Raerino himself is fluent in te reo Māori, although he said "if you talk to the experts, they'll say 'oh, well, you still need to brush up on a few areas.' I would say I have good fluency."
He said being an official language "makes it easier for us, in an institution way, to justify what we do" to promote and advance the language.
"Te reo Māori has its own mana, and doesn't need to have a government stamp to say that it has mana. However, it is nice - it reaffirms the mana that it already has.
"It helps in our journey ... to strengthen what we do. So, there is mana behind everything that we're doing because it is an official language, that helps."
He said the mana of te reo Māori is "mai rānō", meaning it's always had it.
Raerino's father's family had te reo Māori as their first language, but Raerino said he was not as fortunate as that.
He said he learned "by osmosis" growing up, but "while I've had the Māori language around me my whole life, I had to go back and learn it properly".
"When I was younger, it was always something that I wanted to do, but the whole reo thing wasn't as big back then."
He started that journey of learning in the early 1990s at the University of Waikato, in a total immersion degree and masters in te reo Māori.
He said this was "a great experience" - "we were all on the same kaupapa [purpose, topic], we were all eager and yearning for te reo Māori".
He said the opportunities to learn the language these days are more accommodating of people's lives outside study - when he learned, he said, there were not as many options to learn part-time while working.
"There's been a huge growth in te reo Māori programmes throughout Aotearoa in general, and [they're] a lot more accommodating for people that want to stay in employment."
He said he had seen "a huge shift" in the attitude towards learning te reo Māori during his lifetime.
"Once it was 'why are you doing that?', like a niche sort of thing, now it's totally mainstream.
"Aotearoa, in general, has matured in its relationship with Māori, and te reo Māori especially, so that now people see benefit in it.
"There's a huge wave of the general public that want to learn te reo Māori, for all different sorts of reasons, so it's no longer seen as only being personal, of small value.
"Aotearoa society, in general, sees the value in being able to engage with Māori in a meaningful way."
He said te reo Māori previously had a limited relationship to some work, but now was "an essential part of most people's work".
This includes Raerino's efforts at Toi Ohomai, across areas such as early childhood, social work, and nursing, where he says the language is "vital" - "all those areas now have te reo Māori that runs through them".
"It's the base of what I do ... it's not just tokenistic stuff."
Going forward, he said the next steps were to continue "encouraging people" to learn.
He said a mixture of encouraging Māori to learn te reo and expanding beyond just Māori people was needed.
"It's everyone that needs to be involved in it, and everyone has to share the load of learning, of strengthening te reo Māori."
He said Māori Language Week was important, but he hoped to see a day where it would no longer be needed - when it would become "a normal part of our everyday being".
"Whilst Māori Language Week is important, the goal is that we move beyond that."
