New Zealand’s Health Minister Dr Shayne Reti has reservations about the Nursing Council’s updated competency standards, set to take effect in January 2025.
These standards place Māori culture and partisan views of the Treaty of Waitangi over all others. They require nurses, for instance, to address the “impact of colonisation” on health and advocate for perspectives, but critics argue that these changes prioritise ideology over practical skills.
The Nursing Council defended the changes as necessary for delivering quality care and meeting obligations under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act and were developed through extensive consultation.
Yet, Reti has raised concerns about their singular focus on Māori cultural competencies at the expense of other cultural or clinical skills. “The Minister has written to the Council… to seek assurances that the new standards won’t be a barrier to the delivery of quality healthcare,” he said.
New Zealand First health spokeswoman Jenny Marcroft denounced the reforms, calling them “a woke academia virus.” ACT Party health spokesman Todd Stephenson echoed these concerns, saying, “Now we are asking nurses to have the ‘correct’ views on the Treaty of Waitangi.”
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