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Sunday, February 9, 2025

Dieuwe de Boer: Mt Egmont "Collective Redress" A National Shame


All the winning that's going on in the United States is a stark reminder how far we still have to go. As Trump announced to restore the English name of Mount McKinley in Alaska, our own politicians pushed forward with the historical vandalism that has marked New Zealand in the past decades. It was during the Obama regime in 2015 that McKinley's name was erased from that mountain. That erasure was temporary, and now it is being restored. McKinley's name had been on that mountain for much less time than any English names on landmarks in New Zealand. After the Alaska Purchase, a gold prospector dubbed the highest peak in the nation as "Mount McKinley" after the incoming Republican President in 1897 due to his support for the gold standard. It stuck and became official in 1917.

Mount Egmont in New Zealand got its name over a century earlier, in 1770, by Captain Cook to honour John Perceval, the Earl of Egmont, who had been a key supporter of his earlier voyages. Without Egmont, Cook's voyages may never have happened or been the success that they were. Of course, the local tribes had their own name for the mountain and the surrounding region: Taranaki. In friendly New Zealand fashion the mountain has had two names, and even when in official use Egmont was displaced due to a hatred of New Zealand's colonial history. Egmont National Park and Egmont Village still bore the names. Now the next phase of decolonisation strips Egmont's name from both the mountain and the National Park. Even the word "mount" has been erased and replaced with "maunga" in the official name.

This week Parliament passed the "Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill".

It's quite shameful that 100% of NZ First and ACT MPs voted for this continued march to so-called "decolonisation." You'd think they know better, but clearly we have a lot more work to do.

This is the third case of "legal person" status given to a landmark in further perpetuation of silly pagan superstitions.

The bill continues to perpetuate bilingualism in its introductions and takes it one step further by putting the Maori language first, making it very hard to scan sections when trying to read quickly. There was a coalition agreement to fix this with department names, but it has gotten worse and embedded itself into legislation! The issue extends to passports too where New Zealand is relegated to a distant second.

The legislation also once again embeds "partnership" and "treaty principles" into law, unequivocally stating that the Treaty of Waitangi was a partnership and setting up the former Egmont National Park as one—presumably every MP agrees with this definition since they voted for it. The new governing bodies and geographic designation don't even have English names equivalents and the Maori ones are all unpronounceable sentences.

This isn't about etymology, this is about the replacement of New Zealand with something alien. English names must come back, and they must be prioritised in official usage.

I'm mostly ambivalent on the issue of treaty settlements. Yes, some tribes got a bad deal, but so did the settlers who had to pay twice for land after disagreements, or who had land confiscated by the government in the name of public interest, or who sent their sons to die in wars. Their descendants don't get settlements from the Crown.

Taranaki tribes lost a war of rebellion fair and square. Prior to that they lost a war against Waikato, which really was the beginning of the grievances to follow, as Waikato sold most of the land to the Crown by right of conquest.

We should be adamant that just because Parliament passed this unanimously does not make it legitimate. The English names are going to be restored for English usage and Maori names need to be ones that are pronounceable, not pretentious essays.

The superstitious fictions such as "legal personhood" for natural features will be repealed when we win. That includes Taranaki, Whanganui, and Te Urewera.

A treaty settlement is a piece of legislation that can be amended and repealed. National Parks can be returned to New Zealanders with the stroke of a pen.

Yes, we're still losing on this issue, but there are elections every three years and we can demand better negotiation positions from NZ First and ACT.

The lesson is that those who want to win the most will win, and you'll know we're winning when Egmont is back on his mountain. Let's see if we can beat McKinley and do it in less than ten.

Dieuwe is the editor of Right Minds NZ. - where this article was sourced. In addition to conservative politics and reactionary thought, he likes books, gardening, biking, tech, reformed theology, beauty, and tradition.

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