The speaker of New Zealand ’s Parliament informed lawmakers he wouldn’t contemplate additional complaints in regards to the use of the nation’s Māori name, Aotearoa, in Parliament, after one lawmaker made a bid to have it banned.
“Aotearoa is regularly used as a name of New Zealand,” Speaker Gerry Brownlee stated in a ruling on Tuesday at Parliament in Wellington. “It appears on our passports and it appears on our currency.”
The battle over a phrase more and more outstanding in New Zealand life arose final month when one lawmaker objected to a different’s use of the time period. It displays the way in which enthusiasm for the Indigenous language amongst New Zealanders of all ethnicities has at instances prompted a backlash — together with about what the nation needs to be referred to as. It was additionally the newest salvo within the so-called “culture war”-style friction between two political events.
Ricardo Menéndez March, from the left-leaning Green Party, used the name Aotearoa throughout a query to a authorities minister. The composite phrase means “land of the lengthy white cloud” in te reo Māori, the Māori language.
Winston Peters — who is deputy prime minister, foreign minister and leader of the populist party New Zealand First — objected in a point of order.
“Why is someone who applied to come to this country in 2006 allowed to ask a question of this parliament that changes this country’s name without the referendum and sanction of the New Zealand people?” Mr. Peters asked Mr. Brownlee. Although Menéndez March is a New Zealand citizen, was born in Mexico.
Mr. Peters asked Mr. Brownlee to bar use of the term Aotearoa in Parliament.
On Tuesday, Mr. Brownlee said lawmakers were already permitted to address Parliament in any of New Zealand’s three official languages — English, te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language.
“That really is the end of the matter,” he said. Mr. Brownlee had earlier asked Menéndez March to consider using the phrase “Aotearoa New Zealand” to refer to the country, “to assist anyone who might not understand the term,” but said he would not require it.
“If other members do not like certain words, they don’t have to use them,” Mr. Brownlee said. “But it’s not a matter of order and I don’t expect to have further points of order raised about it.”
Mr. Peters told reporters that Mr. Brownlee was “wrong” and that he would not answer questions in which New Zealand was referred to as Aotearoa. Mr. Menéndez March did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other lawmakers refer to New Zealand by its Māori name. But it’s not the first time Mr. Peters and his party have fixed on Mr. Menéndez March.
In January, the Green Party complained to the Prime Minister and Mr. Brownlee after Mr. Peters’ deputy, Shane Jones, heckled during a Parliamentary debate with a remark about Mexicans — while Mr. Peters told two other Green lawmakers who immigrated to New Zealand that they should “show some gratitude” to the country.
Mr. Menéndez March denounced the comments as “outwardly racist and xenophobic.”
A flamboyant politician who’s New Zealand’s longest-serving present lawmaker, Mr. Peters favours populist insurance policies and has been decried earlier than for remarks about Asian immigration to New Zealand. Mr. Peters, who’s Māori, opposes initiatives meant to advance Māori individuals and language.
One former lawmaker, Peter Dunne, wrote in an opinion column in February that the squabble was extra about New Zealand First shoring up its populist model with supporters than it was in regards to the language itself.
The Māori language is rising in recognition, after a long time of advocacy by Māori leaders reversed its fortunes. Māori — who make up shut to twenty% of New Zealanders — have been discouraged from talking the language after British colonization, and by the flip of the twenty first century it was anticipated to die out utterly.
Individual phrases, reminiscent of Aotearoa, are actually half of each day New Zealand dialog for a lot of — together with non-Māori. Some endorse an official moniker change for the nation, which was named by a Dutch cartographer.
Opponents say that, earlier than colonization, Māori didn’t have a collective time period for the entire of New Zealand. Aotearoa was the name used for the nation’s North Island.
Published – March 04, 2025 03:22 pm IST
