New Zealand’s New Government Officially Declares English as the Official Language

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will also scrutinize the impact of the .
The push to rename to “Aotearoa” will cease under the incoming coalition government, amid a swathe of changes to legislate English as one of the country’s official languages.
At present, English is the most spoken language in but is not official, meanwhile, Maori and sign language for the hearing impaired have special status under the law as official languages.
As part of its election policies, minor conservative party pledged to fight against “racist separatism” by legislating English as the country’s primary official language.
Additionally, all public service departments and Crown entities will have English primary names and be required to communicate in English, with the exception given to those specifically related to Maori issues.
The centre-right National Party confirmed they would deliver this in its National and NZ First agreement (pdf).
Any push to change the country’s name to will occur only via a referendum.
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These measures will mean walking back the significant promotion of using Maori language in official government settings that occurred under the former Ardern Labour government.
Under former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern the use of Maori terms in official settings increased, including in documents and public announcements, while Maori names were used for government departments (pdf).
Official speeches often began in Maori, regardless of whether the minister had Maori ties or not. They often lacked an accompanying English translation.
Incoming Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, NZ First party leader, said the proliferation of Maori names for government departments was mere “tokenism” and he would rather they focus on carrying out their duties and responsibilities.
“The majority of New Zealanders want Waka Kotahi [NZ Transport Agency], this so-called boat on the road, to actually fix the potholes up,” he told Newstalk ZB.
“If you ask the Maori in Hokianga and the East Coast, what do they want, they want the road fixed and not this tokenism.”
Mr. Peters said communication is about comprehension and understanding.
“If 95 percent [of New Zealanders] don’t comprehend or understand what they’re reading, then what was the purpose of that change?” he said, referring to the promotion of the use of Maori in government under Ms. Ardern.
As an example, Mr. Peters said the country’s health department will return to being called “Health New Zealand” from “Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand,” but avoided declaring that the Maori name would be ditched altogether.
“If it’s not giving Maori operations in speed and time in hospitals, then what was its purpose?” he said.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters (R) in the crowd as farmer lobby group Groundswell NZ gathers in Auckland, New Zealand, on Oct. 1, 2023. (Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)
During his election campaign, Mr. Peters said the policy to change every department name back to English was not attacking the use of the Maori language.
“It’s an attack on the elite virtue signallers who have hijacked language for their own socialist means,” he said in March.
“This conceited, conniving, cultural cabal doesn’t represent hard-working ordinary Maori—they only seek to use Maori to further their own agenda.”
Mr. Peters is of Maori and Scottish descent.
Unbinding from Race Politics
The National Party has also agreed to NZ First’s policy to scrutinise the (), remove co-governance in public services, stop all work on , and conduct a comprehensive review on all legislation that includes the “Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”
is a 2019 report that spearheaded the government to achieve goals.
Some provisions included in include the right to participate in decision-making that would affect Indigenous rights and the right to redress land or resources that were traditionally owned and used without consent.
“We will confirm that the Coalition government does not recognize [] as having any binding legal effect on ,” the agreement said.
Mr. Peters and Coalition partner David Seymour, leader of the libertarian ACT party, have both strongly condemned in the past.
Mr. Peters called the report a “recipe for Maori separatism” while Mr. Seymour said it represented a “significant and serious departure from the idea that all are equal before the law.”
According to Muriel Newman, a former ACT MP and founder of the think tank NZ Centre for Political Research, report is a “road map for Maori co-governance by 2040.”
Co-governance was never clearly defined by the Ardern government, but outgoing Labor MP Jamie Strange described it as an “arrangement for negotiated decision-making between iwi (tribes) and other groups such as central government.”
It has been criticized for giving leaders of a group that represents around 15 percent of the population a disproportionately large voice in local bodies and government.
This includes giving Maori and non-Maori equal say in the country’s water usage, which the Ardern government had been working to centralize under its Three Waters legislation.
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