Yesterday the Act party posted on social media a comment about a tuākana room at the University of Auckland, calling it “segregated spaces.”
“Blocking access to spaces based on ethnicity has an ugly past and has no future in New Zealand,” the post said.
The party asked Auckland University and “any other” places to “explain to the Kiwis who pay their bills”.
Blocking access to spaces based on ethnicity has an ugly past and has no future in New Zealand. @AucklandUni and any others with segregated spaces owe an explanation to the Kiwis who pay their bills. pic.twitter.com/LcsK2COng2
— ACT New Zealand (@actparty) March 26, 2024
A Māori Pasifika student, who Te Ao News will refer to as Hone for privacy reasons, said the comment was laughable.
“We’re paying money to be here so, if he’s saying that this is a waste of taxpayer money, I think he’s dead wrong because we’re paying money to enjoy these facilities, to make the most of our university’s haerenga.
“To say we’re wasting taxpayers’ money is actually quite laughable,” he said.
The Act party using the word ‘segregated’ was “disheartening” to Hone because tuākana rooms are designed for Māori and Pasifika as “we are the minority”.
“We unfortunately do feel like second-class citizens in our own country and so these spaces are wāhi tapu. These are spaces for us to feel at home and to feel welcome in our own skin.”
Act leader David Seymour stood by the post his party made, and he even retweeted it.
“Once you start putting up signs that say, you know Māori-only, Pacific-only, whites-only, if you can’t see that that’s distasteful, then I’m not sure how else to persuade you,” Seymour said.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is in support of the tuākana room.
“I’m really disgusted at what this government continues allowing itself to do, which is the marginalisation and the continual discrimination of our people who need to have their own space,” she said.
Hone said his message to Seymour would be to leave Māori and Pasifika people alone.
“Let Māori and Pasifika do what we want to do to sustain our people. We know what we need to do.
“There are going to be mistakes and things we must fix and that’s not for them or the government to be meddling with our wāhi tapu, our tūrangawaewae.”