Not just discourage them — I mean remove them from legislation, from government documents, from schools, and from official use entirely. For the sake of actual social cohesion, these two words have become more harmful than helpful.
Over the last decade or so, we’ve seen hundreds of words in the English language made politically incorrect. Words like “retarded”, “Oriental”, “homo”, “he/she”, and of course the N-word — a term used to attack people based on skin colour. So why are we still clinging to two words that were invented in completely different times and circumstances?
Let me give you some context. I spent my first twenty years growing up in Porirua, one of New Zealand’s largest Polynesian cities, among Māori and Pasifika people. I have a son connected to the tribes of Taranaki, and I’ve lived with Māori women on two occasions over the years. I’ve seen how these words affect people from both sides.
First, let’s look at what real social cohesion should look like — and then we’ll examine the history of these two words.
If you go to government websites like the Ministry of Social Development, you’ll find documents like the Te Korowai Whetū Strategic Framework. It’s not a great start. They use language that almost nobody in New Zealand even understands. The document talks about everyone thriving, belonging, and being respected. In practice it means pushing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion built on bicultural foundations.
I have to say, those ideals make me sick. They have only ever increased division in New Zealand — and everywhere else this kind of multiculturalism has been tried. Look at the riots across America and Europe. It’s the same failed experiment.
New Zealand is not a bicultural country, and we should stop pretending it is. We are one nation in Polynesia under a constitutional monarchy. Culturally, we all live the same way — we live in houses, eat similar food, go to work, play the same sports, drive cars or use public transport, and we’ve been intermarrying for over 200 years.
Successive governments since the 1970s and 80s have pushed us toward separation and division through Treaty politics and DEI. Before all that nonsense, New Zealand was far more united.
Economic historians point out that from the late 19th century through the 1960s, New Zealand was one of the richest and most egalitarian societies on Earth. According to the UN Human Development Index, the NZ standard of living was number one in the world in the 1950s, and our per-capita income was about 88% of America’s — one of the highest relative positions ever recorded. I was born at the end of that golden age in the early 1960s and experienced it. Every New Zealander, including those who identified as Māori, experienced it the same way.
There was almost no homelessness, no unemployment, no beggars on the streets, no gangs, no Treaty claims, and very few people complaining about their feelings. It was a better and more united country in every measurable way. And back then, the words Māori and Pākehā were seldom used.
My central argument is this.
The word Pākehā was made up between 1810 and 1815 by tribal people living in a Stone Age culture. These tribes had no central sovereignty, no formal property rights, and no universal human rights. The culture was extremely hierarchical. When they saw Europeans arriving in ships with weapons, tools, and a completely different way of life, they called them Pākehā — European foreigners.
Some people claim it referred to white skin, but that doesn’t hold up. There were already fair-skinned people here in the 1770s who were never called Pākehā. French Explorer Captain Crozet wrote in his 1771–72 diary:
“It is no doubt surprising that we should have found at this corner of the earth… three varieties of man: whites, blacks and yellows. It is most certain that the whites are the aborigines.”
I can only guess he made that last observation because black skin is an adaptation to a very hot climate, which New Zealand doesn’t have.
The term Pākehā was about cultural difference, not skin colour. Britain had become a constitutional monarchy with central sovereignty, laws, and equal rights under the Crown. That was the real gap.
Today, every person in New Zealand lives under the same constitutional monarchy, the same legal system, and the same property rights. The original reason for the word Pākehā no longer exists. Yet in recent years, it has become a derogatory term — used in exactly the same way as the N-word.
I believe that this has happened because our education system has pushed group identity instead of unity. It has taught children that “white colonisers” are the enemy of people who identify as Māori. You can see the results all over social media. Here are just a few examples I found in minutes:
1. “don’t use our Maori word then huh??..pakeha.Cheek of you pakeha that want to be called ‘kiwi’..especially you lot that keep trashing us Maori”
2. “Typical Keha BS! Blood quantum! Shows how much Keha still don’t understand Tangata Whenua!! You think you do! You don’t!”
3. “…pedophile will try anything to attack MAORI, pakeha wasn’t the first people here end of story, it’s all white people bullsh*t”
4. “You pakeha will regret creating all this sh*t, it will kick you all in the @r$e, Maori are stronger than ever and ready for anything you try to do, keep digging your racist hole, you are all getting exposed to your Neanderthal behaviour”
It’s everywhere. People use “Pākehā” or “keha” as a racial insult based on skin colour. But skin colour is all that’s left, because there are no real cultural differences between New Zealand citizens anymore. We all live the same way.
Now let’s look at the word Māori.
Before the Treaty was signed in 1840, there was no such thing as “Māori” as a single people. The tribes were known only by their own names — they were separate nations. The noun “Māori”, which tried to lump all tribes together into one political group, did not appear until after 1850 — more than ten years after the Treaty.
This matters enormously. The 1840 Treaty was not addressed to “Māori”. The English draft, completed by James Busby on 4 February 1840, was addressed to the chiefs and people of New Zealand — including the thousands of settlers already here. Article 2 guaranteed land and property to the chiefs, tribes, and all the people of New Zealand. Article 3 promised the rights and privileges of British subjects to the people of New Zealand, all of them.
The Treaty was designed to end tribalism and bring in one system of law and government under the Crown. It was an inclusive nation-building document.
The adjective maori simply meant ordinary or common. The political noun “Māori” was created later. Today, anyone with even a tiny amount of ancestry can claim to be part of the “Māori race” in legislation — even though anthropologists largely rejected the biological concept of race decades ago.
When schools push children to identify by race rather than as individuals, they are teaching tribal thinking. They are disrespecting the very ancestors who signed the Treaty to move away from tribal division.
Conclusion
Real social cohesion requires people to see themselves first as individuals responsible for their own lives, then as family members, then as members of communities, and finally as citizens of New Zealand.
New Zealand was at its best when we focused on being one people. If the government keeps driving separatism by pushing these outdated terms through the education system and racist legislation, it’s no surprise that we’re becoming more divided. What’s more, successive terrible governance has seen NZ drop from number 1 on the UN Standard of Living Index to 17th.
The 1840 Treaty was the mechanism that moved New Zealand away from brutal tribalism toward a constitutional monarchy where we are one nation of individuals. There is no longer any need for the racial concepts of Pākehā and Māori in legislation.
New Zealand’s tribal history should be studied and respected — warts and all. I have no problem with people who want to identify tribally, as long as they cover all the costs themselves. I just don’t choose to identify that way.
These two words were created in completely different times for completely different reasons. They no longer serve us. In fact, they are now being used as racial hammers to keep New Zealand divided.
So the question remains: Should we ban the words Māori and Pākehā for the sake of social cohesion?
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
Andy Oakley is a national manager in one of the country’s largest mechanical companies and has been involved in the HEVAC, smoke control and construction industry for more than 35 years. He is also the author of Cannons Creek to Waitangi, a book that details how and why he made a treaty claim to the Waitangi Tribunal. This article was first published HERE
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