For more than half a century, University of Waikato professor Tom Roa (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato, Ngāti Apakura) has been part of the movement that reshaped the place of te reo Māori in Aotearoa.
But he is careful with claims of success.
Roa doesn’t talk about te reo Māori as something already saved, but as something still at risk.
Visibility, he said, is not the same as security.
“Noise is not the same as progress.”
Roa’s lifetime of service to the Māori language and education has now been recognised with a royal accolade, he has been appointed a companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year 2026 Honours List, out today.
Roa grew up in a large, busy household.
He has 10 “birth siblings”; Roa is one of 11 children born to his mother and father, and his parents also raised five other children.
His mother was a housewife, his father a truck driver and while they were not a wealthy family, Roa does not recall ever going hungry.
What they lacked in money, he said, they made up for in care for each other.
Those early lessons still sit at the centre of how he thinks about leadership.
Roa was a leader in the 1972 Māori Language Petition, the recognition of te reo Māori as an official language of New Zealand and the launch of Te Wiki o te reo Māori.
He was a young student at Victoria University in the early 1970s when he and others began the work that would later be recognised as historic.
Talking about the movement’s early days, Roa remembers catching the overnight train from Wellington to Auckland with others on Friday nights, petitions in their bags.
While wealthier New Zealanders flew or drove, the group moved through the carriages, talking with other passengers about the “treasured” language.
The group gathered signatures all the way north — and again on the journey back.
Roa said he did not recall anyone pushing back.
Now a professor in Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao, the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato, Roa is internationally respected for his work in Māori linguistics and translation.
He said he has worked across cultures and institutions, and believes the strongest advocates are not created through argument but through exposure and relationship.
Roa said these days it seems as if “the louder you are, the more attention you get”, but he dislikes this dynamic and has challenged it.
To him, this also means telling people calmly, but directly when they are out of line.
Even though it might change nothing in the moment, at the very least, it makes clear where he stands.
In his view, beneath the volume of modern debate remains a quiet openness if people are met with respect rather than rhetoric.
He said he recalls a moment from one of his university classes.
A man in his mid-70s enrolled in his class with the intention of proving there was no value in learning te reo Māori as English was the only language that should be spoken, he told Roa.
Rather than confronting him, Roa gave him time.
Exposure to the language mattered, Roa said, but what mattered more was exposure to manākitanga, the culture of care, relationship-building and aroha.
By the end of the course, the man had changed his views and even became an advocate in his own circles, Roa said.
“He’s passed on now. I went to his tangi.”
Roa said he valued the man for his honesty and staying long enough to be changed.
That ethic has guided Roa beyond the classroom.
Roa’s service spans iwi governance with Waikato-Tainui, Maniapoto and the Apakura Rūnanga Trust, national leadership roles with the Māori Heritage Council and the New Zealand Māori Tourism Board.
Since 2016, he has been working as a Crown-appointed member of the Waitangi Tribunal.
While it’s been busy, he found a way to juggle it all.
“I think the keyword in that is balance,” Roa said.
“Having a good balance of ensuring that you’ve got enough money to put food on the table, but also ensuring that you’ve taken time to smell the roses.”
Despite kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa Māori and growing mainstream visibility, Roa said he does not believe te reo Māori is safe yet.
In too many spaces, he said, the default remains English.
“For the language to survive, it has to be spoken. It has to be used,” he said.
Dropping a Māori word here and there is a good start, but survival required something more deliberate.
The default, he said, must increasingly become Māori.
In his view, there were parts of New Zealand where that is happening well and while these communities deserve to be celebrated, Roa is unsure whether it is enough.
He said he is guided by a moment from his student days.
At a hui of Te Reo Māori Society, a kaumātua who was later photographed leading the 1972 Māori Language Petition onto Parliament’s grounds, addressed the group.
The man said he was nearing the end of his life and when he meets his maker, he expected to be asked one question: What did you do with the treasure that was handed down to you?
Roa said that question has stayed him ever since and shapes how he teaches, governs, and measures progress.
His work is not about noise or recognition, Roa said.
It is about whether te reo Māori will still be spoken naturally, confidently and by default when the next generation is asked the same question.
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. He previously worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive.