BBC News
The speaker of the house in the parliament of New Zealand says that he will not consider further complaints of legislators for using the name Māori in the procedure.
“Aotearoa is regularly used as the name of New Zealand,” said speaker Gerry Brownlee in a parliament on Tuesday.
His comments come after Deputy Government Winston Peters asked Brownlee to ban the use of Aotearoa and suggested that the referendum would be needed for everyone to use it in parliament.
Although New Zealand is a legal name of the country and can only be changed by law, aeotearoa, which means “Long white cloud country,” has long been used when referring to New Zealand in Māori.
“It [Aotearoa] It appears on our passports and appears on our currency, “Brownlee said on Tuesday. The name is also used in the version of Māori of the New Zealand national anthem, which is usually heard before the English version.
“If other members do not like certain words, they do not have to use them. But this is not a matter of order, and I do not expect to appear on the further point of the command about it,” he added.
MPs are allowed to use any of the three official languages of the country – English, Māori and New Zealand sign language – when they speak in parliament.
The complaint of Peters, who is Māori, was created last month, when the green MP Ricardo Menéndez March used it during the parliamentary session.
“Why did someone who signed up to come to this country in 2006 to ask the question of this parliament that changes the name of this country without a referendum and the sanction of New Zealand people?” asked Peters.
Mensendez Merch is originally from Mexico, but he is a nationality of New Zealand, as all MPs must be.
Shane Jones, another government minister who is a member of Peters’ first party in Novi Zealand, and also Māori, has called into question “the appropriateness of the recent immigrants who said that the name of our country should be?”
At the time, Brownlee encouraged the legislators to use the name of Aotaroa New Zealand instead to avoid any confusion, but said it was not a condition.
Not all Māori had the same relationship with the name of Aotearoa, which was originally used to describe only in New Zealand. However, it is often used by non-māori out of respect for indigenous people.
Winston Peters said on Tuesday that he disagreed with Brownlee’s verdict, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported.
He added that he had a problem with Aotearo used in parliament, not on Māori in general, and that if he was used in the future, he would not answer his name.
The use of Māori in public has significantly increased in New Zealand in recent decades, after advocating indigenous leaders.
The petition was launched in 2022 by the Māori Party, the official political party to officially change the name of the country to Aotearoa, which received more than 70,000 signatures.
“New Zealand is a Dutch name and has nothing to do with when it is [land]. How many people in Aotearoi can even point to ‘old’ zeland on the map? “, Said the then co -founder of Māori Rawiri Waititi.
Since the current administration came to power in 2023, it demanded that the government departments give the advantage of their English names and communicate primarily in English, unless they are specially related to Māori.
Another Coalition members, ACT Party, also wants to redefine the terms of the founder of New Zealand, a Waitania Agreement, which was met with a fierce opposition.
