An Auckland real estate agent is taking a principled stand that has consequences, her lawyer says.

This is such a strange thing to require someone to know, especially when she doesn’t deal with Maori land, and all sale is the same legally regardless of the ethnicity of the buyer. And the justification given for making this mandatory is incredibly tenuous, in my view.

  • @absGeekNZEnglish
    2•9 days ago

    To play devil’s advocate here.

    I find these type of courses less than useless, for those already bigoted all they do is increase resentment. For those that are inclined to listen the the message that is trying to be conveyed…they are almost certainly already thinking about others in a constructive manner.

    Having this being promoted and encouraged, but voluntary would work better.

    In saying the above, this person is clearly an idiot, sitting through a 90 minute course and having something to complain to your friends about later, has to be preferable to jeopardizing your license for 5 years. Also as soon as I saw “woke madness” I knew this wasn’t about logic and thoughtful argument.

    A good test in these situations is to substitute the thing for a similar thing. If we substitute the “Te Triti” training course with, “The Koran”, “The Bible” or even “the Chinese migrant world view”. Does the feeling of “rightness” change, it does for me.

    Changing the attitude toward Maori and Te Triti is the work of generations, hell we spent generations instilling the shitty culture we have now. There are some usually older people (though not exclusively) who will never change their backward views.

    The cynic in me also says, what is the point of these types of courses, they have little relevance to the industry. Are there cultural sensitivity courses for the Indian world view? if you are constantly working in those communities you may want to seek out that info to better understand your customer.