Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he’s committed to improving the lot of Māori and is learning te reo himself, but sees no contradiction in the taxpayer paying for it. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he’s committed to improving the lot of Māori and is learning te reo himself, but sees no contradiction in the taxpayer paying for it. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Opinion by John Bluck
OPINION
Governments have tried to diminish the Treaty-protected language of Māori before. The courts ruled the Treaty null and void back in 1877, the Education Department forbade te reo in schools in 1903.
This is not a first-time rodeo.
But it takes a certain kind of political bravado target="_blank">to try again in 2023, long after the Treaty of Waitangi Act passed into law in 1975, and the highest court in the land ruled the Treaty in 1987 to be a “compact of mutual obligation”.
You might have thought the place of te reo was cemented into our national life.
Not just into legislation, but into the consciousness of all New Zealanders.
Not only the quarter of the Māori population who speak it as a first language, but the two-thirds of New Zealanders who think it should be a core subject in all primary schools (Stats NZ 2021).
And the half of all non-Māori who are interested in improving their skills and understanding of the language (Kantar survey 2019).
What’s puzzling is the slow response of Pākehā to this policy u-turn, especially from those who belong to co-governing bodies like schools, universities and polytechs, churches, councils, museums where te reo is part of the fabric of daily life.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he’s committed to improving the lot of Māori and is learning te reo himself, but sees no contradiction in the taxpayer paying for it. Photo / Mark Mitchell
No doubt we’ll hear from them sometime soon, one day.
Maybe we’re paralysed by the complexities of the shift.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he’s committed to improving the lot of Māori and promoting the language, even learning it himself.
Both his coalition partner leaders are themselves Māori, and Shane Jones says his grasp of te reo is without peer. He’ll be able to help Mr Luxon refine his skills.
What Mr Jones objects to is the tokenistic way it’s used by Pākehā bureaucrats who get paid extra to learn it and never use it in their own lives.
He doesn’t mention Mr Luxon but he targets government agencies who use Māori words on signage as signals of their cultural correctness. Tokenistic and irrelevant.
Would they still be laughing when they drive the new motorway to Warkworth, Te Ara Tūhono (the connecting pathway) and enjoy the stunning Māori artworks that line the route?
You might expect to see a waka there, but not one you’d run into, because the allusion is poetic, not literal. Mr Jones, ever quoting Shakespeare, knows that better than most.
What’s a token to one is a taonga to another.
For Pākehā committed to supporting te reo Māori and using it, however hesitantly, to sing and pray and greet each other; every chance to see and hear the language in everyday use is a bonus, even on road works.
Waka Kotahi is music to our ears in ways that the NZ Transport Agency (not authority or association please) is not.
But then I’m confused by all sorts of far more important challenges, like cellphone settings and tax forms that no government promises to simplify for me.
Working out what Waka Kotahi is is a breeze by comparison. And if I forget, I can read the name in English underneath.
So what really is the agenda for these policy changes angering, alienating and confusing so many of us? Why now, and why in so much detail, why so high on the Government’s agenda?
The horse has already bolted when it comes to the Māori language and culture renaissance. It left the stables ages ago. And the course has long been set for this country with the Treaty as its compass.
John Bluck is a retired Anglican Bishop of Waiapu, in Napier. He’s the author of Becoming Pākehā – a journey between two cultures.
