The push to rename New Zealand to “Aotearoa” will cease under the incoming New Zealand (NZ) coalition government, amid a swathe of changes to legislate English as one of the country’s official languages.
As part of its election policies, minor conservative party NZ First pledged to fight against “racist separatism” by legislating English as the country’s primary official language.
Additionally, all public service departments and Crown entities will have English primary names and be required to communicate in English, with the exception given to those specifically related to Maori issues.
Any push to change the country’s name to Aotearoa will occur only via a referendum.
These measures will mean walking back the significant promotion of using Maori language in official government settings that occurred under the former Ardern Labour government.
Incoming Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, NZ First party leader, said the proliferation of Maori names for government departments was mere “tokenism” and he would rather they focus on carrying out their duties and responsibilities.
“If you ask the Maori in Hokianga and the East Coast, what do they want, they want the road fixed and not this tokenism.”
Mr. Peters said communication is about comprehension and understanding.
“If 95 percent [of New Zealanders] don’t comprehend or understand what they’re reading, then what was the purpose of that change?” he said, referring to the promotion of the use of Maori in government under Ms. Ardern.
As an example, Mr. Peters said the country’s health department will return to being called “Health New Zealand” from “Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand,” but avoided declaring that the Maori name would be ditched altogether.
“If it’s not giving Maori operations in speed and time in hospitals, then what was its purpose?” he said.
During his election campaign, Mr. Peters said the policy to change every department name back to English was not attacking the use of the Maori language.
“This conceited, conniving, cultural cabal doesn’t represent hard-working ordinary Maori—they only seek to use Maori to further their own agenda.”
Unbinding from Race Politics
The National Party has also agreed to NZ First’s policy to scrutinise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), remove co-governance in public services, stop all work on He Puapua, and conduct a comprehensive review on all legislation that includes the “Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”Some provisions included in UNDRIP include the right to participate in decision-making that would affect Indigenous rights and the right to redress land or resources that were traditionally owned and used without consent.
“We will confirm that the Coalition government does not recognise [UNDRIP] as having any binding legal effect on New Zealand,” the agreement said.
Mr. Peters and Coalition partner David Seymour, leader of the libertarian ACT party, have both strongly condemned He Puapua in the past.
Mr. Peters called the report a “recipe for Maori separatism” while Mr. Seymour said it represented a “significant and serious departure from the idea that all New Zealanders are equal before the law.”
According to Muriel Newman, a former ACT MP and founder of the think tank NZ Centre for Political Research, the He Puapua report is a “road map for Maori co-governance by 2040.”
It has been criticised for giving leaders of a group that represents around 15 percent of the population a disproportionately large voice in local bodies and government.
This includes giving Maori and non-Maori equal say in the country’s water usage, which the Ardern government had been working to centralise under its Three Waters legislation.
