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WHY IS THE MAORI LANGUAGE BEING THRUST DOWN THE THROATS OF PEOPLE WITH NO INTEREST IN LEARNING IT?

Over the last few years, and especially since the current Government was elected late in 2020, there has been an increasing trend to use the Maori language where there are perfectly acceptable English alternatives.


Radio New Zealand is a particularly egregious offender: even though the taxpayer has provided many millions of dollars to support Maori-language radio stations, and a Maori TV channel, those of us who speak not a word of the Maori language and have not the slightest interest in learning it are forced to listen to a number of Maori words and phrases with no translation provided.


And the use of Maori words is becoming more and more common throughout the public sector.


Victoria University of Wellington recently placed a large newspaper advertisement for a “Tumu Whakarae – Vice-Chancellor”. The ad had 10 paragraphs of text in it – five in English and five in the Maori language. Since it is inconceivable that the university would appoint as Vice Chancellor somebody who could speak Maori but could not speak English, half the ad was a total waste of money – expensive virtue signaling at the taxpayers’ expense.


Auckland Transport has recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure that all announcements on the Auckland rail system are made in both Maori and English, while a little earlier Auckland Council had spent thousands of dollars to ensure that elevators in the Council Head Office announced the floor levels in both Maori and English. And this spending by a Council which claims that rates must be increased well above the inflation rate because of all its allegedly high priority projects.


A few days ago, somebody sent me a pamphlet she had received after she had had a Covid test. On one side of the page there were some instructions in the Maori language, just in case there are any people who can read Maori but cannot read English. On the side which was, ostensibly, in English, Maori words were scattered liberally around, sometimes with a translation into English but often not.


One column headed “Set the Tikanga” provided the following advice:


  • “Decide what the tikanga is for your whare so everyone is clear.

  • “Hold a whanau hui so everyone knows how to manaaki each other if someone gets sick.

  • “Communicate your expectations with your manuhiri e.g. text or message before they arrive, beep from the gate, wait in the waka.”


At another point, the English side of the advice continues “Prepare your pataka” and “Make sure your pataka has plenty of kai in case you need to isolate”.


And of course, without the slightest attempt to ascertain whether the public want to change our country’s name, the Government increasingly refers to our country as “Aotearoa”, or perhaps “Aotearoa New Zealand”. The report of the Climate Change Commission doesn’t use the words “New Zealand” anywhere in its several hundred pages. This is despite polls showing that the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders (some two-thirds) want our country’s name to remain “New Zealand”. And that the original Maori words for “New Zealand”, as used in the Treaty of Waitangi, were “Nu Tirani”.


It appears clear that the Government is hell-bent on encouraging all New Zealanders to learn the Maori language – a language which is of no practical value to the vast majority of New Zealanders – and that in a situation where far too many people going through our education system cannot read or write English – a language which is of fundamental value to all New Zealanders, vitally important for communicating with other New Zealanders and indeed of great value communicating with hundreds of millions of people around the world.


The last National Government, accepting advice that learning a second language may have some advantages for the development of young brains, had a plan to encourage schools to provide a second language, with schools being able to choose which of ten languages they wished to teach. Labour, apparently fearing that very few parents would want to have their children learn Maori if they instead could learn a language which would actually be useful for their future careers, vetoed that plan, and has devoted huge effort to ensure that every school provides some instruction in the Maori language.


The reality is that for the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders the Maori language has no practical value and that, despite heroic efforts to revive the language, it is spoken by a diminishing proportion of Maori.


The international evidence suggests that even making a dying language compulsory does not ensure its survival. After the formation of the Irish Free State in 1921, Irish was made compulsory. Not only did this fail to achieve the hoped-for revitalisation of Irish, the language is currently in near-terminal decline. And the same is true of other languages where compulsion has been tried – Tamil among the Tamil-speaking population of Singapore, Luxembourgish in Luxembourg and so on.


Personally, I have always supported taxpayer resources being used to teach the Maori language to those who wish to learn it, but I strongly oppose foisting it on the rest of us. We in New Zealand are extremely fortunate to have English as our predominant language, the language of science, the language of aviation, the language of finance, and the language which will get you understood in almost every country in the world.


Don Brash

27 January 2022


 
 
 

176 Comments


William
Dec 22, 2022

Coz you can't shut your big gob? 😬


There is no coercion and nobody is forcing anyone to listen to a number of Maori words and phrases. If you would like the translations, visit the RNZ website where you can listen to the Māori greetings used and read the English translations. Or simply change the channel.


The Broadcasting Standards Authority no longer take complaints from people upset about the use of te reo Māori on-air and on-screen as using te reo Māori on air is not in breach of the country's broadcasting standards. The BSA said te reo Māori was an official New Zealand language and noted its use was protected and promoted by existing law.


The Radio NZ charter…

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kenmartin44
Mar 17, 2023
Replying to

Boring.

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JW
JW
Apr 24, 2022

Don Brash asks “ why is the Māori language being thrust down the throats of people with no interest in learning it?”. In the words of Hobson’s pledge “he iwi tahu tatou” : We are one people. It needs to be offered to everyone and it’s up to individuals if they wish to embrace it or not.

One of the aims of government and media is to promote te reo to the younger generation. A majority of those who can’t digest or comprehend a small amount of te reo are already past middle age, and within a few decades the natural attrition of this group will see a commensurate reduction in the antipathy to the use of te reo in…


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Markmywords
Mar 04, 2024
Replying to

That is just infantile, if you don't have anything to contribute to the debate, you can just say nothing at all.

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gordonpotts4
gordonpotts4
Mar 20, 2022

Is the Roman Catholic missionaries and Hone Heke come back to haunt us,well I say it is,you need to look at the history before the signing of the Treaty.Because the Roman Catholic missionaries told Hone Heke not to trust the pioneers and Crown they caused Hone to doubt the Treaty.Our government has been influenced by the Roman Catholic Pope,that is global socialism and the rights of ethinic people in our country.The Maori people today are not the Maori of 1820,today most of them have white blood as well,they cannot call themselves Maori any longer they are New Zealanders like the rest of us.

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Stephen
Apr 12, 2022
Replying to

I’m sorry but I disagree. By the very fact people have a Māori ancestor, they are able to call themselves Māori. That is the definition of a Māori. A “part Māori“ makes as much sense as a part Catholic, a part Asian or a part rugby player; or indeed a part Catholic Asian rugby player.


When you mention “the ones that are taking advantage of this undemocratic government to force Maori culture and language in schools and mixing Maori language in the broadcasting arena“, does ”the ones” refer specifically to Māori or anybody who takes advantage of the government in this way?

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bruce.cornelius48
bruce.cornelius48
Feb 01, 2022

Is it true that TV stations were given, in the region of 50 million dollars, to use Maori words in there reports and introductions as well as referring to New Zealand as Aotearoa?

Even the weather report now refers to the North and south islands in Maori.

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Michael
Michael
Apr 14, 2022
Replying to

This is ridiculous, it is not remotely what went on in Germany as Hitler planned to rid the country of all Jews.

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Stephen
Jan 31, 2022

Reading the comments here, I am getting a great insight into what I have to look forward to when I retire. So much time on my hands to get enraged about the use of Maori words being shoved down my throat. For goodness sake, if the wireless announcers can't restrict themselves to words from the Oxford English Dictionary, it just goes to show how low our education standards have slipped for journalists.


I may even have time to complain to the Broadcasting Standards Authority about RNZ Business News's use of words I don't comprehend like "equity financing" and "debt consolidation" While I'm at it, I'll complain about multi-syllable words that I don't understand and they don't offer an easily understandabl…


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kenmartin44
Jan 31, 2022
Replying to

Hmm, re, wokes here ramming Maori down others’ throats. For a counter thrust against wokeism, see the New York Times best seller - Woke Racism — How A New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, author John McWhorter doesn't pull his punches. He likens the new, 'woke' anti-racist movement to a self-flagellating religious cult — one that not only stifles debate but actually hurts black people. An interesting read.

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