Māori language board chair says Govt’s planned order on te reo use is illegal

Piripi Walker, chair of Wellington’s Māori language board Te Kaiwhakapūmau i Te Reo Māori, says any order by Government ministers for officials and departments to cut back on the use of te reo is illegal and should not stand.

Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters slammed te reo Māori names for government departments, saying “communications is about comprehension and understanding” and called te reo Māori names for departments tokenism.

The agreement struck between New Zealand First and National included requiring public service departments “have their primary name in English, except for those specifically related to Māori”.

It also included a requirement that “public service departments and Crown Entities ... communicate primarily in English”.

“The majority of New Zealanders want Waka Kotahi [NZ Transport Agency], this so-called boat on the road, to actually fix the potholes up. If you ask the Māori in Hokianga and the East Coast, what do they want, they want the road fixed and not this tokenism,” Peters said.

But Walker says the language is protected by having official status, so it can’t be pushed back into a secondary position.

“Those voices that have come out, essentially they are a continuation of the old voices of bans, of suppression, marginalisation. They’ve crept out into an election campaign,” Walker told Waatea News.

“They’ve been seized on by our political parties as very fertile ground for votes. They’ve always been out there, the anti-Māori view, the one that doesn’t want Māori visibility. It gets very annoyed by a Māori presence or the Māori language being around.

“Our members met last week and expressed strong opposition and disappointment over the Coalition moves.

“To ban, suppress or undermine the status of the language now will only lead to a divided society, a concern at the centre of the Waitangi Tribunal findings on the extent of official recognition of te reo.

“The Tribunal said, and Nga Kaiwhakapūmau reiterate, that recognition of te reo needs to be full recognition, and there can be no denial of its use by anyone. Tens of thousands of non-Māori are learning to speak Māori, Māori have returned in their thousands to raising their children as Māori speakers.

“There has been a general spirit of fun and enjoyment in the air in the last two decades over a very cool mix of spoken and sung languages, seen and felt everywhere. Now it’s all vanishing, in a few short weeks.”

Walker says even if Māori challenge the moves through the courts, the damage done to the way young Māori see their language could set back its revival a generation.

Additional reporting Waatea.News.Com