The flap over DEI: woke, or just awake?
Professor Ella Henry (Ngātikahu ki Whangaroa, Ngāti Kuri, Te Rārawa) is Ahorangi Professor of Entrepreneurship at AUT Business School.
This opinion piece was first published in The Post.
Woke is the much-used word by NZ First leader Winston Peters in recent weeks, suggesting he may not know the origins of the term, originating amongst African Americans since the 1920s.
“Woke” has been used to encourage vigilance and awareness of social injustice. It is increasingly used by advocates to imply social awareness. I am very happy to be labelled “woke”, as it means that I am wide awake, aware of the perfidious nature of those around me who are attempting to increase social injustice in general, and racial disharmony in particular.
Which brings me back to Winston Peters.
In the last week, we find NZ First, through its leader, proposing a member’s bill that would repeal the gains made through programmes to ensure wider representation that reflect societal diversity, making Aotearoa New Zealand so culturally rich.
In the same week, he cancels the appointment of a tikanga-lead position for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This is a key government agency that represents Aotearoa New Zealand on the international stage, the places where we New Zealanders present our passports, the document that states our nation is Aotearoa New Zealand, which has an image of a Māori in a korowai, standing next to a white woman (either Queen Victoria, or Britannia), with the British Crown enjoining us.
One would think our outward-looking government entity would be the one place where representing both the cultures and identities on our passport, might be an asset. But no, according to Peters, it is “woke”, without any actual explanation of his definition of woke. He also implies that he is not “woke”, but then, one may ask, what is the opposite of awake?
Could this anti-social justice, anti-tikanga, anti-Māori rhetoric be a symptom of the falling popularity of this Government? The latest Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll, sees the centre-right drop to 58 seats and the centre-left rise to 62, with NZ First dipping perilously close to the 5% mark, the death knell for his party.
This might be the perfect time to exacerbate outrage amongst their tiny band of followers, 6.08% of those who voted for them in 2023, or 173,425, the lowest vote amongst the coalition partners.
Peters may believe that NZ First can garner fresh votes, or re-invigorate existing supporters, by hammering home his inflammatory views on matters relating to DEI or affirmative action.
This is despite evidence that these programmes contribute positively to deliberative democracy, a system in which political decisions are made through thoughtful discussion and debate amongst community members, emphasising collective reasoning rather than relying solely on votes.
On this point, researcher Rachel Simon-Kumar reported in 2018 on “the consolidated findings of a four-year research project that evaluated policy inclusion between the New Zealand government and communities of difference – specifically, ethnic/migrant/refugee groups, women/gender and Māori”.
She found, “policy inclusion builds on foundational principles of deliberative democracy that dialogue and relationship not only improve policy but also foster democratic transitions towards pluralism and diversity”.
Clearly, pluralism and diversity are not high on the NZ First agenda, which is problematic for them, given the changing and increasingly diverse demography of New Zealand citizens.
Based on televised meetings held by Peters around the country in recent months, one could surmise that NZ First supporters are predominantly elderly white people.
Whilst New Zealanders of European descent are the current majority (67.8% in 2023), they are an ageing population. Alongside that, Māori and Pacific Islanders are younger, and their populations are growing faster, with almost 1 million declaring Māori descent in the 2023 Census.
As stated by Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, one week after the 2023 elections, “the kōhanga reo generation are here, and we have a huge movement and a huge wave of us coming through”.
This wave, not just of young Māori, but tangata whenua, walking alongside tangata Tiriti and tangata moana, has been apparent at Waitangi in 2024 and 2025, at the peaceful protest call from Kingi Tuheitia, and the Toitū Te Tiriti activation in November 2024.
This interest in, and support for, tikanga Māori is apparent through the viewership of Matatini 2025, which attracted 70,000 attendees to New Plymouth, 2.5 million TV viewers, and 21.5 million social media views.
Alongside this, the haka initiated by Maipi-Clarke in a parliamentary protest against the Treaty Principles Bills in 2024 has been viewed over 700 million times.
Taken together, it seems that Peters’ manufactured outrage is being preached to a diminishing audience, in the face of a culturally diverse, unapologetically brown, wave of people who are wide awake to their intentions, and who may well be very “woke” at the next elections.