How much of it is what you would loosely call value for money?
There is a new urgent hearing this week. It is to do with the new Government's promise to have non-Māori Government departments use English for their name. Think the NZTA and the Ministry of Education.
The argument brought forward by a Tauranga iwi is this does harm to te reo.
A small irony so far, is it doesn't seem to many that the instruction had been sent out at all.
The waters were somewhat muddied when it was suggested that Oranga Tamariki might keep their name as well as Kainga Ora, given they were the names most of us knew the department by.
How they came up with that I don’t know. I assume they meant that given those two departments in particular had spent a lot of time in the news, the commonality of the reference might have stuck.
Which, if you think about it, was sort of the idea in the first place.
Having the vast majority of us exposed to another language, especially an official language, may help the language live, breathe and expand.
But what also happened is Māori terms, names, and phrases got tossed about with mad abandon and muddied the waters of comprehension.
The media have, broadly speaking in a fit of wokeism, embarrassed themselves and in part further damaged their already damaged reputations by embracing the activity with an alacrity that has been humiliating.
Tokenism is not language, but tokenism is what you get in news bulletins; a peppering of Māori with the English that leads to nothing more than a trendy nod to a fad.
But it's a national crisis, apparently, so much taxpayer money must once again be dispersed to lawyers and full-time agitators to, once again, front the tribunal, who will write their usual report, which will be treated in the usual way.
What's the Māori word for bin?
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
A small irony so far, is it doesn't seem to many that the instruction had been sent out at all.
The waters were somewhat muddied when it was suggested that Oranga Tamariki might keep their name as well as Kainga Ora, given they were the names most of us knew the department by.
How they came up with that I don’t know. I assume they meant that given those two departments in particular had spent a lot of time in the news, the commonality of the reference might have stuck.
Which, if you think about it, was sort of the idea in the first place.
Having the vast majority of us exposed to another language, especially an official language, may help the language live, breathe and expand.
But what also happened is Māori terms, names, and phrases got tossed about with mad abandon and muddied the waters of comprehension.
The media have, broadly speaking in a fit of wokeism, embarrassed themselves and in part further damaged their already damaged reputations by embracing the activity with an alacrity that has been humiliating.
Tokenism is not language, but tokenism is what you get in news bulletins; a peppering of Māori with the English that leads to nothing more than a trendy nod to a fad.
But it's a national crisis, apparently, so much taxpayer money must once again be dispersed to lawyers and full-time agitators to, once again, front the tribunal, who will write their usual report, which will be treated in the usual way.
What's the Māori word for bin?
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
If people of any ethnic persuasion want a language to live on, by all means let them own it.
I personally don't want a bar of it, let alone contribute to supporting it financially.
My guess is, most in this country don't give a rats about Te Reo.
Its just not relevant.
I understand many billions of dollars have been sacrificed to this ridiculous virtue signaling nonsense, to appease a tiny minority of winging narcissists.
Its time these parasites were cut free.
They are nothing but an expensive distraction.
Oh, and by the way, there's nothing in the Treaty that in anyway supports their claims.
You need to get with the play Mike, according to a recent interview with Jack Tame, our PM is very much guided by the wisdom of the Waitangi Tribunal and is awaiting more directions from them on the non-ceding of sovereignty issue. I'm sure he'll be equally enlightened by their findings on the Government Dept English names at the expense of Te Reo. The more we spend on their involvement and findings, the more unified the country is getting each and every day - not! And some wonder about our GDP falling.
So, if you could create a claim to lodge with the tribunal, but would pay no cost to do so (and indeed would structure such process to maximise monies flowing to you and your immediate mates, lawyers, etc), and gain some kudos from a fawning media, why would you not do so? The cause of Te Reo was severely damaged by woke wet Wellington wombles renaming government departments into completely nonsensical, unpronounceable forms. After the efforts of the previous government, most seem in need of re-branding anyhow to have any hope of rebuilding credibility with the public. Hilarious to see now that text communications emanating from Tamihere's organisation and Te Pati Māori themselves recently released are written in the same pidgin English that we are now accustomed to in our media - i.e., mainly in English but with a scattering of 'whanau' and 'kai' - an insult to both languages, in my opinion.
The whole farce has been exposed with the revelation that the Crown lawyers have no clue what is being said in these hearings & the entire process is being delayed while submissions are being translated back to our native language (English).
A perfect indication as to why things take 5 times longer to do & cost 10 times as much as they should in NZ & the perfect reason why this BS must be abandoned. By all means retain your language & culture, but dont force it on the rest of us & stop expecting us to pay for it.
Embarrassing...
I cringe at the obvious deterioration of the spoken English language now bastardised by TV presenters. At one time they were role models-no longer! Learn and use Māori by all means on marae, within family circles etc, but don’t expect everyone to learn it under duress. Not everyone’s brain is wired to learn languages. It should surely be a personal choice. The world understands English, indeed airline pilots must understand and use it. Trying to incorporate Māori terms into pilots vocabulary doesn’t make sense, make flying safer or instil confidence!
The question was "Are these tribunal hearings value for money?" Short answer "NO!"
Please, go and sign The Hobson's Pledge petition to End the Tribunal and put that in PM Luxon's In Tray ... at the top marked Urgent!
I am totally in favour of changing our language into maori ....in fact we should not be allowed to
post on Facebook in the colonial language..all legal documents and instructions and news papers should be in maori
NZ has gone backwards with in the past 7 years..They force fed us this garbage, Rammed it down every ones throats..80% of the population have had a f%$#$n gutsfull of this propaganda..Hope they go through with a referendum on the Tow.
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