A couple of weeks ago in our weekly catch-up with the ACT Partyâs Simon Court, we discussed multiple countries moving to formally recognise Palestinian Statehood, and what New Zealandâs plans were in this regard.
Last week, Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, said the country would carefully weigh its position over the next month in recognising the state of Palestine.
During a debate in Parliament, the governmentâs delay in recognising a Palestinian state, as opposed to other countries such as France, the UK, Canada, and Australia, led Green Party co-leader, Chlöe Swarbrick, to refer to the country as âoutlier,â and called for the government MPs âwith a spineâ to âstand on the right side of historyâ. This led to her being ordered to leave Parliament by Speaker Gerry Brownlee, after refusing to apologise for her statement.
As well as this, last week, Education Minister, Erica Stanford, announced cancelling the early-reading book At the Marae from its Ready to Read Phonics Plus series.
The governmentâs reasoning for this is through âmixedâ evidence suggesting that learning both English and te reo MÄori for young learners could confuse them.
The move has been widely criticised by linguists, academics, and educators, for being âan act of racismâ and âwhite supremacyâ.
For our weekly catch-up with the ACT Partyâs Simon Court, Producer Castor spoke to Simon about both these topics, starting with recognising a Palestinian state.
Find out more about the MÄori words which are a part of the official Oxford English Dictionary here
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