NZ Lawmakers Told to Stop Complaining About Māori Name Use in Parliament

The speaker of New Zealand ’s Parliament told lawmakers he would not consider further complaints about the use of the country’s Māori name, Aotearoa, in Parliament, after one lawmaker made a bid to have it banned.

“Aotearoa is regularly used as a name of New Zealand,” Speaker Gerry Brownlee said in a ruling on Tuesday at Parliament in Wellington. “It appears on our passports and it appears on our currency.”

The conflict over a word increasingly prominent in New Zealand life arose last month when one lawmaker objected to another’s use of the term. It reflects the way enthusiasm for the Indigenous language among New Zealanders of all ethnicities has at times prompted a backlash — including about what the country should be called. It was also the latest salvo in the so-called “culture war”-style friction between two political parties.

Ricardo Menéndez March, from the left-leaning Green Party, used the name Aotearoa during a question to a government minister. The composite word means “land of the long white cloud” in te reo Māori, the Māori language.

Winston Peters — who is deputy prime minister, foreign minister and leader of the populist party New Zealand First — objected in a point of order.

“Why is someone who applied to come to this country in 2006 allowed to ask a question of this parliament that changes this country’s name without the referendum and sanction of the New Zealand people?” Peters asked Brownlee. Menéndez March, who was born in Mexico, is a New Zealand citizen, which is a requirement for all lawmakers.

Peters asked Brownlee to bar use of the term Aotearoa in Parliament. On Tuesday, Brownlee said lawmakers were already permitted to address Parliament in any of New Zealand’s three official languages — English, te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language.

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