Don’t complain about use of New Zealand’s Māori name, MPs told
Kathryn Armstrong
BBC News
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MPs are able to use English, Māori or New Zealand sign language, when speaking in Parliament
The speaker of the house in New Zealand’s parliament says he will not consider any further complaints from lawmakers over the use of the country’s Māori name in proceedings.
“Aotearoa is regularly used as a name of New Zealand,” Speaker Gerry Brownlee said in a ruling in Parliament on Tuesday.
His comments come after Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters asked Brownlee to bar the use of the name Aotearoa, and suggested a referendum would be needed for anyone to use it in parliament.
While New Zealand is the legal name of the country and can only be changed by law, Aotearoa, which translates to “land of the long white cloud”, has long been used when referring to New Zealand in Māori.
“It [Aotearoa] appears on our passports and it appears on our currency,” Brownlee said on Tuesday. The name is also used in the Māori version of New Zealand’s national anthem, which is commonly heard before the English version.
“If other members do not like certain words, they don’t have to use them. But it’s not a matter of order, and I don’t expect to have further points of order raised about it,” he added.
MPs are allowed to use any of the country’s three official languages – English, Māori and New Zealand sign language – when speaking in Parliament.
The objection by Peters, who is Māori, arose last month, when Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March used it during a parliamentary session.
“Why is someone who applied to come to this country in 2006 allowed to ask a question of this Parliament that changes this country’s name without the referendum and sanction of the New Zealand people?” Peters asked.
Menéndez March is originally from Mexico but is a New Zealand citizen, as all MPs must be.
Shane Jones, another government minister who is a member of Peters’ New Zealand First party and is also Māori, questioned “the appropriateness of recent immigrants telling Māori what the name of our country should be?”
At the time, Brownlee encouraged lawmakers to use the name Aotearoa New Zealand instead in order to avoid any confusion but said it was not a requirement.
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Shane Jones (left) and Winston Peters (right) are both members of the New Zealand First party
Not all Māori have the same connection to the name Aotearoa, which was originally used to describe New Zealand’s North Island only. However, it is often used by non-Māori out of respect for indigenous people.
Winston Peters said on Tuesday that he disagreed with Brownlee’s ruling, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported.
He added that he only had a problem with Aotearoa being used in Parliament, not of Māori in general, and that, if a question was addressed to him in future using the name, he would not answer.
The use of Māori in public has grown considerably across New Zealand in recent decades, following advocacy from indigenous leaders.
A petition was launched in 2022 by the Māori Party, an official political party, to officially change the country’s name to Aotearoa, which received more than 70,000 signatures.
“New Zealand is a Dutch name and has no connection to this whenua [land]. How many people in Aotearoa can even point to ‘old’ Zealand on a map?” Māori Party Co-leader Rawiri Waititi said at the time.
Since the current administration came into power in 2023, it has required that government departments prioritise their English names and communicate primarily in English, unless they are specifically related to Māori.
Another of the coalition’s members, the Act party, is also seeking to redefine the terms of New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, which has been met with fierce opposition.
