A celestial navigator says Matariki as a public holiday could draw the public to a dawn celebration of the stars in the same way Anzac Day draws crowds to commemorate.
Prime Minister and Labour leader Jacinda Ardern announced her party's intention to create New Zealand's first new public holiday in almost 50 years on Monday, to celebrate Matariki.
Hawke's Bay man Phillip Smith said if that happened, he wanted to see the same effort Kiwis put into dawn services applied to the Māori new year, with communities coming together to learn about and honour traditions.
Smith, who also goes by Piripi, was the driving force behind the creation of the Ātea a Rangi star compass near Clive, and also founded an educational trust to train celestial navigators.
Smith said a lot of our holidays refer to important dates for the Northern Hemisphere, and not many of them are unique to Aotearoa.
He added that celebrating the Māori new year in such a way would also acknowledge New Zealand's Māori past.
"Now everyone's probably heard the word Matariki, the next phase is for New Zealanders to actually understand what Matariki is about and see if they can participate in that as well," he said.
![Piripi Smith talks to Flaxmere and Kimi Ora School groups at the Atea a Rangi Star Compass about Matariki in 2019. Photo / Warren Buckland](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/HYI44X6N6N6ALSVVMYJIQUEJRE.jpg?auth=862839411ada6210b1539d48372dca0266af29571f5645c288476b68fde21db5&width=16&height=11&quality=70&smart=true)
He has been bringing groups to Ātea a Rangi, and before it was built the hill on which it stands, to celebrate Matariki for years.
"What we're doing is teaching the next generation something that we never learnt," Smith said.
"And it doesn't matter whether they're Māori, Pākehā, Chinese, Indian or whatever, it's people living in New Zealand and they're doing something that's unique for New Zealand."
He noted that Matariki itself is just one of many signs of the new year, with Takanga o te Rā (winter solstice) being the main one.
This period when the sunrise point is almost stationary for two weeks runs from mid-June to early July each year.
So Smith thinks a suitable date for a public holiday, which Labour want introduced from 2022, could be the last Monday in June.
At that point of te tau hou Māori (the Māori new year), all the various signs in the morning sky should be visible for all the regions of Aotearoa.
Because Matariki is just one of the new year signs and is celebrated at different times and moon cycles throughout Aotearoa, Smith said te tau hou Māori might be a more apt name for the holiday.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and Act leader David Seymour have both come out against the introduction of a new public holiday for economic reasons.
Smith said he would leave such a call up to politicians and economists, but he sees no harm in taking out an existing public holiday to make way for te tau hou Māori.