Dave Mollard's Change is Constant: Is Palmerston North the best name?

If we can change the name of the beautiful maunga, Taranaki, we can change the name of our city. Photo / Alan Gibson

Opinion:

Our city bears the name of Henry John Temple, the 3rd Viscount Palmerston. Lord Palmerston was twice the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a man so noteworthy that not just one town in Aotearoa wears his illustrious name, but two (plus one in Canada).

I tried to find a connection between old Henry and our country but other than his lordship serving in the British Foreign Office for a long time, he really did not have too much to do with the Land of the Long White Cloud.

It's hard to judge a person's character with a 12-minute Google search, but I do trust biographer Jasper Ridley, who describes the 3rd Viscount as "a professional politician, shrewd, cynical, resilient; tough and sometimes unscrupulous". Probably not all the characteristics we would want our tamariki to aspire to.

I'm not the first to raise the subject, but I'm quite happy to spark more debate about the name of our city. Our city is a wonderful place to live, filled with inspirational people doing exciting things.

We have world-class scientists, world-class military, world-class educators and the Manawatū Turbos. We punch well above our weight in positive social indicators, we have clean energy, clean water, clean streets and, for the most part, clean public toilets.

We are the home of national treasures such as John Clarke, Tom Scott, Farah Palmer, Fran and Paul Dibble, and Bruce Hemara's beard. We are a multicultural city filled with Kiwis with different accents, different ways of dressing and different histories.

Is Palmerston North a name that is inspiring, that reflects our character and our history? Or is it just a name slapped on our city with little thought for the past, present and future residents?

Do we want our city to be named after a British politician who probably reflected the values of his time, values that we would find abhorrent in today's politicians (and regular humans as well)? Or should we change our name to what the first people who lived here called it?

We did it with two of our most beautiful maunga, Taranaki and Aoraki. Let us join the pantheon of great places like Mumbai, Chennai, Istanbul, St Petersburg, Arena Manawatū and, of course, KFC, which threw off the yoke of their history to be reborn in a way that reflects who they want to be now and in the future.

Let us do it quickly before the 795 residents of Palmerston, Otago, beat us again!

+ Dave Mollard is a Palmerston North community worker and social commentator.