One Sh*t Trick Too Many: How We All Began to Seymour Clearly

by ELV

When Power Learns It Can Get Away With Anything

If you want to understand how power-drunk this Government has become, start not in a school, but on the world stage.

The United Nations — the global body created after two world wars to prevent genocide, protect Indigenous rights, uphold human dignity, and call out governments drifting toward injustice — issued its strongest critique of New Zealand in decades. It warned that current policies were weakening Māori rights and undermining Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

And how did our leaders respond?

The Deputy Prime Minister called the UN “a joke.”

Another senior minister dismissed the working group as “pettifogging,” implying New Zealand was above their scrutiny.

This is not merely arrogance.

It is the culmination of entitlement that has been escalating, step by step, right under our noses.

CERD — the committee that issued this alarm — exists because the world has already seen what happens when countries ignore racial harm, silence Indigenous voices, or abuse power. So when its warning lands, it is not ‘a joke’. It is a signal that Aotearoa has stepped into dangerous territory.

When a government feels bold enough to mock the UN in public — to sneer at global institutions with cameras rolling — What does that say about how they treat the educators, Boards, whānau and communities who challenge them privately? And what does the rest of the world think as they watch a nation once admired for justice now shrug at international accountability?

No one beyond the Beehive is laughing — only the ministers who should be answering for it.

The rest of the world understands the gravity; only Wellington’s ministers treat it as a punchline.

To understand how we got here, we must walk backwards — to the root of the pattern.

As in Any Toxic Relationship, the Warning Signs Came Early

Before ministers were mocking the United Nations, they were swearing down the phone to principals. They tried to micromanage a principal’s right to speak, and if a school leader’s message didn’t suit the Minister, she would ring, berate, and unleash language no leader should ever hear. It became routine — an accepted tactic of control.

This was not governance — it was conditioning.

Before they dismissed global human rights bodies, they were revoking school leaders’ duties without consultation — stripping principals from Boards, removing responsibilities overnight, and leaving them with financial losses and no explanation. What should have required process became punishment delivered by impulse.

Before they insulted Māori advocates on the international stage, they were punishing educators for speaking openly about child wellbeing — sidelining those who raised concerns, freezing out voices that didn’t align, and sending a clear message that honesty would cost you.

Then they built their army of advocates. PLD providers, eager to secure their share of the funding honey pot, aligned themselves with whatever message kept the pipeline flowing. In return, they were lifted up as “experts,” an echo chamber dressed as authority. As money, influence, and favour intertwined, this loyalty hardened: structured-literacy warriors began mirroring the Minister’s tactics — shutting down dissent, making intimidating calls, attacking anyone who dared question the mandate.

What began as policy became policing. What should have been debate hardened into enforcement carried out by others on the Minister’s behalf. Even commissioners aligned with her agenda have begun scrutinising principals’ end-of-year speeches, asking to vet them before they speak to their graduates.

To make everything look legitimate, “experts” from outside were brought in — but NDAs were used like duct tape to keep their realities sealed. Meanwhile, a network of blue-suit loyalists within leadership circles, closely aligned with ACT and National, watched the sector closely. They waited, observed, and reported anyone who dared to speak up.

What looked like consultation became surveillance. What looked like engagement became control. And this control grew roots — quiet, tangled, unseen.

All the while, the public remained unaware of the dark roots spreading beneath the surface — roots slowly strangling the agency and voice of professionals who once spoke freely.

These are not isolated events.

They are steps in the same direction.

When power discovers it can intimidate school leaders and face no consequence, it stretches.

When it learns it can belittle Boards and communities and still hold its portfolio, it grows bolder.

When it silences educators and the public shrugs, it takes that silence as permission.

And once leaders internalise the belief “I can do worse,” escalation is inevitable.

Soon the insults flow freely in front of cameras without the slightest care:

Schools labelled “disgusting.”

Boards called “disrespectful.”

Principals, unions, academics dismissed as “political.”

Communities reframed as problems rather than partners.

These are not slips.

They are signals — symptoms of a power structure that has forgotten restraint.

Even the UN has raised the alarm about the rise of racist and inflammatory speech from public figures — a warning that the government’s own language is contributing to the climate of harm.

Hate speech isn’t coming from the fringes anymore; it is echoing from the very people meant to uphold our human rights commitments.

A Public Mirror Finally Comes Into View

Every system that operates in shadow eventually missteps in daylight.

For years, the cloak-and-dagger politics, whispered alliances, and quiet strong-arming lived in the shadows of our education system, suffocating anyone who dared be brave.

But this week, those hidden behaviours spilled into the light.

The treatment of Dr Peggy Burrows wasn’t just another overreach of power — it was an Achilles’ heel for Seymour and his circle. A moment where their tactics finally became visible to the public. For the first time, everyday New Zealanders could see the machinery educators have faced for months, now exposed in full daylight.

A routine Auditor-General note — the kind that normally sits unseen in compliance folders — was transformed into national news.

A principal’s name published.

A photo printed.

A mundane administrative line reframed as scandal.

Not because of misconduct.

Not because of risk.

But because she spoke — inconveniently.

And here’s the irony: Seymour’s retail-politician style — the provocation, the headline-chasing, the “say it loud enough and it sticks” strategy — has finally turned on him.

We avoid using his name in ELV spaces because it feeds his oxygen.

But today, we use it deliberately — not to elevate him, but to expose the tricks he thought he could get away with. 

This time, the stunt backfired. 

This time, he became the mirror.

Why Do Politicians Get Away With This Behaviour Publicly?

Because the media, especially in an election year, is not neutral.

Headlines are not random.

Narratives are not accidental.

Those with power shape the story.

Massage the angles.

Calibrate the electorate’s gaze.

And when the public mood begins to shift?

A handshake.

A well-timed phone call.

A new headline to even the odds.

Educators become collateral — easier to target, easier to blame, easier to silence.

And each time they get away with it, the behaviour escalates — until they believe they can take on the UN itself.

When Donald Trump dismissed international human-rights bodies, the world called him unhinged.

Is that the reputation we want for Aotearoa’s Government?

Is this how we wish to be seen — as leaders who sneer at scrutiny, mock Indigenous concerns, and laugh off global accountability?

What Happens When Power Stops Being Answerable

This is not merely poor leadership.

It is a culture — one educators have endured long before it broke the surface.

A culture where dissent is punished, truth becomes inconvenient, and public humiliation is deployed as strategy.

A culture where intimidation masquerades as “accountability,” and power — unchecked, unchallenged, and increasingly emboldened — answers only to itself.

When you trace the steps backwards —from mocking the UN,

to attacking Māori advocates,

to ridiculing principals,

to punishing teachers,

to silencing communities —the pattern becomes unmistakable.

This is what happens when power learns it can get away with anything.

We cannot keep pretending this is normal.

It is not.

It is dangerous.

Because when leaders learn they can get away with small abuses, they move to bigger ones.

When they learn they can bend truth, they learn they can break it.

When they learn they can strip dignity, they learn they can strip rights.

Educators recognise these patterns long before the public sees them.

We know what escalation looks like.

We know what unchecked authority does to communities.

And we know this truth: when a government stops listening at home, it eventually stops listening abroad — and the rot that begins with a principal’s silenced voice ends, inevitably, in national shame.

The UN is not the enemy.

It is an international conscience,

a mirror held up to power,

a reminder that Aotearoa’s story includes more than the loudest voices in Wellington.

UN Report

UN report.

Download • 348KB

Summary

• New Zealand is backsliding on racial equity. CERD warns that multiple government decisions are weakening protections for Māori and increasing the risk of systemic discrimination.

• The Treaty of Waitangi is being undermined. Moves to reinterpret, dilute, or remove Treaty principles are flagged as dangerous and inconsistent with international human rights standards.

• Repealing Section 7AA harms Māori children. Removing whānau-first safeguards in Oranga Tamariki puts tamariki Māori at greater risk of disconnection, harm, and cultural loss.

• Disestablishing the Māori Health Authority is a regression. CERD says the removal of Te Aka Whai Ora will worsen disparities and reduce access to culturally grounded healthcare.

• Bootcamps for youth are condemned. Military-style programmes are described as harmful, discriminatory, and ineffective for Māori and Pacific rangatahi.

• Police and justice systems remain unequal. Māori face discrimination at every stage — arrest, prosecution, sentencing, and incarceration.

• Racist and inflammatory speech by politicians is a problem. CERD raises direct concern about public figures normalising harmful rhetoric that targets Indigenous peoples.

• Māori political participation is being weakened. Removal of Māori wards, suspension of Māori MPs for cultural protest, and electoral changes disproportionately impact Māori.

• The Human Rights Commission is under threat. Political attacks and attempts to weaken the Commission undermine New Zealand’s rights framework.

• Mātauranga Māori and cultural protections are insufficient. More needs to be done to safeguard Te Reo Māori, land rights, cultural heritage, and Indigenous intellectual property.

• The world is watching. CERD’s message is clear: New Zealand’s international reputation as a human-rights leader is at risk, and progress is not guaranteed.