Ani O'Brien: What is in a name? Te Puna Aonui

Without Googling, do you know what the agency does?

Minister Karen Chhour has made the decision to rename Te Puna Aonui. The name translates to "spring of enlightenment" or a "source of wisdom and collective action" and the minister says it is not clear enough to New Zealanders what the venture is and who it serves.

Te Puna Aonui is a collective of government agencies responsible for implementing Te Aorerekura. According to the website, the agencies are Te Kaporeihana Āwhina Hunga Whara, Ara Poutama Aotearoa, Te Tāhuhu o Te Mātauranga, Manatū Hauora, Tāhū o te Ture, Te Manatū Whakahiato Ora, Ngā Pirihimana O Aotearoa, Oranga Tamariki, and Te Puni Kōkiri. There are also 4 associate agencies: Te Tari O Te Pirimia Me Te Komiti Matau, Manatū Wāhine, Te Manatū mō Ngā Iwi o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, and Te Tari Mātāwaka.1

Te Aorerekura begins with “The moemoeā” which says:

“At the heart of this moemoeā is ora – meaning to be well and thriving, to have mana enhanced and restored, to experience safety in all parts of life. Mana and ora are important parts of a person’s wellbeing, relationships and connections.”

At this point you may be beginning to understand why the minister was concerned that New Zealanders might not know what Te Puna Aonui is. It isn’t clear even in the translation of the name what area of government it operates in nor what kinds of services it might provide. The domain name used is simply tepunaaonui.govt.nz so there is no contextual information there either. Lets look at the guiding principles to see if they provide any further insight:

Click to view

If the “Whanonga pono” hadn’t been following by “Te Tiriti o Waitangi and te ao Māori values” I would have assumed that the guiding principles were Māori principles. The section is written in a hybrid English/Te reo that does not provide direct translations for the lesser known te reo words. This is something that I have seen happening more and more often in government communications, the hybridisation of the two languages.

I would argue that this is a breach of the Plain Language Act 2022 which mandates that government communications be clear and easily understood by the intended audience; concise and free from unnecessary complexity; well-organised and structured in a logical and user-friendly manner; and audience-appropriate, tailored to the needs and comprehension levels of the target audience.

This legislation was introduced by the last Labour Government with the aim to eliminate jargon and ensure that all New Zealanders, including those with limited English proficiency, can access and understand government information.

On the surface, hybridisation of language (like the blending of te reo Māori and English) can be seen as a progressive measure intended to acknowledge the importance of te reo. However, there is a trade-off that this form of communication can alienate those who are not fluent in te reo and that is almost 97.7% of New Zealanders.2 According to the 2023 Wellbeing Statistics released by Stats NZ “2.3 percent of people reported they could speak te reo Māori well or very well, similar to 2.5 percent in 2021”. In the 2018 Census, about 96% of respondents reported being unable to hold a conversation in Māori.

So while Māori language inclusion in government communications may intend to reflect cultural respect, it makes it very difficult for non-Māori speakers who make up almost our entire population. Those who also struggle with English, like new migrants, are completely up the creek without a paddle.

The primary goal of government communications is to inform the public. This is what was lost in the years between 2017 and 2023. Government communications must prioritise the paramount purpose of getting important information to New Zealanders in the best way for them to understand it. The idea that using te reo is an equity measure that benefits Māori does not bear out in statistics. Most Māori are not fluent and need English communications in order to understand.

The current Government appeared to understand this and adopted a policy of all Government department names needing to be primarily in English unless they were explicitly related to the provision of Māori services, like Te Puni Kōkiri. But this seems to have been an early announcement that hasn’t been seen through fully. The public service has certainly dug in their heels.

The revitalisation of the Māori language is a worthy goal, but it cannot be prioritised over, for example, the ability of all New Zealanders to easily access and understand information on family and sexual violence. That is what has happened with Te Puna Aonui and its national strategy Te Aorerekura (National Strategy to Eliminate Family and Sexual Violence).

Minister in charge, Karen Chhour, has been brave in taking this issue on. She has faced an extraordinary amount of heat from Opposition MPs for similarly refocusing Oranga Tamariki on the wellbeing of children regardless of race. The media ran story after story supporting the narrative that her actions were somehow anti-Māori despite Minister Chhour being Māori herself.

“Yes, I am Māori, and proud of this. I am also a mother, a wife, and a survivor of both family and sexual violence. The idea that one part of my being is somehow more important than any other is something I don’t accept, and I don’t believe that the majority of New Zealanders would accept this either,” she said.

So Te Puna Aonui becomes the boring, but descriptively named Executive Board for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence.

Chhour says “This decision reflects the reality that all people are potentially victims of family violence and sexual violence.”

There is some additional context also. According to reporting by Stuff, the minister told them that the decision also reflected “the wishes of disgruntled former advisory board members who have asked for the gifted Te Reo name to be returned.”3

The usual suspects won’t let the truth get in the way of putting the boot into Karen Chhour and non-Māori victims.

See it isn’t just the name Chhour is changing. She is also restructuring her advisory groups to better reflect that all kinds of New Zealanders experience family and sexual violence and that Government should care about them all. She is replacing the existing Māori-only Ministerial Advisory Board with a multi-cultural advisory group.

Stuff reports:

The newly proposed advisory board will include representation from Pasifika, Asian, and other communities that Chhour says were “deliberately excluded” under the previous advisory board’s framework.

Te Pūkotahitanga is the name of the Tangata Whenua Ministerial Advisory Group appointed in June 2022 by then-Minister Marama Davdison. The current Te Puna Aonui website says:

“Te Pūkotahitanga has a significant role in creating family violence and sexual violence systems and supports that are governed and led by, and for, tangata whenua in the best interests of their whānau, hapū, iwi and all communities.”4

Click to view

Unfortunately, concerns began to arise about the politicisation of the group very early in the piece. For example, the group was vehemently opposed to the current Government’s outlawing of gang patches. Their protectionism of gangs is very strange given we know that around half of all convictions gang members receive relate to family violence.5 Gang involvement in New Zealand is a significant factor contributing to our country's high rates of family and sexual violence.

In March, Te Pūkotahitanga used an official memorandum to Minister Chhour to erroneously suggest that there was “declining police responsiveness” to family violence events which was a serious risk of injury or death and that the decline “coincides with increased police focus on enforcing new gang laws”. Their official claims were not only wrong, but were drawing connections where there weren’t any.

The New Zealand Herald reported:

However, police and Police Minister Mark Mitchell said officers are not attending fewer family violence events that require a police response.

They said police are in fact coding 7.7% more family violence events as priority one emergencies.6

Additionally, Police Assistant Commissioner Mike Johnson said “Police’s median response time for family harm events decreased by over three minutes in 2024 compared to 2023.”

It is highly concerning that the focus of such an important advisory group was so distracted by the desire to discredit the Government’s measures to disrupt criminal gang activity that they would send such a misleading memorandum to the minister.

Naturally, the members of the advisory group are not happy with their disestablishment. Notably, the Herald reports:

Chhour said members of this advisory group – not the department chief executives on the main board – had raised concerns with her around her decision not to extend their tenure.

She also said concerns had been raised about her decision “to include other communities in a new, multi-cultural advisory board which will replace the current Māori-only one”.7

There is a strong theme in the New Zealand public service that only services targeted specifically at Māori as a racial or ethnic group can achieve outcomes for Māori. These are the conditions in which the Māori Health Authority was created although it was short-lived. It is also the belief underpinning Te Pūkotahitanga. In the 2023/2024 Te Puna Aonui Annual Report, the advisory group chairs said:

These reports provide clear evidence of the importance of investing in Māori-led solutions that are grounded in tikanga and whānau-centred approaches. Without targeted resources and stronger partnerships, the transformative change required to address violence in our communities will remain out of reach.

Māori-only solutions might look good on paper and might yield incremental improvements, but there is no evidence that they have shifted the dial on long-term outcome deficiencies. They are often short-term fixes for deep, systemic issues, and while they might be well-intentioned, they do little to address the root causes of social and health inequities. As I say, these initiatives are well-intentioned, but they serve as a justification for spending silos and an excuse for avoiding broader, necessary change in New Zealand's public systems. They are an easy way to point to government spending on “Māori issues” and demonstrate political awareness of the current positions of the intelligentsia. They are not proven to be actually effective in anyway at producing better outcomes for Māori.

I fear that ministers like Karen Chhour who identify that the status quo is not working and are brave enough to change things up will be so hamstrung by the political activism in our media and public service that their initiatives will not have a chance to work. Changes need time to work. Troubleshooting teething problems and ironing out the kinks are a normal part of trying something new. But one gets the impression that the media are hovering over Minister Chhour, breathing heavily over her shoulder as she does her best to manoeuvre complex, hostile, and cumbersome government agencies, just waiting for her to stumble.

Despite the plethora of good, evidence-based reasons to change Te Puna Aonui’s name and restructure the advisory group to be more inclusive of New Zealand’s multicultural population, the minister will likely face headlines and questions in Parliament that are designed to paint her as a racist.

“By continuing with a te reo name I believe we risk potentially making non-Māori victim-survivors feel like their lived experiences do not matter,” Chhour told the media. This should be a good enough reason to refocus the way we approach family and sexual violence. It should be.

On a personal note: I have always been engaged with what the government is up to in this space. I did not have the benefit of government services supporting me when I experienced sexual violence and perhaps if there had been the awareness back then I might have seen justice and been able to prevent a whole lot of mental health problems.

I remember, in 2022, when Marama Davidson changed the Joint Venture for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence to Te Puna Aonui I was very confused. I went to the old website and could no longer find the information I was looking for. I recall emailing Marama Davidson’s office asking for assistance and being directed to the new website. I tried to track down the emails, but I have concluded that I sent them from an old work address.

In any case, I spent some time going through the new site with a sinking feeling in my stomach. The dread I felt was because I knew that this new approach would set the government in a direction that was more about the politics of the public servants and the rest of the chattering class and less about outcomes for the victims of sexual and family violence. I also knew that as much as I wanted to, attempting to fight this would result in me being known not just as the awful woman who doesn’t think men can be women, but that awful racist woman who is pushing back on Māori initiatives. While I don’t like to ever be swayed from doing what is right by bullying tactics, after a decade of being known as the “worst TERF in New Zealand” I was pretty bloody exhausted of being online New Zealand’s punching bag.

I spoke to women working in the space and feminists I had worked with on other issues. The consensus was either support for the measures out of concern for the over-representation of wahine Māori in sexual and family violence or it was an acceptance of the inevitability of the move to realign all of government to be Māori-focused. There was a feeling that just as we have previously had to do our best within a male-dominated system, we now have to do our best in a system that prioritises things unhelpfully in a different way. And before people say that Māori are fighting in some kind of European system, as mentioned earlier, Māori are also being disadvantaged by the use of a language they do not use and a culture that is meant to represent them but doesn’t. Remember only 2.3% of the entire population can speak te reo “well”.

I didn’t do much to challenge the disappearing of non-Māori victims of sexual and family crime from our government agencies. I am embarrassed that I was put off from mounting a fight and using my profile to pushback by the idea of experiencing more aggression, abuse, and threats. I feel guilty that I pushed the matter to the side and focused on other things.

That is why I was overcome with such a profound sense of gratitude when I read about Karen Chhour’s decision to make changes to ensure all victims are able to access the information and support they need and so that the government can see us all, not just those with Māori whakapapa.

Thank you, Minister Chhour, for being braver than most people who have taken a seat in New Zealand’s cabinet room. Thank you for seeing all of us and not reducing the importance, severity, or validity of our terrible experiences to a matter of our racial background.

I encourage everyone to be brave like Karen Chhour and pushback on her behalf against those who will call her names and accuse her of racism due to her decision to remove the racialisation of the Joint Venture for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence.

Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.