With the commemoration of Matariki and the anniversary of Homosexual Law Reform both landing in July, the Burnett Foundation is drumming up momentum for an exciting year of change ahead, writes Content Manager Ethan Christensen
We’re stoked to see recorded HIV diagnoses trending downwards for another year. From our good friends at the University of Otago, whose HIV & AIDS Newsletter – 2025 was published in May, we found that 80 people were first diagnosed with HIV in Aotearoa, which is down 45% from 2010. Every line of transmission prevented is a victory in its own right.
The inverse, of course, is also true: one new diagnosis is one too many. The data shows that gay and bisexual men, and men who have sex with men, remain disproportionately affected by HIV. Male-to-male sex accounted for 60% of new diagnoses. Although local diagnoses overall have been in steady decline since the peak recorded in 2016, public health data showed a disproportionate increase for Māori, highlighting inequities that we still need to address.
The nine whetū [stars] comprising the Matariki constellation are first visible from late May. We took to Maungawhau [Mount Eden] in the early hours of Monday, 29 June, to reflect on who we are as an organisation, what the future means for us, and the collective impact we hope to achieve with our mahi. I spoke to our Pou Māori, Reremoana Ormsby, about what Matariki means for the kaupapa:
‘Matariki looks different for all of us, depending on where in the world, or our thinking, we are standing. [It] is a time to remember those who have gone before us, to celebrate the present, and to look ahead with hope and intention.’
If we hope to change the future, we must draw insight from the past. Winding the clock back to the early 1980s, our founders and forebears faced unconscionable social and legal discrimination just for being who they were. Through the tireless advocacy of our queer ancestors, the freedoms won for our rainbow community today look comparatively clearer than in times past.
However, what’s true for one person is never true for another. Within the queer community especially, intersectionality means that the lived experience of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is entirely different from person to person. This is even truer when turning to our Takatāpui and MVPFAFF+ communities, who weave fluid constructs of gender and sexuality along family and community lines. Though much progress has been made, we still have work to do in helping all to get their fair share at the table of post-colonial society.
At the top of a mountain, you cannot hear the blare of a horn, nor the belch of a bus’s air suspension. In that early-morning stillness, Reremoana shared that we are ‘closest to our tīpuna’. If we look to the shining stars of our past, the queer community is more like a constellation than a disparate group of individuals. Speaking with our Chief Executive, Liz Gibbs, that’s our biggest focus for the year ahead:
‘We outlined the new, wider focus for the Burnett Foundation in our 23–28 Strategic Plan, and that mahi continues.’
One such development is our new offering of whānau-based counselling, in which clients can invite as many members of their support network into the counselling space as they wish.
Seeing that we have already passed the halfway point of 2026, it feels like time is slipping by on some lux lube. Still, when we stare into the kaleidoscope that is the queer community across Aotearoa, the Burnett Foundation has some real standouts to anchor our focus on.
