Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith ordered officials to remove te reo Māori greetings and references to “Aotearoa New Zealand” in an official invitation to the formal Matariki celebration this year.
Critics say the action is “shameful” and “contrary” to celebrating the indigenous language.
Documents obtained by 1News show Ministry for Culture and Heritage staff drafted a letter to Goldsmith’s Australian counterpart, Tony Burke, using the salutations “tēnā koe” and “nāku noa nā”, as well as “Aotearoa New Zealand”.
But in an email an official noted changes directed by Goldsmith: “Following the changes made to Hon Burke’s letter from the Minister last week (i.e. removing all te reo Māori salutations and the removal of any references made to Aotearoa, New Zealand) please find below the updated email”, the official wrote. . . .
. . . Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does his Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage’s decision to remove te reo Māori from formal letters inviting an Australian Minister who is a champion of indigenous languages to New Zealand for Matariki celebrations reflect the standard of behaviour that he expects from his Ministers?
The recipient of the letter in question would probably have got the gist of what was written in te reo, but it is good manners to use English if that is the language that those to whom you are speaking or writing use.
I can speak and understand some Spanish the but sentence I use most often is lo siento mi español es muy oxidado. It means I’m sorry, my Spanish is very rusty.
Because it’s rusty I like to practice when I have the opportunity but I am very careful only to do so if it’s appropriate and not going to be rude to anyone else who won’t understand.
There are times and places where the use of te reo would be appropriate and polite, and while it could be used in a letter to someone from another country, it would almost always be better to stick to English.
The letter to the Australian Minister is one such example where English was the better option, and this sign in Le Quesnoy, the town liberated by New Zealand soldiers in 1918 is another:
Aotearoa is understood in New Zealand as an alternative name for our country, but it is not the country’s official name and it is not the translation of Nouvelle Zelande.
It would be tempting to alert the Minister of Foreign Affairs to this but I’m not going to sink to the pettiness displayed by TV One and Hipkins.
When there are so many serious issues which ought to be concerning the media and all Members of Parliament, why waste a news item and a parliamentary question on this?
Especially when the question gave the PM the opportunity to trump the questioner with his answer:
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I would just say to that member we value te reo in this Government. What I’d also say to that member is the correspondence was being directed to an Australian Minister overseas, and what I’d say to you is in my dealings with Australians it always pays to be incredibly simple and clear and use English. . .
It also pays to not stoop to pettiness in the news and parliament, because pettiness doesn’t pay.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
Agree, but a oh whatever is not an alternative name for New Zealand.
It is a move foisted on kiwis by the leftists.
This country was so lost into lala land under Labour a lot of people justdon't know what reality is anymore. With a Government borrowing how many billions over the next 4 or 5 years hoping by then to balance the books we waste money corresponding to foreigners in a tongue they have no idea of.
Do we expect foreigners to reply with some equally obscure tongue from their nation ? Do we expect the Australians to reply in some dialect of Aboriginal ? Or the New Guinean's to reply from one of their hundreds of dialects.? Or pidgeon English perhaps ?
As a nation we can't fund the hospitals, the schools, welfare or infrastructure without borowing billions each year. We can't feed the hungry , heal the sick or house the homeless
This week we are seeing factories shutting down because they can't afford the cost of power. Back in May we were worried about widespread power shutdowns. I was going to say blackouts but hell are we aloud o sy that anymore.
As a nation we can't fund the hospitals, the schools, welfare or infrastructure without borowing billions each year. We can't feed the hungry , heel the sick or house the homeless ,.
But we can spend millions no doubt virtue signalling by putting a few Maori phrases into our government , council and business correspondence.
Did you see the add on TV last night? Thousands of children needing charity for clothes and shoes and blankets.
But we'd rather borrow money to virtue signal.
Like most of the Maori language Aotearoa is a made-up name. It comes from the 1890s and the chaps who made it up were a Percy Reeves and another by the name of Something Smith. Early settlers, not Maori.
Also, Maori and NOT "indigenous". they have a "homeland, and its NOT New Zealand. They proudly state they came by canoe from either Hawaii or Eastern Polynesia. True indigenous people, like Australian Aborigines who have been in OZ for 50,000 years, don't have stories about coming from elsewhere 1,200 years ago.
I always thought that it was polite for formal invitations to use the language of the person being invited. Otherwise they will not know what they are being invited to, no matter where they're from. Maori make a big song and dance about their supposed hospitality, but like so many other Maori things, it's a myth.
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