“How Elliot Ikilei and David Farrar Weaponised a Discredited Poll to Erase Treaty Accountability from Schools” - 4 January 2026
The Māori Green Lantern’s Taiaha
Elliot Ikilei stands before Aotearoa with a Facebook post claiming victory:
Māori, at 70%, reject the idea that prioritising educational achievement alongside Treaty obligations is “colonial.”
On its surface, it appears reasonable. Beneath it lies a sophisticated deception orchestrated by right-wing lobby groups, a serial manipulator of public opinion, and a polling organisation expelled from professional standards bodies for breaching basic integrity.
The claim deserves to be destroyed with precision, with receipts, and with the names of those responsible.
The Con: How a Narrow Question Becomes False Consent
Let’s be clear about what happened in November 2025. The government removed a legal requirement for school boards to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi—eliminating accountability for ensuring Māori students see themselves reflected in curriculum, instruction in te reo Māori, local tikanga, and mātauranga Māori.
This wasn’t a choice between “achievement” and “culture.” It was the removal of structural safeguards that research confirms enhance Māori student engagement and success.
Then Hobson’s Pledge, Don Brash’s white supremacist lobby group, commissioned Curia Market Research to ask a different question entirely:
“Should schools prioritise educational achievement?”
Of course Māori said yes. Of course. But yes to that question is not consent for this policy.
This is the con. It’s a false binary masquerading as data.
The Organ Grinder: David Farrar’s Discredited Polling Empire
Before accepting a single statistic from this poll, Aotearoa needs to understand who David Farrar is.
Farrar is no longer a member of the Research Association of New Zealand (RANZ)—not voluntarily. He was forced out by sustained, upheld complaints about methodology so dodgy that RANZ, the industry’s regulatory body, formally ruled that Curia’s
Let that sink in. Not a disagreement. Not a stylistic choice. A breach of foundational professional standards.
- Failing to disclose the margin of error
- Hiding the percentage of “undecideds” and “don’t knows”—which inflates the error margin from 3.5% to as high as 9%
- Never confirming samples were weighted
- Refusing to disclose actual question wording
- Concealing collection methods (landline vs mobile)
- Never revealing how respondents were selected
In his resignation, Farrar complained that complaints were “weaponised” against him.
Farrar has spent his career weaponising polling.
The Money Trail: Tobacco, Fast Food, and the Architects of Māori Erasure
This isn’t academic. Follow the money.
The Taxpayers’ Union, which co-commissions these polls with Curia, raised $2.8 million annually, primarily from undisclosed donors including British American Tobacco, alcohol companies, and sugar/fast-food corporations. In May 2025, Jordan Williams (Taxpayers’ Union co-founder) personally funded a staffer to travel to Panama to oppose WHO tobacco regulations.
That’s not coincidental activism—that’s corporate capture.
And here’s where it connects to education:
Casey Costello, former Taxpayers’ Union board chair and now Smokefree Minister, is at the centre of a tobacco lobbying scandal. In July 2024, she cut the excise tax on Heated Tobacco Products by 50%—a $216 million taxpayer gift to Phillip Morris. The same person sitting on the board of the organisation funding Farrar’s polls that justified erasing Māori accountability frameworks from schools.
This is capture. It’s corrupt. And it’s being weaponised against whānau.
The Architect: Hobson’s Pledge and the Strategy to Weaponise the Poll
Not one, not fifty, not five hundred
—over one thousand schools.
The School Boards Association, Principals Federation, NZEI Te Riu Roa, and teacher unions unanimously opposed removal. These are the people actually educating Māori children. They know from lived experience what Farrar’s poll obscures:
Māori students achieve more when they see themselves reflected in their learning environment.
The educators rejected this policy. Not because they don’t prioritise achievement, but because they know achievement requires cultural affirmation.
Elliot Ikilei and David Farrar are claiming to speak for Māori on education policy while ignoring a thousand schools led by Māori principals, teachers, and board members who are saying:
This is wrong.
The Methodological Collapse: Sample Size, Bias, and Phantom Margins
For those paying attention to polling mechanics:
Curia’s standard sample size is approximately 1,000 respondents. Māori comprise roughly 18% of Aotearoa’s population. This means the December 2025 school boards poll likely surveyed between 150-180 Māori respondents—a sample size where a 5-10% swing is statistically insignificant noise.
But Farrar compounds this by systematically omitting undecideds and don’t-knows from published results. This creates a phantom error margin of up to 9% rather than the standard 3.5%. In a sample of 180 Māori respondents, that’s not rigour. It’s strategic opacity.
Add the undisclosed question wording, collection method, and weighting, and you have a poll that meets none of RANZ’s basic standards
—but meets all of Hobson’s Pledge’s political needs.
The Media Failure: Copy-Paste Propaganda
“Will the lazy subservient media continue to copy and paste Farrar and Williams propaganda?”
The answer is yes. They do. Every month, Taxpayers’ Union-Curia polls appear in headlines, unquestioned. Journalists, understaffed and desperate for content, reproduce graphics without interrogating methodology. Hobson’s Pledge gets free advertising in ostensibly neutral outlets.
This isn’t journalism. It’s stenography for a lobby group.
The Cui Bono Test: Follow Power, Not Polls
Here’s the final test: Cui bono? Who benefits?
- Elliot Ikilei: A rightwing activist with a Facebook following, seeking relevance in political discourse through claims unsupported by evidence.
- David Farrar: A serial manipulator whose polling firm generates revenue from right-wing organisations, subsidising operations no legitimate research institution would touch.
- Hobson’s Pledge: A white supremacist lobby group seeking to dismantle every institutional acknowledgment of Māori rangatiratanga, funded by corporations that profit from Māori health crises.
- The Taxpayers’ Union: A vehicle for corporate interests (tobacco, alcohol, fast food) to shape policy under the guise of fiscal responsibility.
Who doesn’t benefit? Māori whānau. Māori students. Māori educators. Every Māori person who knows that seeing yourself reflected in education isn’t “colonial”—it’s human.
The Path Forward: Reclaiming Truth
Curia Market Research is discredited. Its founder was forced to resign from his industry body. Its methodology violates professional standards. Its funding comes from corporate interests antithetical to Māori wellbeing.
For Māori and whānau seeking truth:
Trust the 1,007 schools. Trust the educators who teach your children every day. Trust the research that shows Māori students flourish when their identity is honoured in curriculum.
Reject the poll. Reject Elliot Ikilei’s false binary. Reject the idea that a 70% statistic from a sample of ~150 people, measured by a man expelled for professional misconduct, represents Māori wisdom.
Kia whakatō i te rangatira—plant the tree of rangatiratanga. One thousand schools have done so. Aotearoa knows the difference between a poll and the voice of whānau.
Farrar and Ikilei don’t.
Support This Mahi
Every essay demands time, research rigour, and access to verification tools. This work—tracking misinformation networks, exposing capture, holding power accountable—is the mahi that Crown institutions will not do.
Three pathways exist for those who wish to support this work:
- For direct koha (voluntary contribution): Visit Koha—Support the Māori Green Lantern fighting misinformation and disinformation
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Every koha signals that whānau are ready to fund the accountability that Crown and corporate structures will not provide. It signals that rangatiratanga includes the power to fund our own truth tellers.
Kia kaha, whānau. Stay vigilant. Stay connected. And if you are able, consider a koha to ensure this voice continues.
Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformaiton From The Far Right
Research Process Transparency: All sources verified live as of January 4, 2026. RANZ upheld complaints confirmed via official regulatory documentation. Farrar’s resignation from RANZ independently verified via Wikipedia, RANZ official sources, and multiple journalism sources. Tobacco industry connections traced through public records and investigative reporting. School reaffirmations verified through RNZ, education sector statements, and Confederation of Kāhui Ako announcements.
