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To: Hon. Erica Stanford

Bring back Tiriti-based, inclusive Relationships & Sexuality Education in schools

Hand-crafted hearts: Tiriti-based, inclusive RSE supports respectful, joyful relationships and social connection.
We all want all of Aotearoa’s young people, whānau and communities to be able to have loving and respectful connections, and to live with confidence, free from bullying, stalking, abuse and all forms of violence.

Relationships & Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools is an important support for this vision, as it is Aotearoa’s key cornerstone of prevention of bullying, abuse and violence, including family violence, and sexual violence. RSE is vital to supporting respectful relationship norms, respect for diversity, and safe online interactions for rangatahi in all our communities, helping to make and keep people safe and free  - including those most targeted by relationship violence and/or online abuse: women (cis and trans); people who identify as LGBTQI+, Rainbow and/or queer; and disabled people.  

In 2020, RSE school guidelines [1] were introduced that were expert-led, and inclusive of Tiriti o Waitangi, and diverse sexualities, gender identities and cultures. The guidelines were world-leading in supporting healthy and respectful relationships and attitudes among young people as well as their confidence and self-esteem, and were fit-for-purpose to help prevent relationship violence.  

But right now, the government is proposing to permanently remove this key cornerstone of early prevention of violence: Tiriti-based, inclusive, expert-led Relationships & Sexuality Education in schools.   

In its place, the government is proposing inappropriate and inadequate relationships and “sex” education – no longer “sexuality” education – in the Health & PE curriculum currently out for consultation. [2] The government’s proposed RSE fails in the critical missions of violence prevention and support of respect and social wellbeing in multiple ways, as dozens of health experts and community organisations have already advised Minister Erica Stanford [3]. The latest curriculum draft ignores nearly all their advice. 

The RSE proposals “underserve rangatahi Māori and will not reduce inequities in sexual violence victimisation.” - Associate Professor of Psychology, Jade Le Grice (Ngai Tupoto, Ngati Korokoro, Ngati Wharara, Te Pouka), University of Auckland [4] 

“This curriculum sidesteps several critical issues… This puts young people’s safety at risk - both within and outside school” – Jackie Edmond, Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa (formerly Family Planning) [5]  

“It is clear that the changes outlined … are not in good faith, and are not about evidence-based violence prevention. This draft ... would be a deliberate step backwards and would represent a shocking and shameful failure to do our best for our children and rangatahi.” – Deborah Mackenzie, Backbone Collective [6] 

We, the undersigned, oppose the government’s ideological and non-expert approach to changing RSE for rangatahi, which will reduce support for  young people’s safety, confidence and respect for each other. We oppose the government’s resulting proposed relationships and “sex education” curriculum, including the following aspects:  

  1. The dishonouring of  Te Tiriti o Waitangi 

  2. The absence of respect for diverse gender identities 

  3. The absence of respect for diverse sexualities 

  4. A lack of genuine engagement with multicultural perspectives, normalising a monocultural, Pākehā view of the world. (More detail on these four concerns is given in the "updates" section below.) 

Together, these moves are regressive and narrow, contravening the rights of children, young people, and all our communities to be their whole selves, and to live free from discrimination, harassment and violence.  

In addition, the government’s dismantling of RSE as a key cornerstone of violence prevention  is further evidence of the government’s structural disrespect for women: they have removed support for gender pay equity, and they are also removing support for gender equity in safety and freedom. As well as removing RSE, they have halted the rollout of ACC sexual violence prevention initiatives and defunded women’s self-defence classes and women’s centres.

Minister of Education, we ask you to 

  1. Immediately reinstate the expert-led, Tiriti-based and LGBTQI+ inclusive 2020 Relationships & Sexuality Education guidelines, for the prevention of bullying, abuse and violence 

  2. Start and maintain an ongoing process of updating and improving the 2020 guidelines and underlying curriculum, to ensure they’re always fit-for-purpose for all communities (including disabled children) in a fast-changing and increasingly online world. The ongoing improvement process should  

    i. Honour te Tiriti o Waitangi by ensuring decision-making is shared across Tiriti partners: tangata whenua and the Crown, in all development of RSE  
    ii. Be led by experts, including Māori experts, in Māori and non-Māori education, violence prevention and health 

  3. Scrap the proposed counter-productive 2026 relationships and “sex education” curriculum, which is exclusionary, fragmented, and not fit-for-purpose, and which will reduce the effectiveness and strength of violence prevention in schools 

  4. Implement the Education Review Office recommendations [7] to increase consistency in RSE teaching across schools, while retaining the right of parents to remove  their children from RSE if they wish.
 
Minister, we hope you will be guided by what is best for our rangatahi: a future of respectful relationships, safety and freedom from bullying, abuse and violence.  
  

Why is this important?

The importance of effective violence prevention cannot be overstated: for example, around a third of women in Aotearoa NZ have experienced sexual violence [8] and many more experience non-sexual relationship violence. We need to use all the tools we can to change such entrenched violence. 

Thank you for signing and sharing this petition with friends and whānau, in solidarity with all rangatahi, women and targeted groups. Together, we can hold politicians accountable and ensure our young people receive the respect and care they need to flourish. 


 
References
[2] Consultation on Proposed Health & PE Curriculum including Relationships & Sex Education, closes 24 April 2026. https://newzealandcurriculum.tahurangi.education.govt.nz/new-zealand-curriculum-online/new-zealand-curriculum/learning-areas/health-and-physical-education-curriculum/5637165585.c 
Everyone - students, parents, teachers, members of the community - can make their own submission. See Auckland Women’s Centre submission guide here: https://awc.org.nz/2026-rse-submission-guide/
[3] For example, 24 organisations and experts sent an open letter to Minister Stanford in May 2025, criticising the exclusion of gender diversity. https://sexualwellbeing.org.nz/consortium-of-informed-voices-sends-open-letter-on-relationships-and-sexuality-education-to-minister-stanford/ To our knowledge, the Minister has never engaged with the signatories regarding their concerns. Auckland Women’s Centre (and other organisations) have also written to the Minister, and already given feedback on an earlier draft – Auckland Women’s Centre’s submission here: https://awc.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/AWC-to-Minister-Stanford-re-RSE-framework-.pdf
The feedback report on the first round of consultation (May 2025) is here:  https://files-au-prod.cms.commerce.dynamics.com/cms/api/qwxsnqcpfm/binary/MLeDUE  
[4] Submission re RSE, May 2025, from AP Jade Le Grice and other researchers at Te Pūtahi o Pūtaiao | Centre for Kaupapa Māori Science, University of Auckland 
[5] Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa media release on the government’s second draft RSE October 2025 https://sexualwellbeing.org.nz/new-curriculum-regressive-and-fractured/
[7] Education Review Office (2024) Technical report: Review of relationships and sexuality education:.https://www.evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/technical-report-review-of-relationships-and-sexuality-education
[10] Hohou te Rongo Kahukura submission on RSE, May 2025. 
[11] AWC op ed “Why Women Need to Stand Up for Trans Rights” https://awc.org.nz/why-women-need-to-stand-up-for-trans-rights/ 

How it will be delivered

Auckland Women’s Centre will send this petition to Hon. Erica Stanford and opposition counterparts before 24 April 2026, as part of the consultation round on the proposed RSE (within the proposed Health & PE curriculum).

Updates

2026-03-12 15:57:22 +1300

100 signatures reached

2026-03-12 14:15:07 +1300

50 signatures reached

2026-03-11 22:47:03 +1300

25 signatures reached

2026-03-11 13:38:06 +1300

10 signatures reached

2026-03-11 09:27:53 +1300

START HERE for details of concerns:
Concern 1: The government dishonours Te Tiriti o Waitangi, our constitutional document by
- Omitting Te Tiriti from the 2026 RSE proposal
- Omitting references to Mātauranga Māori from the 2026 RSE proposal.
- Making unilateral decisions about Te Tiriti and Mātauranga Māori within the 2026 RSE proposal instead of making decisions with, and as honourable, Te Tiriti partners.

2026-03-11 09:27:36 +1300

Concern 1 cont: All these government moves are perverse and deliberate institutional racism, proactively ignoring Tiriti obligations. This abysmal abuse of power, reinforcing historical amnesia and monoculturalism, is at odds with a curriculum that aims to educate and prepare our future generations for healthy relationships and consent: Crown power is attempting to remove indigenous knowledges from education without consent. These ideological and white supremacist moves do not support Māori aspirations for Māori students, [9] nor do they support aspirations for non-Māori students, such as being respectful of Te Tiriti, tangata whenua, and each other.

2026-03-11 09:27:14 +1300

Concern 2: The absence of diverse gender identities is an absence of respect. “Failing to acknowledge the vibrant reality of gender diversity will not make transgender, non-binary, Takatāpui, fa’afafine, fakaleitī, akava’ine, and vakasalewalewa students stop being who they are – they will just have to hide.
This erasure will make going to school more difficult. It will make these students more likely to be bullied by other students. It will impact their mental health and wellbeing. And it will fail to equip students who are not transgender with knowledge, attitudes and skills which will promote respect, inclusion and social cohesion.” [10] Policing of and restrictions on gender identities due to exclusions of non-cis, non-binary gender identities includes policing of and restrictions on women’s identities, cis as well as trans. [11]

2026-03-11 09:27:02 +1300

Concern 3: An erasure of diverse sexualities. It’s as if the 1986 homosexual law reform never happened. The RSE proposal “prescribes a normative western focus on binary notions of gender and the reification of heterosexuality as the default normative (and valid) way of being, excluding and marginalising our rangatahi who identify outside of these categories and boxes.” [4]

2026-03-10 10:01:49 +1300

Concern 4: A narrow monocultural approach which sidelines Māori, Pacific and ethnic community approaches to relationships apart from handwaves to “diverse communities” (see quotes in Concerns 2&3 re diverse gender identities and sexualities). There is no guidance as to how to teach multiple approaches. Again, Pākehā approaches are promoted as the norm, rather than one set of approaches among many as is appropriate for our Tiriti-based, multicultural nation.