THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DICKSON DOWN

We can only hope it really is darkest before the dawn

New Zealand’s High Court has upheld a five year ban on a woman pursuing her career as a real estate agent. The victim of the ban is Janet Dickson. New Zealand’s Real Estate Authority (REA) banned Janet because she refused to take a 1.5 hour training course called “Te Kākano”. REA made the Te Kākano course compulsory, and refused to exempt Janet from it. Te Kākano is part of REA’s “Diversity and inclusion” series.

Te Kākano tries to force real estate agents to subscribe to an assortment of mystical Māori ideas that we’ll call “Māori Metaphysics”.

Māori Metaphysics holds that there are two radically different types of people in New Zealand. There are people who, by sheer accident of birth, just happen to have an ancestor who was descended from the original Polynesian inhabitants of New Zealand (who lived in perfect harmony with nature, and each other). These racially stereotyped humans must now collectively be labelled as a unity called “Māori”.

The other type of New Zealanders comprise all the other (non-Māori) inhabitants of these South Pacific islands, who form a diametrically different unity – “Tangata Tiriti” - and who are only here with the revocable permission of Māori.

And these two factions of humans are in an eternal race-based “partnership”. This Treaty Partnership has been invented in the last 30 years or so. It’s all completely crazy. And you’re being forced to believe in this religion of Māori Metaphysics even if you’re not Māori.

Māori Metaphysics is a religious belief system that’s a long way from Christianity, which is partly why Janet, a Christian, refused to take the course. Janet also maintains, quite correctly, that “Te Kākano” would not improve her performance as a real estate agent, not one iota. And, to be clear, Janet has absolutely nothing against Māori people or culture. She grew up in a distinctly Maori community and can speak some Māori.

The High Court’s decision has dispelled any notion that radical race activism and Critical Race Theory are confined to New Zealand’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeal.

The judge who conspired with REA to cancel Dickson and end her career is Helen McQueen. Frightening McQueen is deeply steeped in Wokery. She was a partner at Chapman Tripp, the major New Zealand law firm currently locked in fierce competition with another law firm, Minter Ellison, for the title of Wokest Law Firm in Aotearoa. She then worked for six years at New Zealand’s laughably Woke Law Commission before scoring her Judgeship in 2022.

“Te Kākano” means “the seed” in the Maori language. It’s an apt name for the course, given the course aims to sow real estate agents’ minds with Maori Metaphysics (brain tubers).

But “Te Kākano” is just a tiny part of a much wider societal contagion where professional and industry bodies are trying to force workforces to believe certain State-sponsored orthodoxies about Māori things .

The untenable myths espoused in the Te Kākano course include the following:

• There is monolithic group of “Māori” humans in New Zealand, who all share an identical “Māori world view”.

• The Te Kākano course materials cast the usual spurious doubt on whether Māori ceded sovereignty to a unitary central government. The fact is that there’s absolutely no objective, historical doubt that Māori willingly and knowingly ceded sovereignty. The first Article of the English version of the Treaty of Waitangi states:

The Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand and the separate and independent Chiefs who have not become members of the Confederation cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which the said Confederation or Individual Chiefs respectively exercise or possess, or may be supposed to exercise or to possess over their respective Territories as the sole sovereigns thereof.

The first article of the Māori language version of the Treaty, and it’s translation into English (Professor Kawharu’s authoritative translation in the Report of the Royal Commission on Social Policy, Wellington, 1988), states:

Ko nga Rangatira o te wakaminenga me nga Rangatira katoa hoki ki hai i uru ki taua wakaminenga ka tuku rawa atu ki te Kuini o Ingarani ake tonu atu - te Kawanatanga katoa o o ratou wenua. [“Kawangatanga” means “governance”]

The chiefs of the Confederation and all the chiefs who have not joined that Confederation give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land.

• The Te Kākano course materials state “All the Treaty principles have originated from, and been developed by, non-Māori based institutions”. Really? The Waitangi Tribunal, which invented and continues to invent these ephemeral Treaty principles, is a “non-Māori based institution”? What about the Maori Ministries at all New Zealand’s universities, who all uniformly buy into the Treaty Principles construct? Get real.

• Do all people with Maori ancestry really believe that a Sky-Father separated from an Earthmother, or that trees and birds are their superiors?

“The traditional story of the separation of Ranginui (Sky-Father) and Papatūānuku (Earthmother) is an insight into a Māori worldview which convey values, relationships, origins, and the connection to the environment.

Māori can trace genealogy from Rangi and Papa (the primal parents) through their children, ngā kaitiaki tiketike the supreme guardians, right down to the present generations. This means if we trace the generations from Rangi and Papa through Tāne the supreme guardian of the forests, Māori are related to the children of Tāne – all the trees and birds. The trees and birds are therefore our tuakana (superiors), they are superior to humans because of their upper position in the lineage. Like all superiors and ancestors it is tika the right way, to treat them with respect.”

Do all Māori entertain an alleged taboo on sitting on pillows, or putting hats on tables? Of course not.

“Pillows: Avoid sitting directly on pillows or cushions. They can however be used to prop up your back.

Hats: Avoid putting hats on food tables. Why? This is linked to the idea that heads are tapu so anything that relates to heads, like pillows or hats, should also be treated carefully.”

You can read the 50 something page High Court decision here Dickson v Real Estate Agents Authority [2025] NZHC 50 — Courts of New Zealand. But for those with better things to do, here are some of the most flawed aspects of the decision.

As a Crown entity, REA is legally required to exercise its functions, powers and duties consistently with the Bill of Rights Act 1990. Under that Act, “Everyone [including Janet Dickson] has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and to hold opinions without interference”.

Judge McQueen contrived to find that REA’s attempt to coerce Janet to convert to Māori Metaphysics – on pain of ending her career and with Māori Metaphysics directly clashing with Janet’s own sincerely-held thoughts, conscience, religion, and beliefs – somehow didn’t breach Janet’s Bill of Rights freedoms. McQueen’s essential - albeit covert - stance is that Critical Race Theory, as reflected in Te Kākano, is an indisputable, immutable truth – as opposed to a bat shit crazy, divisive, unscientific ideology.

McQueen couches her decision in the absurd notion that the REA must force Dickson to do Te Kākano in order to “protect” “consumers” of Janet’s real estate services:

“Ms Moffat [REA chief executive officer] says that the Authority sees its continuing education programme as an important part of the Authority’s consumer protection work.”

In her 2022 memo to REA’s Board in support of Te Kākano, Wombat Moffat asserts the myth of New Zealand biculturalism, the absurd suggestion that New Zealand has two human cultures, one for people with Maori ancestry, and another for…all the rest (“classic” Pakeha, ethnic Indians, Asians, South Africans, Dalmatians, Dutchies…):

“Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a founding document for New Zealand's bi-cultural country”

McQueen reverentially defers to someone called Mr Gulliver. In Gulliver’s travels, he was apparently “manager of projects at the Wānanga” when Te Kākano was developed. The “Wānanga” is Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, the outfit that REA engaged to produce and deliver Te Kākano. According to Gulliver’s written “evidence” to the High Court:

Getting offside in a relationship is not a good start for any real estate agent, and we wanted to provide some tikanga and knowledge that could keep real estate agents culturally safe in these spaces.

This is yet another example of the cancerous “cultural safety” nonsense that riddles Wokery.

The Wānanga states in the Te Kākano course materials “We are excited to gift some of our knowledge on te reo Māori (Māori language), tikanga (protocol), and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi)”. But of course, Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi didn’t gift anything, for two unimpeachable reasons. First, in order to gift something, one must first own it. And nothing in the Te Kākano materials was or is owned by the Wānanga; it’s all just the customary rag bag of bog standard “progressive” Maori mantras. Secondly, a gift must be given for free, and the Wānanga was paid for its role in Te Kākano, probably handsomely. Do you ever wonder how much money changes hands, very year, in New Zealand’s Great Race Grift?

REA’s lawyer was King’s Counsel Andrew Butler. Andrew is personally pleasant, and woefully Woke. In 2016 he co-authored – with Sir Geoffrey Palmer – a book proposing a written constitution for New Zealand, with the Treaty of Waitangi in some amorphous way claiming centre stage. The last chapter of the book is entitled “Constitution Aotearoa in English and te reo Māori”, which sums it all up perfectly.

According to New Zealand’s 2023 census, about a third of New Zealanders are Christians. That’s about twice the number of New Zealanders who identify as Māori. So ask yourself this…what if REA imposed a mandatory course on real estate agents schooling them all in Christian theology?...in order to safeguard the cultural safety of Christians who engage real estate agents. How would that go down? There’d be hell to pay. Janet Dickson intends to appeal the High Court’s dismal decision. You go girl.