In this opinion piece, the author argues that the increasing use of "Aotearoa" in place of "New Zealand" has occurred without a public mandate or referendum. The commentary questions the expansion of Māori-language naming across government agencies, expresses concern about the practical implications of replacing English names, and contends that the Coalition Government has not fully delivered on its election commitments regarding race-based policies and official naming.
The most important thing about a name is the value of recognition that a name gives.
Given that the mere mention of a name gives us an instant understanding of what/who is being referred to by that name.
I note that our latest Commonwealth Games team uniforms carry the name of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Who decided that we would change the official name of our team and why?
There have been moves to rename our country as Aotearoa which seemed to have been driven/supported by the previous defeated Labour Government.
That Labour government of New Zealand was in my opinion never honest with the population in relation to their aims around the use of the Maori language.
At the 2020 election there was no mention of many of the issues that were implemented by the Labour government after that election (such as renaming our country as Aotearoa) and it is my belief that many of these issues were deliberately not mentioned as they may have had an effect on the result of the election.
The mainstream media now routinely replace the name New Zealand with the name Aotearoa and New Zealand seems to never be mentioned at all, yet Aotearoa is a recently made up name for New Zealand.
My country of birth is New Zealand not Aotearoa, I am a Citizen of New Zealand not Aotearoa, I hold a New Zealand passport not one from Aotearoa and I have no intention of ever voting to change the name of my country to Aotearoa (IF I AM EVER TO BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO DO SO).
Yet that Labour government decided that government departments should have Maori language names even though most people have no idea what these names refer to. It has now become common practice for government agencies to use the Maori language name for their departments without an English translation.
The taxpayers of New Zealand should not have to look on google or similar websites to know what a department does.
The name of our country is New Zealand not Aotearoa and many companies have spent millions of dollars advertising that fact so that it is instantly recognisable that products offered for sale on the international markets are made in New Zealand.
And yet without the slightest attempt to ascertain whether the public wanted to change our country’s name, the Labour Government increasingly referred to our country as “Aotearoa”.
The reality is that for the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders the Maori language has no practical value and that, despite heroic efforts to revive the language, it is spoken by a diminishing proportion of Maori.
Personally, I have no problem with teaching the Maori language to those who wish to learn it. But we in New Zealand are extremely fortunate to have English as our predominant language, the language of science, the language of aviation, the language of finance, and the language which will get you understood in almost every country in the world.
The vast majority of New Zealand citizens have no or very little knowledge of the Maori language and very few understand what the Maori names of the various government agencies refer to, yet we see a huge outcry in the mainstream media regards the coalition government’s policy of returning the government agencies names to the English version.
I find this very hard to understand particularly given that even most Maori do not speak their own language.
What I also find extremely hard to understand is why this coalition government has failed to act on their pre-election promises when they agreed to prioritise “Ending race-based policies” in their Coalition Agreement.
When it comes to the pre-election promises to end race‑based policies the coalition government has failed dismally.
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The current Co-chairman of P.L.U.G (Primary Land Users Group), Andy Loader was elected to the board as the extractive industry’s representative in 2013 after a long and distinguished career in the industry. Responsible for the board’s communications, he has long been an advocate for the farming and primary industry challenging the powers at be to provide accurate and transparent representation of the industry and the issues it faces.