Karl du Fresne: Deaf to everything but their own righteousness

I woke up yesterday morning to hear an RNZ newsreader refer to something that had happened in Kirikiriroa. That’s a name that’s almost as hard to type as it is to pronounce, but that’s not the point.

To my knowledge, no one has asked the residents of Hamilton whether they approve of their city’s name being changed. My guess is that they don’t – but hey, only 10 percent of the population want the country renamed Aotearoa, and that hasn’t stopped newsreaders, weather forecasters, reporters, politicians and academics using it as a substitute for New Zealand.