Centrist: School lunches scheme cuts complaints 88% and tracks $130m annual savings

The school lunches programme is tracking $130 million in annual savings, complaints are down 88%, and more than 37 million meals are served each year.

This week’s political fight has focused instead on a name change.

Dave Patterson: Reality Drives the New Department of War

After World War II, the world wanted peace; the Department of Defense didn’t bring it.

Following World War II, there was no appetite in the US for more fights overseas. Americans wanted to get back to their jobs, their lives as they were before, and enjoy peace. They were not interested in force projection or being involved in regional conflicts. So, what more appropriate symbol than to change the name of the institution that had kept them safe since the founding of the nation? The War Department became the Department of Defense – but it didn’t stop the wars.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Kakariki Mayor Tory Whanau

The Green Party has officially changed its name, adding te reo alongside the English words so that they can now be called “The Greens Te Pāti Kākāriki”. The use of the term “kākāriki”, or “green”, might also be adopted by the party’s only city Mayor, Tory Whanau of Wellington.

This isn’t only because Whanau sells herself as an environmentalist, but also as “green” also means “inexperienced”, “naïve” or “lacking knowledge”. That’s what Mayor Whanau is being associated with at the moment in Wellington, after two years of poor leadership, and then giving four media interviews in the last week that have been highly embarrassing.

Karl du Fresne: What New Zealanders think about the name Aotearoa

The jury has returned its verdict, and it’s emphatic. New Zealanders want the country’s name left as it is.

In a Newshub-Reid Research poll, respondents were asked what they thought New Zealand should be known as.

Fifty-two percent wanted the country to be called New Zealand, pure and simple. Thirty-six percent wanted Aotearoa in the mix, as in the bob-each-way formulation Aotearoa-New Zealand.

But here’s the crunch: only 9.6 percent of those polled thought the country should be renamed Aotearoa. This is a resounding rebuff to the political, bureaucratic, academic and media elites who have tried for years to impose Aotearoa by sheer frequency of usage.

Don Brash: What does Hipkin's use of "New Zealand" imply?

I’ve been told that our new Prime Minister used the words “New Zealand” at Ratana the other day where Jacinda Ardern would have used “Aotearoa”, or “Aotearoa New Zealand”. And it has been suggested that his usage of the official name of our country rather than either of the ones usually favoured by Ardern is significant, and perhaps suggestive of a desire on his part to distance the Government from some of the more contentious aspects of its policies around co-governance.

If that was his intention, I regret to advise him that merely shifting some of the names is not going to solve the Government’s problem around what might loosely be called Treaty issues.

Bruce Moon: And the History-Twisters win again!

“Waatea News”, 17 February 2022.

“A locality near Whanganui which was the site of an unprovoked attack on tamariki Māori during the Land Wars has been returned to its original name. Accepting the recommendation of the New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa, Land Information Minister Damien O’Connor said the change from Maxwell to Pākaraka addresses a long-standing Treaty grievance. ...

“Pākehā settlers renamed it in the 1870s to honour George Maxwell, the leader of a government militia which in 1868 attacked a group of unarmed Māori children with sabres and killed two boys.”

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Students of history do not need to be reminded that articles and statements by “Waatea News” do not always give an accurate account of events in New Zealand’s history. 

Half the truth, it has been said is often worse than a direct lie.  Here we have a glaring example.

Clive Bibby: Our Country - our place New Zealand

What is it about race relations in this country that we allow the slow creep of woke agenda to permeate every part of society without a reaction to this “cancel culture“  inspired move toward changing our identity.

It is pretty obvious that we are capture to the whims of those who are intent on eliminating every part of our history that offends or isn’t slavishly adhering to the revisionist version of our heritage.

What have we become? - a pathetic bunch of lame brains who are content to see the distorted rants of radicals supplanting the records of those who fought and died in defence of a proud multi cultural upbringing that offers equal opportunity for all.

Why are we not pushing back against this current attempt to change the face of who we are. We are New Zealanders - not Aotearoeans We are all part of a multi cultural society that has added some of the best and worst aspects of foreign cultures from whence we all originated.

Karl du Fresne: Honouring those gentle, benign stingrays

I read recently that the New Zealand Geographic Board proposes to change the name of Frank Kitts Lagoon, on the Wellington waterfront, to Whairepo Lagoon.

Fair enough. Sir Frank Kitts, a long-serving Wellington mayor, is already commemorated in the name of a nearby park. And while Whairepo may not be the easiest name for non-speakers of Maori to get their tongues around, it has local relevance. Whairepo is the Maori name for the eagle rays – commonly known as stingrays – that are frequently seen basking and feeding in the lagoon.