May 11, 2022
ACT slash party a human rights attack
Race Relations commissioner Meng Foon says ACT’s adoption of separatist politics comes as a surprise.
ACT leader David Seymour has listed agencies he wants to scrap if he becomes part of the next Government, including the ministries for Māori, Pacific, and Women’s ethnic affairs.
He says it’s odd with previous ACT policies like charter schools, which were based on need.
“The reasons these ministries were set up is we need to support and uplift the people that have been suppressed in the past, whether it’s ethnic, the Ministry for Māori, the Ministry for Pacific, the new health authority, all those were set up because there had been problems before with inequities according to us in Human Rights,” Mr Foon says.
He says such political rhetoric raises the risk of inciting violence, which is one of the reasons the Human Rights Commission is pushing the Government to pass stronger hate speech laws.