Hedda.
I'm Susan Nordquist and for Chelsea Daniels. And this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. It's t Wiki or teal Maori Language Week. Wikiwi's are encouraged to have a go at terel. Whereas the language was once on a pathway to extinction, it's now flourishing as people flocked to learn it. But a change in government last year saw restrictions placed on how the public service usesterrel, one of many policies that has
been seen as an attack on Maldi rights. Today on the Front Page, we are joined by aut professor doctor Ali Henry to discuss some of those policies and how we can still celebrate old Tuto's indigenous language.
Ala.
This year's Malori Language Week comes a little under a year since the Coalition government was sworn in. As part of that coalition agreement between National and New Zealand, first government departments had to revert to putting their English names first, and it also required public service departments and Crown entities to communicate primarily in English. What do you make of this change?
Well, it's been one hundred and eighty four years since we signed Tinnity or White Jongy. So this is not the first time that a government of New Zealand has tried to suppress the Maori language. In many ways, many would argue that this has been going on for decades, if not generations, But this is a new iteration of that same strand of thinking. I believe that is tied to a broader issue to make fundamental changes to the founding Document of our nation which envisaged partnership between Tungata
Fenua and tongue to tidity. So I see it as part of a broader campaign to negative impact on Mary, not just to the l Maori.
So, in your view, is the government trying to suppress the language.
I don't think it's supposedly a whole of government approach, but because of the particularities of this coalition, there is certainly a party act which has been trying to impact on treaty principles. Remember back in two thousand and eight, Rodney Hyde proposed a similar bill in a less conducive environment about removing from government legislation the requirement to take
tetinity into consideration with all legislations. So this has been an ongoing project for a particular political party that is now very powerful in the current coalition, woke.
Virtue signaling and mary place names for government departments with target says. In New Zealand First Leader Winston Peter's launched his campaign for the twenty twenty three election, it told supporters an attacked church in East Auckland that it was time to take the country back and.
In New Zealand First, we will change all the local virtue signing names of every government department back to English.
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters said on the campaign trail that this policy was not an attack on the language. It's an attack on the elite virtual signalers who have hijacked the language for their own socialist means. How do you interpret a statement like that.
There are so many strange statements in there, coming from a man who in decades past has actually been a very strong supporter of Maori development, Maori people, Maori revitalization. So one has to wonder where that is coming from as a particular philosophy. But this ongoing notion's perpetuation of an idea that somehow there is a Maori elite flies in the face of all.
Of the actual facts.
Marii are more likely to die earlier, Maori are less likely to own a home, Maori are more likely to be incarcerated. Mary are less likely to have tertiary education. So I'm really wondering where this teeny tiny group of elitd that Winston Peters talks about.
It sounds a bit like they're mainly his friends.
Okay, this policy it even saw a Justice Minister, Paul Goldsmith intervene to remove words like altero from an official invite for Matariki that was sent to an Australian counterpart.
Minister.
Quite hey, why did you ask officials to take Alto and Malti greetings out of these Martariki invites?
Well? As as I recall, it was.
In relation to sending an invitation to an Australian minister, and I didn't think he needed a lot of terreo in his invitation because he's in Australian.
Yeah, I mean, of all time, the scandal of the century, I would have thought.
Does that seem like a step too far to you?
Well, I think that is absolutely extraordinary. In a year when the Leader of our Commonwealth, King Charles was quite happy to use the phrase alter or New Zealand in his statement of commiseration to the king Eytongue at the loss of King E two hated. So if King Charles is comfortable with it, I'm not terribly sure why a New Zealand government should be uncomfortable with the idea of us being alter.
Or New Zealand.
And, as I say frequently, if we actually did change our name to Alta or New Zealand, do you know what we'd get to come out before Australia at the Olympics.
Now, wouldn't that be fun?
That's a very good point, thank you, Ella. Do you think the Coalition is undermining the growth of the language with these views?
Let's start by the fact that the language almost became extinct because of government policy, and it was Maui, it was communities. It was Ewe Fano Hapu who began the tiny little language nests in the late seventies and the early eighties, which have finally been converted into a specific Maori education. Could a copapa Marii education system, which we know works extraordinarily well for Mardi people, but more importantly, the numbers of people New Zealanders who are enrolled in
todeal Maori courses Maori and non Maori. Shows that this language has been taken to heart by a significant majority of people in this country. And we hear it every night on the news, and we hear it every day when people refer to those ministries that are supposed to be known by their English names, but we ordinary New Zealanders choose to keep on using those tonal names. Shows that this latest battle against our language may not be successful.
Are we still seeing that interest from across somewhat for learning the language.
Well, I think we've had three extraordinary events this year. We had the Hui Amort, which the King Echangueill called earlier in the year, in which tens of thousands of people came out around the country about, you know, protesting
about these very pieces of legislation. Then we had a White Tungi Day, which I was so grateful to be at for the whole week, and you know, on the last day it was estimated that fifty thousand people were at White Tongi and at least half of those were not Maudi, and they were proudly carrying bags and wearing t shirts saying we stand with Maudi.
I was in the political tent.
When you know the Japanese group, and the Indonesian group, and the Chinese group, and the Sikh group and the Irish group, you know, all of these other cultures who understand the importance of culture and identity and language and feel that enriches not impoverished as a nation.
They were the ones.
And then, of course we saw the outpouring of grief, most recently at the tongue hunger for KINGI to hate her and amwortately the positive energy that came about with the coronation of the new Aliki Nui. So I believe genuinely that this language is alive and well in the hearts and minds of many many New Zealanders, most of whom might be Maui, but a growing number who have children and grandchildren who go to school and learn a
Hakka and awayata and Akutakia. And it doesn't matter about their ethnicity, because that thing is what makes them unique and distinctive in the world. So this language is flourishing, despite ravages by a government hell bent on taking away that success.
It must be quite heartening to see this interest in the language, given the repression of tenel in the past.
I am so heartened.
I mean, I am part of that generation who my parents were beaten savagely, were part born at the very beginning of the last century, and they wanted to protect us. They gave it the most English sounding names they possibly could. They tried really hard not to speak the language at home. They did that to protect us because they genuinely believed
that was the only way to save our people. Moving forward, it's my children's generation and my grandchildren's generation that are making a difference because they are the ones who are embracing all of their ethnicities. They are one hundred percent Maui, one hundred percent Dalmatian, one hundred percent Irish. It is a very racist notion that you can put a blood quantum on culture and identity.
Some of the worst racism that you've experienced in your life.
Well, I'm seventy, so you know I've been around through a bush of stuff. I mean, I was born in the fifties in a small town in the far North where I didn't meet a white man until I went to school to ahi part of Native school, and he was the principal, and you know, my parents would walk down the streets of Kaitai, and when a white man and woman came along, they would moved to the side, because we had all inculcated the idea that we were inferior and that we had to get out of the
way of the white man and the white woman. And then I moved to the city where came from Kaitaia to New Lynn, where my father worked in the factory and my mother the tanneries, and my mother worked across the road at the potteries. And I found out I was brown. Who knew up in Kaitai because we were all the same color. I found out I was poor. I found out that I couldn't go to my friend's house because I was a dirty mary. You know, so you inculcate that stuff as a small child, and it
has the potential to break you. I am very fortunate, and education played an enormous role in that change in my thinking and therefore the thinking of my entire far no far nui. I was one who said that can't be right. We can't be this insignificant. You know, the people I know are beautiful and warm and kind. Why does everybody hate us? And the fact that in the last fifty years that has transformed, that has become a norm.
You stand end up in front of a hakka of five hundred school students, or you watch the all Blacks and you your heart fills with pride to be a new Zealander. I just watched the team at the Palace meeting King Charles and singing a beautiful wiater. These strengths, these contributions we are making through our culture and identity cannot be changed by pieces of legislation.
Muli Language Week started a few days after the latest developments in the proposed Treaty Principal's Bill. The bill was discussed at Cabinet last week, but it seems to be caught in this quagmire between act who are pushing the bill and National with Prime Minister Chris Luxon already indicating he won't support it beyond a first reading. Are you concerned about how this conversation could go between now and this supposed point where it's killed off.
Even if this bill is killed off as it goes through Parliament, And it seems that maybe the case, what it is done is created an environment that has encouraged
increasing levels of race hatred. And I'm using that term, and I know it's a strong term, but we are seeing it and you and the media would also be hearing about it in terms of the gates of anger and frustration are opened by pieces of legislation like this, and what David Seymour says is supposed to be beginning a positive conversation maybe aboard, it's actually becoming a groundswell
of negativity. And I worry about that because I genuinely believe as a nation, over the last fifty years, New Zealand has become known internationally as being a leader at working with its indigenous people, at building a culture that unites our diverse groups of nationalities. We're known for this internationally, and legislation like this is going to have an enormously negative impact, I believe on that image that we hold globally.
You know, this is a force for good.
This is a positive initiative. Far from changing or diminishing the treaty, it actually embeds it in legislation, and far from reducing rights so mariti it actually generalizes and strengthens them.
Why is it so important to revitalize the language.
I think a culture is maintained by its language.
It is the most important thing.
I mean, you and I are here speaking in English, and this is a language that has been impacted by every other culture. Half the words we speak are either French or Latin or Greek.
You know.
I mean the language stays alive because it is spoken because as it has cared about and ours almost died, and if it had a part of Maori identity would have died with it. The fact that it has been revitalized and strengthened, not just by Maori, shows that it has relevance. Words like farno have come into being to mean much more than just mum, dad and three kids.
Being able to have a porphany when you start a new job, and feeling that sense of connection, attending a tonguey hunger where grief is allowed to be in outpointing things. These are things that Maori culture and identity have brought to New Zealand society, and what's more, they add to our brand. There are tourists that come in their hordes from all all over the world to experience Maori culture and so what we bring is not just a language, not just a people, but a part of our brand.
As you can see on every single plane that air. New Zealand flies around the world with one of our most ancient symbols, the quardu on it. So what is good for Maudi is good for New Zealand. What is good for Mali culture is good for the New Zealand economy.
It's Maori language Week this week. How can people celebrate.
I love the fact that during to a ky or toel Maudi, I can go into places where I ordinarily wouldn't and the storekeeper will go Curda, or people will say Curda on the streets or morderner. You don't have to be a fluent speaker of Todel Maudi. That is a very special gift. But you can be a user of the language. You can be somebody who says, this is something that makes me different.
I have my own life. You know.
Most New Zealanders, now, because we have such a diverse population, are already multi lingual. They already speak the language of their homeland and English and are quite happy to add a third because it helps give a deeper understanding of the names of the places and the history and that the culture, and so those little acts of saying Kurda are as important as being able to stand up and be part of the man who cordia or speech. There
are competition that our young folk had last week. As far as I'm concerned, it's about embracing language and seeing that it adds to who and what you are, regardless of your ethnic identity.
So saying kyorda can help people adopted into their lives and spread the language. What are some other things they can do?
Well? We all acknowledge that, as I said, the importance of farno, and so you have schools who create little farno groups and support teams. You know, there are words in the Maui language like kaitiaki tanga. Now there's an interesting word to be a guardian, to be a steward of our mother the earth. Kaitiakitanga is woven into legislation
that protects our country from mining exploitation. Isn't it interesting that a piece of language like that is trying to be expunged from that legislation that is protecting our country from mining exploitation.
Ala, you were speaking about how people learning the language can help in other parts of society too. Can you speak to that.
Well, I think it's not so much about learning the language, but it's about enhancing identity. And I see this because I work at Auckland University of Technology. We ran the classes where a number of very prominent non Maori media journalists Jennifer Ward Leland, Jack Tay and guy On Espiner all came and did their classes up at AUT. So I see the faces of those people who are going into these classes and the relationships that are formed out of going on this journey together. So I think it's
actually about strengthening our identity as New Zealanders. I mean the very word that non Maori used to describe themselves kiwi. It's a Maori word. And I shall remember that bloke you put the signs up going ewei versus ewe, and I was interviewed with them. I said, well, thank you for still using a Maori word to describe yourself, even
though you're anti Mary. I mean, we don't even realize how much the language and culture have permeated our society until we go elsewhere and see that they don't do the things that we take for granted in this country because of the weaving together of Maori and British and every other culture that now forms the society that.
We share Namihi nui.
Thanks for joining us.
Ala Elder Nummi.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverageet inzet Herald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells Dan Goodwin as the sounder engineer. I'm Susie Nordquist. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or Weary that you get your podcasts in June and tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.