight from political activism. This isn’t about education. It’s about ideology. When a union openly campaigns against government policy and pushes one side of a divisive constitutional debate, it abandons its duty to represent all teachers, regardless of their political beliefs.
Their so-called Toitū Te Tiriti campaign is “centred in Te Ao Māori” and aims to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill, oppose removal of Te Tiriti references in legislation, and build union cultural capacity. In other words, it’s a political manifesto disguised as professional development. The PPTA isn’t just lobbying for teachers - it’s lobbying for a particular leftist worldview, and doing so under the banner of education.
When they’re not busy printing merchandise, PPTA members are on the streets waving rainbow flags during strikes - strikes that leave classrooms empty and parents scrambling for childcare. Those same flags appear in their Rainbow Resources section online, where teachers are urged to make schools “more inclusive” for “students of diverse sexualities, gender identities and sex characteristics.”
Inclusion has been twisted into indoctrination. Instead of focusing on literacy and numeracy, teachers are being encouraged to play amateur psychologists, guiding children into complex identity politics that have no place in the classroom. Kids don’t need ideological grooming - they need reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Parents have every right to feel frustrated. When schools become battlegrounds for political causes, education suffers. When teachers’ unions become campaign headquarters, trust evaporates. And when the people paid to teach our children spend their time marching with banners and selling political merchandise, it’s not just unprofessional, it’s a bloody insult to every taxpayer who funds the system.
The PPTA loves to talk about “building cultural capacity” and “affirming diversity.” What they never talk about is academic performance, discipline, or preparing students for the real world. Perhaps because those things don’t fit neatly on a t-shirt.
Matua Kahurangi writes here
Doug M - how dare you question Matua Kahurangi’s bona fides. He’s obviously a Māori criticising Māori racism (and the political nonsense spouted by idiots like the PPTA). Because he’s Māori he can say things that others think but dare not write for fear of being called racist. Personally I don’t care who he is. He writes well and calls it out for what it is. Keep it up.
In general terms, the teachers tend to be left-leaning so I can understand that many of them dislike the current government.
However, their union does appear to have drifted into ideology and politics, compared to the expected curriculums and education priorities.
I agree that the banners and merch suggest that the PPTA isn’t neutral.
As I’ve noted elsewhere, the Govt is not perfect but they are working to retrieve a battered economy.
In time, hopefully everyone will enjoy higher salaries and better conditions, but we have a way to go.
Its like labour hasn't stopped destroying our country. When people compare moving to Australia in economic terms, they seem to overlook these aspects. A kid in Australia can focus on learning rather than cultural indoctrination. The news on TV is English, not Minglish. Up until a few years ago I would try and hold the departing back, but its fruitless now. Parks are apparently too Colonial, Beaches and Coastal areas will surely end up out of bounds, and the fish in the ocean based on racial exclusivity.
Ah....that will explain why Chris Abercrombie - President of the PPTA - wears a greenstone pendant and has a photo online wearing a ceremonial cloak. More woke BS!
“…it’s lobbying for a particular leftist worldview”
The only way change will happen is if more parents start pushing back: homeschooling, charter schools, and calling for fewer strikes, teacher-only days and halting all the ‘rainbow’ ideas.