An increased appetite to learn te reo Māori among members and staff from different parts of the Parliamentary system means the work of Parliament’s Māori Language Service is in demand more than ever.

Compared to several years ago there’s now also significantly more acknowledgement of and referral to Māori customs and protocols at Parliament. This is part of the reason why Nga Ratonga Reo Māori recently changed its name to Nga Ratonga Ao Māori, opening up the service’s scope to more than just the language.

“We’re asked for advice on a lot of things — very often — a few a day, several a week, from all parts of the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk, and they could be reo related, marae related, tikanga related, etc,” says Maika Te Amo, the man who heads the five-person unit.

“I still see my main role as supporting the House with Māori language services, primarily simultaneous interpretation of all sittings of the House and also sittings of the Māori Affairs Select Committee, at every sitting, but also any other committee that requests simultaneous interpretation.

“The other thing is translation — and that can be anything from communications through the Parliamentary Engagement team that go out on the website or the social media channels. A heavy part of our load comes from the Māori Affairs Select Committee — all of their reports are bilingual, so we translate all of those as well.”

From 1868 until 1920 Parliament had interpreters in the House. Then, for most of last century, Parliament didn’t even employ an interpreter to support MPs who spoke in Māori.

It wasn’t until this century, with the reintroduction of interpreters and Māori language services, that te reo began to flow significantly in the chamber again.

People who follow the action in the debating chamber these days will be familiar with numerous MPs fluently using te reo in speeches. If you’re watching the debate on Parliament TV you may see other MPs listening-in via an earpiece.

That is made possible because of simultaneous interpretation by Te Amo and his colleagues.

It is not only Māori MPs who use te reo in the chamber. Many MPs regularly pepper their speeches with the language, or use Māori for all their formal phrasings (e.g. asking for a supplementary question during Question Time).

Furthermore, Te Amo says there is a lot of interest in using the language among staff of the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk.

There’s also ample evidence that Māori language and practices are being used throughout the Parliamentary system. In the annual reviews where government agencies front before various select committees to give a report on how their year has gone, their representatives often introduce themselves and give closing statements in te reo.

“There is an enormous hunger among our colleagues for the language and everything associated with the language, tikanga and traditional practices, traditional perspectives, metaphors, that kind of thing, and that is very encouraging,” says Te Amo.

“We’re a small team, so we will continue to do our best to support our colleagues with various different learning opportunities.”

Pacific challenge
The struggle to preserve Indigenous language and promote its use in Parliament is an acute challenge in the Pacific Islands.

This much was clear when Maika Te Amo gave the keynote speech at the Australasian and Pacific Hansard Editors Association conference at New Zealand’s Parliament in January. His speech left an impression on other delegates such as Papaterai William, the subeditor of debates in the Cook Islands.

“One statement I enjoyed when Maika was talking says ‘if the language is no more, the Māori people are no more’. Now I can actually rephrase that our Cook Islands people ‘if the language is no more, the Cook Islands Māori are no more’,” he said.

“Nowadays people are speaking English, and not many people are speaking our language, which is the Cook Islands Māori. We’re talking about a language that will fade in the future.

“That is one thing that we are wanting to retain to make sure that it is maintained properly, that it is taught properly, because language revitalisation I believe is important going forward for our Hansard department.”

William tipped his hat to Tonga where in Parliament, unlike in the Cook Islands, proceedings are captured strictly in the Indigenous language, which he said helped keep the language alive for future generations.

Tonga’s Hansard editor, Susanna Heti Lui, was also at the conference, where she explained that the Kingdom’s Parliament felt the need to preserve and revive their Tongan language.

“Our language is the official language that is used in Parliament. That is compared to the government, it uses English as the official language used in the workplace,” she said.

Language must be active to stay alive
Te Amo points out that informal settings at Parliament are also opportunities for growth in the use of te reo, “where people can just bring whatever reo they’ve got and just speak that”.

“What I also hear a lot from members is that they’d also like to increase their knowledge and fluency in the language, and it’s very difficult to find ways of doing that which fit with their schedules which are absolutely hectic of course.

“One thing I’d love to see is members in particular being more comfortable with using their reo in the cafeteria or when you’re breezing through the halls,” he said.

“The only other things really is I wish our team of five was a team of 50 so we could offer to our colleagues everything that they’re asking for, as opposed to having to prioritise.”

RNZ’s The House — parliamentary legislation, issues and insights — is made with funding from Parliament. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Last month The Daily Blog offered its New Year infamous news media gongs — and blasts — for 2022. In this extract, editor and publisher Martyn Bradbury names the mainstream media “blind spots”.

Graham Adams over at The Platform made the argument this year that the failure of mainstream media to engage with the debates occurring online is a threat to democracy.

With trust in New Zealand media at an all time low, I wondered what is the list of topics that you simply are NOT allowed to discuss on NZ mainstream media.

Here is my list of 17 topics over 30 years in New Zealand media:

1. Palestine: You cannot talk about the brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel in NZ media. It’s just not allowed, any discussion has to be framed as “Poor Israelis being terrorised by evil angry Muslims”. There is never focus on the brutal occupation and when it ever does emerge in the media it’s always insinuated that any criticism is anti-Semitism.
2. Child Poverty NEVER adult poverty: We only talk about child poverty because they deserve our pity. Adults in poverty can go screw themselves. Despite numbering around 800,000, adults in poverty are there because they “choose” to be there. The most important myth of neoliberalism is that your success is all your own, as is your failure. If an adult is in poverty, neoliberal cultural mythology states that is all on them and we have no obligation to help. That’s why we only ever talk endlessly about children in poverty because the vast majority of hard-hearted New Zealanders want to blame adults in poverty on them so we can pretend to be egalitarian without actually having to implement any policy.
3. The Neoliberal NZ experiment: You are never allowed to question the de-unionised work force that amputated wages, you can never question selling off our assets, you can never criticise the growth über alles mentality, you are never allowed to attack the free market outcomes and you can’t step back and evaluate the 35-year neoliberal experiment in New Zealand because you remind the wage slaves of the horror of it all.
4. Class: You cannot point out that the demarcation line in a capitalist democracy like New Zealand is the 1 percent richest plus their 9 percent enablers vs the 90 percent rest of us. Oh, you can wank on and on about your identity and your feelings about your identity in a never ending intersectionist diversity pronoun word salad, but you can’t point out that it’s really the 90 percent us vs the 10 percent them class break down because that would be effective and we can’t have effective on mainstream media when feelings are the currency to audience solidarity in an ever diminishing pie of attention.
5. Immigration: It must always be framed as positive. It can never be argued that it is a cheap and lazy growth model that pushes down wages and places domestic poor in competition with International student language school scams and exploited migrant workers. Any criticism of Immigration makes you a xenophobe and because the Middle Classes like travelling and have global skills for sale, they see any criticism of migrants as an attack on their economic privileges.
6. Hypertourism: We are never allowed to ask “how many is too many, you greedies”. The tourism industry that doesn’t give a shit about us locals, live for the 4 million tourists who visit annually. We are not allowed to ask why that amount of air travel is sustainable, we are not allowed to ask why selling Red Bull and V at tourist stops is somehow an economic miracle and we are certainly not allowed to question why these tourists aren’t directly being taxed meaningfully for the infrastructure they clog.
7. Dairy as a Sunset Industry: We are never allowed to point out that the millisecond the manufactured food industry can make synthetic milk powder, they will dump us as a base ingredient and the entire dairy industry overnight will collapse. With synthetic milks and meats here within a decade, it is time to radically cull herds, focus on only organic and free range sustainable herds and move away from mass production dairy forever. No one is allowed to mention the iceberg that is looming up in front of the Fonteera Titanic.
8. B-E-L-I-E-V-E victims: It’s like How to Kill a MockingBird was never written. People making serious allegations should be taken seriously, not B-E-L-I-E-V-E-D. That’s a tad fanatical Christian for me. It’s led to a change in our sexual assault laws where the Greens and Labour removed the only defence to rape so as to get more convictions, which when you think about it, is cult like and terrifying. Gerrymandering the law to ensure conviction isn’t justice, but in the current B-E-L-I-E-V-E victims culture it sure is and anyone saying otherwise is probably a rape apologist who should be put in prison immediately.
9. The Trans debate: This debate is so toxic and anyone asking any question gets immediately decried as transphobic. I’ve seen nuclear reactor meltdowns that are less radioactive than this debate. I’m so terrified I’m not going to say anything other than “please don’t hurt my family” for even mentioning it.
10. It’s never climate change for this catastrophic weather event: Catastrophic weather event after catastrophic weather event but it’s never connected to global warming! It’s like the weather is changing cataclysmically around us but because it’s not 100 percent sure that that cigarette you are smoking right now is the one that causes that lump inside you to become cancer, so we can’t connect this catastrophic weather event with a climate warming model that states clearly that we will see more and more catastrophic weather events.
11. Scoops: No New Zealand media will never acknowledge another media’s scoop in spite of a united front being able to generate more exposure and better journalism.
12. Te Reo fanaticism: You are not allowed to point out that barely 5 percent of the population speak Te Reo and that everyone who militantly fires up about it being an “official language” never seem that antagonistic about the lack of sign language use. Look, my daughter goes to a Māori immersion class and when she speaks Te Reo it makes me cry joyfully and I feel more connected to NZ than any other single moment. But endlessly ramming it down people’s throats seems woke language policing rather than a shared cultural treasure. You can still be an OK human being and not speak Te Reo.
13. Māori land confiscation: Māori suffered losing 95 percent of their land in less than a century, they were almost decimated by disease and technology brought via colonisation, they endured the 1863 Settlements Act, they survived blatant lies and falsehoods devised to create the pretext for confiscation, and saw violence in the Waikato. Māori have lived throughout that entire experience and still get told to be grateful because Pākehā brought blankets, tobacco and “technology”.
14. The Disabled: Almost 25 percent of New Zealand is disabled, yet for such a staggeringly huge number of people, their interests get little mention in the mainstream media.
15. Corporate Iwi: You can’t bring up that that the corporate model used for Iwi to negotiate settlements is outrageous and has created a Māori capitalist elite who are as venal as Pākehā capitalists.
16. Police worship: One of the most embarrassing parts about living in New Zealand is the disgusting manner in which so many acquiesce to the police. It’s never the cop’s fault when they shoot someone, it’s never the cop’s fault when they chase people to their death, it’s never the cop’s fault for planting evidence, it’s never the cops fault for using interrogation methods that bully false confessions out of vulnerable people. I think there is a settler cultural chip on our shoulders that always asks the mounted constabulary to bash those scary Māori at the edge of town because we are frightened of what goes bump in the night. We willingly give police total desecration to kill and maim and frame as long as long as they keep us safe. It’s sickening.
17. House prices will increase FOREVER! Too many middle class folk are now property speculators and they must see their values climb to afford the extra credit cards the bank sends them. We can never talk about house prices coming down. They must never fall. Screw the homeless, scre the generations locked out of home ownership and screw the working poor. Buying a house is only for the children of the middle classes now. Screw everyone else. Boomer cradle to the grave subsidisations that didn’t extend to any other generation. Free Ben and Jerry Ice Cream for every Boomer forever! ME! ME! ME!

You’ll also note that because so many media are dependent on real estate advertising, there’s never been a better time to buy!

• Pacific Media Watch notes that the the brutal Indonesian military occupation of West Papua, a half century of colonisation, and violations of human rights ought to be cited on this list too.

Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury is a New Zealand media commentator, former radio and TV host, and former executive producer of Alt TV — a now-defunct alternative music and culture channel. He is publisher of The Daily Blog and writes blogs at Tumeke! and TDB. Republished with permission.

Two radio stations linked to the French Pacific’s decolonisation movements want to co-operate to lift the use of indigenous languages.

The heads of Radio Tefana in French Polynesia and Radio Djiido in New Caledonia said this was in line with the United Nations declaring the next 10 years as the decade of vernacular languages.

Tahiti Nui TV quoted a member of Radio Djiido, Kengy Wiwale-Hauata, saying New Caledonia had 30 local languages and they were all honoured on the radio every day.

• READ MORE: Temaru hits back over probe in pro-independence Radio Tefana case

The two stations plan to expand co-operation in the region, considering partnerships with Wallis and Futuna, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji.

The two stations were set up in the 1980s when the pro-independence movements were led by Oscar Temaru and the late Jean-Marie Tjibaou respectively. Both broadcast on the frequency 97.4FM.

Radio Tefana is threatened with closure because of a US$1 million fine imposed three years ago when Temaru, mayor of Faa’a and a former President of French Polynesia, was handed a suspended prison sentence over the station’s funding arrangement.

The conviction has been appealed but a hearing of the case has been deferred for a fifth time until next year.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

On the 35th anniversary of te reo Māori becoming an official language, the Māori Language Commission is warning more work is needed to ensure its survival.

In 1987, a bill introduced by Koro Wetere was passed after years of campaigning — including the Māori language petition, the land marches and Ngā Tamatoa movements.

Until the late 1960s, the language was officially discouraged and tamariki faced corporal punishment for speaking their native tongue.

• READ MORE: Other Te Reo Māori reports

Broadcaster and educator Dr Haare Williams — on an RNZ panel about the language bill broadcast in 1986 — said it was crucial for the country that it survive.

“We should never underestimate the emotive power of the Māori language. The danger of loss is irretrievable and like the plague the danger is contagious,” Williams said.

“Should we lose the Māori language in this country, both Māori and Pākehā will be the losers and both will be guilty of allowing it to die.”

Thirty-five years later, Te Taura Whiri i te reo Māori chief executive Ngahiwi Apanui is celebrating where te reo is at but also taking stock.

Demand for courses high
While demand for courses is through the roof and about 30 percent of people today consider themselves proficient in te reo Māori, it would still be classified as endangered.

Apanui said the goal of one million reo speakers by 2040 was still a long way off.

“Only 3000 teachers today to satisfy demand for kids going into Māori medium and for English medium, they need 30,000 teachers. So that kind of gives you an idea of the problem or the issue that we face,” Apanui said.

“The good thing is there’s unprecedented demand for te reo but the issue is what is the production line.”

That was evident in the disparities faced by the very language nests that are meant to help the reo flourish.

Kohanga and Kura Kaupapa were set up in the same wave in which Parliament acknowledged te reo Māori. But since their inception they have had to fight for funding, resources and acknowledgment.

Te Rūnanganui of Ngā Kura Kaupapa chair Rawiri Wright said if they were better resourced, successive governments would be closer to their own reo goals.

“There were more than 800 kōhanga reo, there are now 480 there or thereabouts and if Kura Kaupapa Māori had been properly and equitably resourced … we currently have 6500 students in kaupapa Māori but there should be closer to 10,000.”

inequities over the language
Wright said teaching the language runs deeper than just understanding what was being spoken.

“It’s not just about reo Māori, it’s about mātauranga Māori, tikangi Māori, Māori worldview, Māori face, belief, essence and just being Māori,” he said.

Ngahiwi Apanui said there were still inequities in accessing the language, and mainstream schools were important to addressing that.

“Not all Māori are in Māori medium … and often it’s socioeconomically related, if you look through South Auckland, for instance, you won’t find as many children coming out of families speaking te reo Māori as you would if you looked at the middle working class sector of society in Wellington,” Apanui said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Earlier this year, I met an Aucklander whose teenage passion for K-pop sparked an interest in the Korean language and culture in general, and led to them learning Korean as a second language.

It made me wonder what lessons could be learnt for the revitalisation of the Māori language. Specifically, given the importance of teenagers in those revitalisation efforts, what can we learn from the way the so-called “Korean Wave” is subverting the English language as the language of popular culture?

There is already work being done in this area. The central argument of Dr Hinurewa Poutu’s PhD research in 2015 concerned the need to create opportunities for Māori to be considered “cool” by adolescents.

• READ MORE: This article marks Māori Language Week/Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. You can read the full article in Māori here.

As Dr Poutu stated at the time:

English tends to be used socially, as there aren’t enough opportunities to hear Māori in social situations or to learn Māori expressions for gossiping with your friends, courting, playing. For most kids, te reo Māori is used in formal contexts only.

Making Māori cool
Five years on, AUT’s Te Ipukarea Research Institute is leading a project looking at how the Māori language can be better supported in the lives of adolescents. Funded by Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, this research is based on the idea the Māori language of adolescence forms the building blocks of non-formal adult language.

In other words, it is about the informal language of friendship, humour, relationships, emotions and mental health that sets a pattern for everyday use later in life.

Our preliminary findings show the potential strategic importance of the adolescent age group for Māori language revitalisation. Teenagers are trendsetters – as such, they can have an impact on (and be influenced by) the perceived value of the Māori language and therefore its status.

Maimoa is a collective of young Māori artists “coming together to make more Māori music”.

However, a previous study by Te Ipukarea found there are few Māori language resources and not much Māori language content (novels, TV, music, games) aimed at this age group.

READ MORE: K-pop fans are creative, dedicated and social – we should take them seriously

This is especially true when compared to the resources available to younger age groups, such as early childhood learners.

When it comes to what is considered “cool”, of course, the influence of entertainment, social media and pop culture on adolescents is clear. After meeting the K-pop-loving Korean language graduate, I began to imagine what it might look like if the Māori language revitalisation movement tapped into that age-group: trendsetting, fandom-building teens.

Challenging English language dominance
The Korean Wave is challenging the dominance of English as the lingua franca of pop culture. The rise in popularity of K-pop, K-dramas (which Netflix has acquired and invested in) and films such as Parasite (winner of the 2020 best picture Oscar, the first “foreign language” film to do so) with non-Korean audiences shows language is no longer the barrier it once was.

Best film in any language: Parasite wins the 2020 Oscar.

These forms of entertainment have simply become part of the wider popular culture. Take Korean group BTS (also known as the Bangtan Boys) – currently among the biggest pop acts in the world, consistently breaking records and garnering a huge worldwide fan base.

READ MORE: Māori loanwords in NZ English are less about meaning, more about identity

BTS can sing in English but choose to release the majority of their music and other content (a variety show, a travel show, movies, behind-the-scenes footage) in Korean. This year they released Learn Korean with BTS, underscoring the link between the Korean Wave and the uptick in numbers learning the Korean language.

Towards a new Māori wave
There are obvious differences between Korean and Māori. Māori is still a recovering, minority language, while Korean has over 50 million speakers in South Korea alone.

However, if young people in Aotearoa are inspired by Korean pop culture to learn the Korean language, it at least provides an insight into what the Māori language revitalisation movement can learn from the Korean Wave.

The Korean Wave is actually the result of a hugely successful strategic push by the Korean government to export its culture to the world and boost its “soft power”. In other words, Korea set out to be the coolest culture in the world.

With that in mind, strategically resourcing the production of Māori language content for pop culture needs to be a priority in any plan to capture the adolescent age group.

I hope that one day Māori language music will consistently enter the charts, my Netflix list will be full of Māori language dramas, and a Māori language film will be promoted and celebrated the way Parasite has been.

Dr Rachael Ka’ai-Mahuta, is senior lecturer in Māori Language Revitalisation at the  Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

By Meriana Johnsen, RNZ News journalist

More than one million New Zealanders took up the challenge today of using te reo Māori for the single, largest celebration of the language in history.

With covid-19 restrictions putting a stop to the annual Māori Language Week parades, the Māori Language Commission instead encouraged people to use the reo in some way, shape or form at noon, and the nation responded, with one in five New Zealanders registering to take part.

As the clock struck noon, more than 130 students and staff at the Wellington-based drama school Toi Whakaari belted out their school waiata, Toi Whakaari E.

• READ MORE: Carmen Parahi: The Fourth Estate needs to be aware of how it supports inequity
• Te Wiki o te Reo Māori – Māori language week
• Are we seeing a Te Reo Māori revival?

School director Tanea Heke said they chose to sing the waiata to celebrate Te Wā Tuku Reo Māori because it was the one thing all staff and students could do well.

Taking part was student Waitahi McGee from Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Maniapoto, Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Tama ki Te Tau Ihu, who said she was reinspired to complete her te reo Māori journey.

“I’ve begun it but I haven’t finished it yet but I think that’s a life thing, but I appreciate this week because it helps remind me how important it is,” she said.

“I believe te reo Māori brings spirit and poetry and spirituality to existence – like, aroha, it’s not just love, it’s to share a breath, it’s to give but to take and there’s just so much poetry and depth to te reo Māori.”

Kōrero in the office
TBI Health physiotherapist Davide Castorina organised a kōrero in his office where kaimahi got together to introduce themselves in te reo Māori and say their favourite word.

“My Māori kupu was ‘tautoko’ [which] is really important and really relevant to what we were doing, because majority of my colleagues are not reo speakers and so it was good, because we were all there to support each other, so not to be whakamā and [to] be brave, be courageous.”

Castorina is originally from Italy, but has committed to learning te reo for his Māori children, and to help get rid of the inequities Māori face in the healthcare system.

He would also be presenting to the TBI Health clinicians on the Whare Tapa Whā, the Māori health model, later this week and how staff could incorporate it into their work.

Te Taura Whiri, the Māori Language Commission, held a ZuiMano Zoom meeting with 1000 participants where they shared karakia, and inspiring kōrero to mark the Māori Language moment.

However, more than 10,000 people tried to join the Zoom meeting at once, causing it to crash, which Te Taura Whiri chief executive Ngāhiwi Apanui said was “disappointing”.

‘We’re ecstatic about te reo’
He didn’t expect there to be such a positive response to the Te Wā Tuku Reo Māori kaupapa.

“We’re ecstatic about that, but I think I’m happier because it confirms to us that the value we’ve been trying to build for te reo over the last four, five years has now happened so it’s really a vindication in that way, but with all of these things there’s always a tomorrow, so the tomorrow for us really is how do we turn all that value into speakers of te reo Māori.”

The Māori Language Commission aims to have one million speakers of te reo Māori by 2040.

To see what other people got up to for the Māori Language Moment, visit www.tuku.reomaori.co.nz

Māori Party, Greens, Labour launch te reo policies
The Māori Party is pledging to officially change the country’s name from New Zealand to Aotearoa and replace Pākehā place names with their given Māori names.

In an announcement today, Waiariki candidate Rawiri Waititi said it was a bold move towards making te reo Māori a language for all of Aotearoa.

“It is unacceptable that only 20 percent of our people can speak their own language and that only 3 percent of the country can speak its official language. We need to be doing more at a systemic level to protect and promote the reo of Aotearoa,” Waititi said.

Te Pāti Kākāriki (the Green Party) also used today as an opportunity to call on the government to step up their game on their commitment to te reo Māori.

It is calling for te reo Māori to be made a core school subject up to Year 10.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the government must make te reo Māori a core curriculum subject if it was serious about integrating te reo Māori into schools by 2025.

Maihi Karauna is the Labour Party’s strategy, with the goal of achieving 1 million te reo Māori speakers by 2040.

“This government is committed to recognising tikanga, mātauranga and te reo Māori as part of New Zealand’s national identity – it is what makes us unique. Making New Zealand history compulsory in schools, support for Te Pūtake o te Riri and initiatives like this demonstrates this commitment to strengthening as a country,” said the party’s spokesperson for Māori development, Nanaia Mahuta.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Since 2001, I’ve worked in both mainstream news and Māori media. I love journalism but it’s a hard slog being a Māori reporter.

In the mainstream news, Māori reporters are a minority, Māori stories and voices aren’t given a similar priority to other stories unless it’s adversarial.

This is problematic because it creates inequity for Māori.

READ MORE: Te Wiki o te Reo Māori – Māori language week

We don’t provide a counter-balance to the adversarial stories because we don’t report enough on other aspects of Māori society. This distorts the narrative about Māori by portraying them negatively and as being outside the perspective of the news media.

The example for Māori can be used for any minority culture in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The news media system, its organisations and personnel are supposed to represent everyone. They don’t and never have historically.

The first papers appeared in the mid-1800s. They were instruments of the Crown and represented settlers’ perspectives on issues related to settlement including land disputes with Māori.

News media set up to favour Western ideologies
Like so many other colonial systems such as education, the news media was set up to support and favour Western European ideologies and practices.

For Māori to be included in any of those structures they have to adopt English and Pākehā cultural norms. If they don’t, then they are excluded.

The public voices and perspectives of Māori were marginalised by the news media then and although it has improved over time, Māori are still not well represented now.

As journalists, we are held to account by public opinion, a set of industry principles, defamation laws and newsroom codes of conduct. We are supposed to be independent, without bias or favour.

This is difficult to achieve when the news system and newsrooms aren’t being constantly monitored to ensure it isn’t biased or favours Pākehā perspectives.

Hard for younger minority journalists
In my early reporter years, I dropped aspects of my Māoritanga to fit in. This isn’t the case for me now because I’m a senior reporter but it can be for younger minority journalists.

My independence, important to journalism, is often questioned by other reporters and the public. I’m seen to be biased because I’m Māori and focus on Māori perspectives.

I have a file full of emailed complaints, some of them racist, about the stories I write.

For example, one guy called me a “f….. b…. and said: “The reason there is racism in this country is because you are a racist against New Zealand Europeans opening your racist gob and spreading your racist words.”

It can get a bit lonely being the lone Māori voice in a newsroom. I have a Stuff whānau who supports me. I could stop focusing on Māori but who else will do it?

It is my way of supporting the community even though I’ve been left in tears by Māori questioning how Māori I am and why I’m reporting on them.

When I backed Stuff’s campaign to make Matariki a public holiday, a Māori reader called me a kūare, an insulting term.

A purpose to the query
I like it when colleagues ask me for advice on all things Māori, I don’t mind because there is a purpose to the query. But sometimes, cultural differences can cause conflict in the newsroom.

I recall years ago printing off a report and my workmate said, ‘could you hurry up with printing that Māori s…’. Another colleague around that time asked me to stop pronouncing Māori place names correctly because no one knew where I was talking about.

I nearly got into a physical fight with a reporter who called my cultural practices, politically correct bulls….

Obviously I wouldn’t still be in the industry if I didn’t think there is some good in it, including all the people I’ve worked with over the years, despite our differences. Newsrooms are trying to be more inclusive in everything they do. We’ve come a long way from our news forefathers of yesteryear.

At Stuff, we no longer pluralise Māori words, only an apostrophe ‘s’ on possessive nouns. In 2017, Stuff introduced macrons during te wiki o te reo Māori, the Māori Language week.

This weekend, we kicked off plans to reclaim te reo Māori and culture in support of Māori language week. All of our mastheads will carry reo Māori names supported by local iwi.

Uplifting the voices of Māori
We’ve been purposefully creating projects and stories to uplift the voices of Māori and all cultures of Aotearoa New Zealand such as Nā Niu Tīreni and our new series, Aotearoa in 20.

I believe the news system can be better and more inclusive. Our younger generation of reporters tend to be less monocultural in their views and thinking.

But if we don’t change our representation of all cultures now, they may carry the same marginalisation practices of the past into the future.

The older ones, like myself, know it’s time to do more if we are to truly represent the bicultural foundations of Aotearoa New Zealand and its multicultural society.

Carmen Parahi (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Hine, Rongowhakaata) is national correspondent for Stuff. The Pacific Media Centre/Te Amokura is republishing her articles with permission.

The future of the flagship Māori news show Te Karere is on the line as the New Zealand government proposes to create a single Māori news service run by Māori Television.

The government this week released its much-aniticipated proposals for a major Māori media shake-up, Te Ao Pāpāho Māori, but some of the plans have come as a shock to the industry.

After 38 years on air, Te Karere on TVNZ1 is still the highest-rating Māori news bulletin in Aotearoa New Zealand, so news this week that the government wanted to create a single Māori news service run by Māori Television came as a blow to TVNZ.

READ MORE: Proposed single Māori news services alams journalists – Mediawatch

The state-owned network’s general manager of local content Nevak Rogers said they met with the Te Karere team after the proposal came out.

“It was definitely a shock,” she said.

“We have our annual application for funding for Marae and for Te Karere currently with Te Mangai Paho so we are on tenterhooks here.

“We don’t know what the outcomes of those decisions will be. It’s pretty tense times.”

The Māori media proposals have been in the works for years.

The project covers Māori broadcasting funding agency Te Māngai Pāho, Māori Television and Te Whakaruruhau o Ngā Reo Irirangi Māori which represents 20 iwi radio stations around the country.

In the discussion document out this week – the government said some Māori media outlets struggle to generate and deliver news and that the number of Māori news services funded by Te Māngai Pāho is “not sustainable”.

It wanted to see “an authorative clearing house for news and current affairs content” which would also feature content made by iwi radio stations, who would be in line for extra resourcing.

While Te Karere is aired on TVNZ, it is produced independently with funding by Te Māngai Pāho.

Rogers said she knew money was tight – each news show was made for as little as $9000 – but canning it was not the answer.

“At the moment, the public media review is happening and there has been a lot of talk of plurality of voice and how important that is.

“And yet here we are looking to go in the opposite direction.”

A plurality of Māori voices
Prominent Māori journalist and producer Annabelle Lee Mather agreed.

She said the goverment had poured tens of millions of dollars into the media recently and kept talking about the need for plurality and diversity in the media.

“A single news service for Māori does not achieve that and it also assumes that all our interests, our whakaaro, our lenses are the same and they are not,” she said.

“Māori audiences deserve the same service and diversity as our countrymen.”

The proposal also put Mather in a stressful position.

She leads the weekly Māori current affairs show The Hui on Mediaworks channel Three and said they did not know what it meant for them either.

In any case, she said Te Karere was a legacy and should not be “thrown in the bin on the scrap heap”.

‘Not going to be accepted’
“We have seen too much emphasis and importance being placed on the plurality of voice and so to accept Māori to be minimised and subordinated through one news services while everyone else enjoys a variety of news services, is just not going to, I think, be accepted,” Mather said.

The government was also proposing a Centre for Media Excellence to develop staff and appoint joint members to boards of the Māori Television Service and Te Māngai Pāho.

It recommended a national radio station broadcasting in te reo Māori and making taxpayer-funded content freely available to Māori media.

Iwi media organisations could be funded to contribute as regional news bureaux with “the Māori media ecosystem” having access to all the content, the report said.

Māori Television chief executive Shane Taurima said he supported plurality in Māori media too, but the industry was under-resourced and under pressure.

“What I think is great about the proposals that have been shared is that we will see more resource and more attention given to that fact so that we can create more reo Māori speaking journalists to be able to deliver a diverse news offering,” Taurima said.

A former editor of Te Karere, Taurima said he never wanted to see it go.

Up to the challenge
He did not want to jump the gun but he said if the proposal went ahead, Māori Television would be up to the challenge.

“Can Māori television deliver to expectations? Absolutely yes.

“If the decision is taken for this news hub to be placed in the hands of Māori Television, that Māori Television is supported and backed from a financial and resource perspective and from a community perspective to be able to do a good job of it.”

Te Karere will not go down without a fight, however.

Rogers said if a single Māori news service was what was wanted, TVNZ hoped it could make a bid to run it too.

“I feel like we have been handed the mantle in terms of kaitiakitanga of these taonga and we need to fight as hard as we can to make sure we can maintain them,” she said.

Minister urges calm and kōrero
Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta would not say whether that was possible, but invited TVNZ to talk.

It was too early to say what funding implications the move could have on Te Karere, she said, but she hoped it would not spell the end for the news programme.

“I would hope not … in mainstream media there is the advantage of Te Karere to link into TVNZ and there is one service through Radio New Zealand.”

“TVNZ has been bailed out recently to be able to continue to do what they are doing and I am inviting them to engage in the conversation they want to have.”

The central service would also use news content created in the regions by iwi radio, which would maintain a plurality of Māori voices, she said.

“In the Māori media space, there have been real challenges to ensure that we can continue to contribute to growing and revitalising te reo Māori, providing the diversity of content, but also being responsive to a quickly changing and evolving world in the media sector.”

The discussion document will be open to submissions for the next fortnight.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

If you’re stuck at home during New Zealand’s lockdown with time on your hands why not learn a new skill or a new language?

Hemi Kelly is a Māori language lecturer at Auckland University of Technology and he has created a Facebook group called “A Māori Phrase A Day” – the same title as his recent book – encouraging people to learn te reo Māori.

He speaks to RNZ Morning Report’s Susie Ferguson.

He said more than 2000 people had joined already in the two days since the page was established, demonstrating many people wanted to learn te reo Māori.

LISTEN: Learning Te Reo with Hemi Kelly

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

A New Plymouth Boys’ High School student has won a national race relations competition with a speech citing examples of past and present New Zealand leaders who have helped forge unity in Aotearoa.

The year 11 student, Robbie White, used the metaphor of a tui building a nest to explain how to unify people of different backgrounds.

“What is a tui? A leader, a march, a call, a movement, a word, an action, a stand, a physical structure, an event, the voice of unity, bringing people together with common purpose, understanding and connection,” he asked during his speech in the Race Unity Speech Awards at Auckland’s Te Mahurehure Marae last night.

“…I think of Te Whiti O Rongomai and Dame Whina Cooper.”

READ MORE: The national Race Unity Speech Awards

White also recognised former New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd as a leader who has built racial unity.

“On my doorstep, in my forest, Andrew Judd is also a tui. Once a self-proclaimed racist himself, …his ‘peace march’ stamped a monumental mark on race unity in the Taranaki region,” White said.

The student wove te reo Māori strongly into his speech.

At the prizegiving last night, chief judge Wallace Haumaha, Deputy Commissioner of Police, joked that Robbie White was from the Taranaki iwi Te Āti Awa because of his excellent use of te reo Māori.

Struggle over hair
Zimbabwean New Zealander Takunda Muzondiwa of Mt Albert Grammar School talked about internalised racism and her struggle to accept her natural hair due to society’s narrow concept of beauty.

Muzondiwa recited a poem she wrote about a recent incident where a man had touched her hair on a train in Auckland without asking.

“But luckily my hair, my hair speaks volumes. Tangled and twisted there are stories in these in curls. Stories of a mother, father stamped with a number marked as objects sold for property,” she said.

“Stories of my ancestors shackled in cages displayed in zoos the same way you stroke me like an exhibit in a petting zoo.

“It’s twisted and tangled there are stories in these curls. A beautiful possession of my history’s oppression.”

The national final of the Race Unity Speech Awards at Te Mahurehure Marae featured the top six speakers from 180 students who had entered this year’s awards.

The speech awards provide a national platform for senior high school students to express their ideas on how New Zealanders can improve race relations.

Increasing diversity
Organisers said participants this year again reflected New Zealand’s increasing diversity of more than 200 ethnicities and 100 plus languages.

Speech finalists represented immigrant communities from Egypt, Philippines, Russia and Samoa who now call Aotearoa home.

Pacific Media Centre’s advisory board chair Associate Professor Camille Nakhid was among the judges for the event.

In a letter, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acknowledged the students who participated in the speech awards.

“Following the tragic events in Christchurch, this year’s Race Unity Speech Awards and hui hold even greater significance,” she said in the message.

“We need to think deeply and carefully about our country’s rich and precious diversity, and what we need to do to remain an inclusive, multicultural country.”

Many of the speeches touched on New Zealanders’ response to the terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques that killed 50 people with another dying later.

Runner-up Nina Gelashvili of Kuranui College in Wairarapa said: “It shouldn’t take 50 lives for us to finally realise that racism still lives in New Zealand and it shouldn’t take 50 lives for us to come together as one.”

‘Oneness of humanity’
The Race Unity Speech Awards are organised by the New Zealand Baha’i Community, a religious community concerned with promoting the oneness of humanity at the local, national and international levels.

The awards are also sponsored by NZ Police, the Human Rights Commission and the Hedi Moani Charitable Trust, and supported by Multicultural NZ, the Office of Ethnic Communities and Speech NZ.

• Awards video

Amid the debate over the issue of compulsory Te Reo Māori lessons in New Zealand schools that intensified last week, many arguments and opinions for and against were voiced.

Many New Zealanders support the idea of te reo being introduced more widely into schools, with overwhelming media coverage in support for compulsory Te Reo be implemented into the New Zealand core school curriculum by 2025.

But the question that has not yet been answered is whether it is possible or realistic, and the views of some who do not agree with the notion of compulsion have not yet been fully voiced.

READ MORE: Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 

It is an ongoing debate that has divided many New Zealanders in support of its implementation and those opposed to Te Reo being made compulsory.

Figures in 2013 showcased a drop in the numbers of Te Reo speakers in New Zealand by 4 percent in 17 years.

Among those opposing compulsory Te Reo is Renata, a student teacher in her final year of study of bilingual primary teaching (Māori and mainstream). She believes that implementation will be complex.

Not enough teachers specialising in the subject area is her concern.

‘Lack of teachers’
“There is already a lack of teachers, where are we going to find the teachers,” she says.

She adds that there is a need to focus more on supporting current speakers and teachers in the subject instead on using compulsion because currently there is such a shortage in the number of teachers.

There are many challenges ahead if it is made compulsory, she believes.

“What’s stopping us implementing Te Reo without it becoming compulsory? Do we need to force Te reo upon people to make them understand the importance or is it already becoming a choice of importance at people’s own free will.”

Tapa, a student of Māori law studies, is opposed to the idea of compulsory te reo in New Zealand.

“I think te reo should not be made compulsory, I do not like the term compulsory,” says Tapa, citing the “immense resources” that will be needed.

“Kura (School) are not always producing high level reo users, most rangatahi (young people) won’t even reply in reo. I think spend the money improving existing structures to a higher level,” he says.

To roll out nationwide implementation of Te reo into the New Zealand school system would cost a lot of time, money and resources, training and maintenance where there is already a struggling system to deliver basic modalities.

More support
“I think, and my reasons are influenced by Dr Tīmoti Kāretu that existing speakers of Reo should be supported to improve what they know and brought up to a higher level.”

There is not a set dollar amount for how much the government spends each year on te reo, but the general conservative figure is more than $100 million a year.

“That funding and resources should be spent in avenues where reo is already active to get it to a higher level and used consistently instead of mass production of mediocre speakers.”

Tapa has a suggestion for those wanting to learn Te Reo: “I think if you want your kids to learn Te Reo, send them to kohanga, and enrol yourself in Reo courses, and embrace te ao Māori (Māori world)”.

Concern for the quality of teaching and for potential students not being provided the full philosophy of the Māori view point and cultural emulsification into te reo will not be achieved by just providing teachers that know the language.

“If any random teacher was given just the language to speed up the process of teaching children, then it has no wairua (spiritual connection) attached to it.”

Māori culture
Te reo Māori does not come alone, it comes with te ao māori (Māori world), whakaaro Māori, tikanga, kawa and many other aspects unique to Māori culture, language and beliefs.

All these will have an effect on each and every single one of these Te Reo meōna tikanga (Competence in speaking, writing, comprehension, structure and the application of Te Reo Māori me ona tikanga) is integrate to have reo, substance and identity.

“We don’t give that just to anyone, especially if it against their will and do not have respect for the culture let alone the language,” he says.

There is a bright light at the end of the tunnel as more and more people throughout the country are willing to make the effort to learn Te Reo.

“Statistics are showing that there has been a major influx of people all over New Zealand wanting to learn Te Reo Māori,” says Renata.

She believes that more resources and funding is needed to support current speakers and to support people who are passionate about wanting to learn Te Reo.

Importance realised
“People who want to learn and are now learning to recognise the reality of its importance,” she says.

Renata understands the amount of work that will be needed for it to be implemented is a huge up taking and everyone needs to do their part to preserve the language.

But, people need to choose for themselves and those who are passionate about learning Te reo need to be supported and encouraged with the proper resources made available to facilitate learning.

“It is up to us as an individual, as a whānau, and as an iwi to maintain that as tangata whenua, it is not the responsibility of others to bring back something that we as a collective need to learn ourselves and pursue,” Renata says.

Current arguments fall to the need for New Zealanders to learn more about Māori point of views and learning a second language will support cognitive development in young children in their development.

There seems to be a lot of agreement that having a second language should be promoted and encouraged for school children.

Fear over choice
A lot of the fear of many parents is not being able to be given a choice on the second language their young one will learn.

Not many people are denying the importance of Māori culture and language in New Zealand, and is the duty of New Zealanders under the treaty to treasure and maintain the language for future generations, say advocates.

But a realistic discussion and debate on how to implement it will be beneficial for all.

While there seems to be a lot of emotion when the topic is discussed, no real attempt is being made to justify to the wider public the need for Te Reo to be compulsory without logical arguments to appease the fear of wider New Zealand.

Mike Maatulimanu Mohr is a student journalist on the Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies (Journalism) reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

By Michael Neilson, Māori affairs reporter of the New Zealand Herald

Advocates for boosting te reo levels in Aotearoa say it provides a gateway to greater cultural, historical and racial understanding.

Minister for Crown/Māori Relations Kelvin Davis says he would love to see all New Zealanders feeling comfortable in Māori spaces, with te reo Māori being the key.

“To go on marae and feel comfortable, engage in things like Waitangi Day, Kororneihana, and Rātana. It is only daunting when there is ignorance and lack of understanding about what is going on.”

Davis says Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a “bridge” connecting te ao Māori and Pākehā, with language, customs and culture on each side.

“Since 1840 who has crossed that bridge? Māori have crossed over, how many have come back the other way? Some people have, and we are really grateful for that, but it has been one-way traffic mainly.”

Due to that one-way traffic, and consequent ignorance of Māori language and culture, there is often tension. Learning te reo would help reduce the ignorance about Māori issues, and what it is to be Māori, Davis says.

Growing up in a monolingual household, Davis, of Ngāti Manu descent, said he felt “something was missing”.

‘Felt embarrassed’
“I felt embarrassed going on to our marae, not knowing what was being said.”

He took it up at high school, maintaining it through his adult life. He said he was about a “7.5 out of 10” in terms of fluency.

Speaking Māori gives confidence in who you are as Māori New Zealander, and leads on to other understanding of whakapapa, and history, Davis said.

“It is hard to engage in te ao Māori without knowing the language. You can know tikanga, customs, attitudes, but the cream on top is te reo.”

Head of Auckland University of Technology’s School of Language and Culture, Associate Professor Sharon Harvey, says learning a second language helps people understand different points of view.

“If New Zealand had embraced Māori earlier on we would be seeing the benefits of seeing things from different perspectives. Our determined rejection has not helped.”

Te reo Māori is closely linked to other Pacific languages.

Pacific access
“It gives access to Pacific languages like Tahitian, Cook Island Māori, and a little more distant to Tongan and Samoan.”

While New Zealand promotes itself as being bicultural, it has never extended that ambition to being bilingual, Dr Harvey says.

“I think Māori would say the intent of the Treaty was never for the language of this land to be lost, and replaced with a language from the other side of the world. We really can’t be bicultural unless we are bilingual.”

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson says te reo is a “core” part of the future of race relations in Aotearoa.

Davidson’s grandmother had literally had the language beaten out of her, and it had taken three generations to get over the trauma.

“Her children didn’t learn, and neither did we, and now it has taken our children to finally reclaim it.

“Te reo is core to healing, core to the future of our race relations. It gives us something unique, to be proud of, together.”

Adult learning
Davidson (Ngāti Porou, Te Rarawa and Ngāpuhi) started learning te reo properly as an adult, and even made a decision to only speak te reo to one of her daughters – now 10 – since birth.

Te reo offers an insight to the Māori worldview, offering different perspectives, Davidson says.

“Things like there being no gender pronouns in te reo, in itself says something profound about accepting or rejecting narrow sexual identities.

“Another example is mokopuna, which literally means wellspring of descendants. Te reo offers the opportunity to understand those things.”

National’s Māori development spokesman Nuk Korako says te reo is like the country’s “flora and fauna”.

“It is like the kauri – it is unique, rooted in this country’s fabric. Why wouldn’t we want to learn te reo?”

Korako, of Ngai Tahu descent, grew up in a monolingual household, with parents part of the generation “not allowed to speak Māori”.

Te reo compulsory
He learned his reo at St Stephen’s College in Bombay, south of Auckland, where te reo was a compulsory subject.

“I remember on my first day there were guys from Tūhoe having a conversation in te reo. I had heard it on the marae growing up, but it was fascinating to hear it in a daily context.”

He says increasing cultural and history understanding would foster interest in te reo.

“One of the most important things with rangatahi in New Zealand, is that they have a really good understanding and grounding of Māori culture and history, because it then gives them that appreciation to the language of the culture.”

Te Taura Whiri (Māori Language Commission) chairwoman Professor Rawinia Higgins says learning te reo would give Kiwis a better understanding of who we are as a nation.

“It is our first language, so helps define who we are. It is also a defining feature of who we are in a global context.

“A significant feature of our national game is the haka, and that is in te reo. On the international stage people are interested in it for that unique element.”

Higgins, who is also Victoria University of Wellington’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Māori), says language and culture go hand in hand.

“With te reo, Te Tiriti comes into it as well. It helps open up a different perspective over some of our historical encounters, and move forward overall.”

This article is republished from the New Zealand Herald with permission.

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

A new app developed by Spark and Google in conjunction with the Research Team of the Te Aka Māori – English, English – Māori Dictionary in Te Ipukarea ~The National Māori Language Institute, has taken New Zealand by storm this Māori Language Week, reports AUT News.

Kupu – an app that allows users to scan their surroundings, take photos of everyday objects and offers the te reo translation – has landed extensive media coverage since its launch on Monday and has been downloaded thousands of times.

Te Ipukarea director Professor Tania Ka’ai of Auckland University of Technology served as project lead and worked closely with Spark and Colenso BBDO, Spark’s Creative Team, to develop the resource from the time they requested to embed Te Aka in the app to its completion.

For Professor Ka’ai, Kupu symbolises the legacy of her colleague, mentor and friend Professor John Moorfield, who died in March.

“Spark first approached John late last year,” Tania explained. “They needed a solid, reliable and comprehensive set of Māori words to integrate into the app – and saw John’s Te Aka Māori -English, English- Māori Dictionary as the best tool for the job.”

The team at Te Ipukarea sourced and provided a set of nouns and adjectives that underpin the app’s te reo lexicon. They also provided the audio versions of these words to ensure that Kupu users can hear the correct pronunciation.

“The team and I worked hard to get the best possible collection of words and phrases together in time for the app’s launch,” Professor Ka’ai said.

“One of John’s final projects was a Dictionary update and to help finish that off in time for the Kupu launch we spent five days in a recording studio with a native te reo speaker and recorded a further 6,500 new words. It was an exhausting, but necessary process.”

Now that Kupu is in the public sphere, Professor Ka’ai and her team are involved with reviewing feedback and fine-tuning any niggling issues.

“We’ve received so much positive feedback already,” Professor Ka’ai said. “Its incredibly gratifying to know that it has made people happy. Kupu really is for all New Zealanders – not just Māori – and I’m glad that the app is another step in normalising te reo in this country.”

And since the official launch at the start of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori / Māori Language Week Tania has been proud of the team’s efforts.

“It really is a proud moment for us, and I think John would have been proud of the final product too.”

• Download the Kupu app on the iTunes Store.
• Find out more about Te Ipukarea.

In celebration of New Zealand’s Māori Language Week, the Māori reversioning of the blockbuster Disney movie Moana will premiere tonight in Auckland.

Original cast members Rachel House, Temuera Morrison and Jemaine Clement star alongside Jaedyn Randell, who plays Moana, and Te Kāea presenter Piripi Taylor who is the voice of Māui.

Cinemas across the country have already sold-out screenings of the Māori language Moana film.

Anticipation for the film has been felt far and wide from young and old.

Moana Reo Māori translator Vikky Demant told Te Kāea: “I’m overjoyed. I can’t wait for this movie to be released for the world to see and for te reo Māori to be heard so our children can enjoy it.”

She and her two fellow translators spoke to Te Kāea ahead of tonight’s premiere explaining the huge task they had crafting their words for the film.

• Watch their story

“Both Māori and Pākehā think that Te Reo Māori is an important part of New Zealand’s national identity and should be compulsory in primary schools. This is what people want for their children and grandchildren,” says Professor Tania Ka’ai, director of Te Ipukarea.

The vast majority of survey respondents agree or strongly agree that the Māori language should be compulsory in New Zealand primary schools, including 83 percent of Māori, 80 percent of New Zealand European/Pākehā and 78 percent of other ethnicities.

An even larger proportion – 95 percent of Māori, 94 percent of New Zealand European/Pākehā and 90 percent of other ethnicities – agree or strongly agree that the Māori language is an important part of New Zealand’s national identity.

The pop-up survey was completed by 5391 visitors to the Te Aka Māori-English Dictionary online.

Conducted in partnership with the Māori Language Commission, the survey sought to gather data on how the online dictionary is used, the language proficiency of users and attitudes towards Te Reo Māori.

Those surveyed identified as Māori (58 percent), New Zealand European/Pākehā (35 percent) and other ethnicities (7 percent). They were evenly distributed by age. And, the largest groups by occupation were professionals (37 percent) and students (20 percent).

Looking for inspiration
Professor Ka’ai says the rest of the world looks to New Zealand for inspiration and guidance on how to keep indigenous language alive.

Scandinavian countries like Finland, Norway and Sweden are exploring Māori language immersion models such as Kura Kaupapa and Kohanga Reo – the latter of which was the archetype for Hawai’i’s Pūnana Leo.

“We are world leaders in language revitalisation. The next step is for government to make Te Reo Māori compulsory in primary schools. Now, let’s lead the world in this,” says Professor Ka’ai.

According to Statistics New Zealand, 377,073 students were enrolled in New Zealand primary schools in 2016 – 72 percent received no Māori language education, 25 per cent studied Māori as a subject or equivalent and 3 percent were involved in Māori language immersion.

• Te Ipukarea

“Why would you want to learn it if you are not even Māori?” “You know it’s a dying language?” “Why don’t you learn another more ‘useful’ language?” “Do you think you are going to change the world or something?”

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for Pakeha learning te reo Māori are the reactions of other Pakeha. Above are just a few of the comments a Pakeha friend of mine, living in Otepoti (Dunedin), has received from other Pakeha over the four years that he has been learning te reo Māori.

“Learning Māori comes with a whole lot of political baggage, and it should not be like that,” he told me.

I can relate to his experiences. I too am Pakeha, and I too am on a journey to learn te reo Māori. To some Pakeha I will be either showing off or making a political statement. I might even find myself at times saying Māori words the “Pakeha” way, so as not to draw attention or critical comments.

While I have felt that “baggage” as a Pakeha growing up in Otautahi (Christchurch), moving to Tairawhiti (Gisborne) has been a revelation. The prevalence and acceptance of te reo is something unique to the region, and when people ask me how I am finding it here it is the first thing I say.

Here people speak te reo simply because that is what you do. It is a part of casual conversation, with words like kaupapa, tikanga, mahi, korero, slipped in like it is no big deal. I can pronounce Māori words properly without awkwardness from those around me.

As a journalist I call a lot of people, and often they will answer in te reo. I awkwardly stumble a “kia ora”, before reverting to English, scrambling to maoridictionary.co.nz for a translation (I am not that good, yet).

Te reo normal
It feels so normal to speak te reo here, but sadly, in other more Pakeha-dominated areas of New Zealand, the concept of Pakeha learning te reo still has a political stigma to it.

I never encountered this stigma when learning Spanish while travelling through South America. I learned Spanish so I could connect with the people around me — plain and simple.

Some of my fondest memories include conversing with taxi drivers about politics, or sitting beside locals on buses high up in the Peruvian Andes, chatting about everyday life and this country “Nueva Zelanda”, which they had never heard of.

The conversations we had in their language were real, plus I always enjoyed their reactions when they found a white, blonde “gringo” could speak their language.

There are many indigenous languages I am sure they would have loved me to learn (I could never get my head around Quechua), but that simple step of cultural recognition always received a positive reaction.

There are obvious political implications of Pakeha learning te reo, and cultural sensitivities to be aware of. Te reo is taonga, and that needs to be respected.

But the simple reality is that for the language to survive, Pakeha need to get on board.

Beautiful language
Simpler than that, it is a beautiful language and a gateway for Pakeha to further understand Māori culture — the kaupapa, tikanga, the Māori ways of doing things.

I never really understood the importance of learning te reo until moving to Tairawhiti, but now I really feel the necessity. Like learning Spanish to speak to those around me in South America, and to understand their kaupapa, learning te reo is the gateway to understanding Māori culture.

And it is so easy to get started. Many educational institutions around the country offer free classes, including at Eastern Institute of Technology and Te Wananga here in Tairawhiti.

After speaking to my friend we both agreed on the need to normalise the language. It would be great if we were a bilingual nation (then we could talk about Aussies in front of them), but even just a Māori word here and there is a good way to start — doing it for no other reason than because we can.

All of this political baggage should not exist. It is time for Pakeha to put aside those awkward feelings and embrace it. If anything exemplifies this, surely it is the fact the country has become fixated with an Irish woman who is doing her PhD in te reo Māori.

If it is cool for her to do it, why not the rest of us Pakeha? Pakeha need to get over the politics and the awkwardness and realise, it is cool to korero in te reo Māori.

Michael Neilson is an Auckland University of Technology journalism graduate now a journalist with The Gisborne Herald. This article was first published by the Herald and is republished here with permission.

• Māori Language Week

Last year Radio New Zealand cut its last Māori dedicated news in prime time, Manu Korihi, from its airwaves and not a word of criticism was directed their way in the Pakeha media world.  Politicians irresponsibly also said nothing and a station that gets $35 million in taxpayers’ funding now not only doesn’t have one Māori presenter in prime time but it doesn’t have any Māori news.

It’s a story I have tried to get on mainstream media, particularly in the main national newspapers, but none were interested in doing anything — not the Herald, Dominion Post or any of the Sunday weekend papers.  Of course I knew the reluctance or resistance to support my request was probably based on the fact that all those outlets have virtually No Māori working for them.

So obviously they were not going to back my call for an examination of RNZ’s Māori policy when their situation is equally questionable.  Still my campaign which is in fact a campaign that we initiated on Radio Waatea which I head and is supported by our iwi radio network has been going well. People are asking the question: “How does RNZ get away with it?”

My view is that they get away with it because no one bothers to challenge them. Mainstream media don’t care and politicians do nothing apart from greenlight the racist strategies that they come up with.

RNZ is one of the best examples of institutionalised racism in this country.  There is no other way to describe how this organisation is operating, they have had generations of tax payers’ dollars and they are meant to be the voice for all New Zealanders yet the Māori voice is silent and to many of our people stories are untold.

Recently my team at Waatea carried out an audit of RNZ’s Māori stories over a 12 week period.  The results were alarming but even more alarming was the way RNZ tried to defend themselves.

Audit ‘rubbished’
Our evaluators determined that in the 12 week period only 0.1 percent of stories were Māori focussed. RNZ rubbished our audit and said we missed some stories which was true but when they calculated what we had missed it worked out to a mere one percent.

Paul Thompson, the RNZ CEO, then decided to release their new Māori policy after reluctantly acknowledging that I might have had a point over their lack of Māori content.

Instead of coming up with a plan that would see more Māori stories on RNZ, his main priority for the next few years will be to train his Pakeha journalists to speak Māori.  It is the most stupid and insulting Māori strategy that I have ever seen.  The strategy is born out of ignorance and the belief that anything is probably better than what they have now, which is nothing.

RNZ seem to think simply hiring the odd Māori journalist and getting their Pakeha journalists to pronounce Te Reo properly is all they have to do to live up to their public broadcasting obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi but they need to come up with a proper Māori strategy that will see Māori news and programmes go from 2 percent to at least 15 percent and they need to throw away the silly strategy that CEO Thompson has come out with.

They must go back to having Māori specific news, after all they have Pacific Island news, media news, political news and farming news.  In fact it seems sometimes that even native birds might have a better chance of getting a news show before Māori, given how many bird sounds we hear daily.

Once upon a time they even had Māori language segments on National Radio, but that was cut five years ago, they probably thought their Pakeha announcers who try their best, but sadly can’t speak Māori to save themselves, were more than capable in the reo to honour their Māori language obligations.

So getting te reo Māori back on air should be mandatory.  And wouldn’t it be great to hear a Māori presenter on one of their frontline shows.  It seems incredible that in the whole 91 year history that we have not had one person deemed good enough to present a daily National Radio show.

Top presenters
Think about all the top Māori radio and TV presenters you’ve heard and seen over the years.  Here’s just a few of them – Henare Te Ua, Derek Fox, Selwyn Muru, Julian Wilcox, Wena Harawira, Scotty and Stacey Morrison, Shane Taurima , Miriama Kamo,  Mihi Forbes — who is now a reporter with RNZ — and of course let’s not forget RNZ head of news Carol Hirschfeld has also been a TV presenter and producer.

Yet not one of those people have ever been given an opportunity to front a regular national daily show.  RNZ has a colonialist BBC mind-set which discriminates against Māori presenters. Surely as we debate the merits of removing our colonial relics from the flag it’s time to do the same with RNZ.

All people should be outraged by this shutout of Māori on our National network. I implore politicians to act. Māori are 15 percent of this country’s population and we currently get 2 percent of the action on our National station that purports to be the national voice — that is not how the treaty partner should be treated.

If it’s not a breach of Radio New Zealand’s charter then it should be and if we get a zero response which is highly likely then Māori seriously need to consider a Waitangi Tribunal claim against RNZ and the government similar to the Te Reo Maori claim of 1986.

I have spoken to Māori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell about this issue and he has asked the right questions.  However, Te Ururoa needs help and asking questions isn’t going to do it, this lot need to be given clear directions in terms of their Māori strategy or they will continue with the current nonsense.

The Minister of Broadcasting, Amy Adams, has to act, she must recognise the discrepancies here, talk with the RNZ board and demand that RNZ change their Māori strategy to one that will see Māori properly reflected in their programming, the aim has to be 15 percent.

Anything less will mean that Māori stories and Māori announcers will remain tokenistic and an afterthought.  Go to the RNZ National radio website right now if you don’t believe me and count how many Māori presenters they have.

It is a disgrace but what will be even more shameful will be if our politicians and the RNZ Board do nothing. Let’s see what happens.

Willie Jackson is a broadcaster and former politician. He is chief executive of Radio Waatea and chairman of the Māori Radio Network Te Whakaruruhau. This commentary was first published by The Daily Blog.