It may have been coincidental but the day after there were mass protests against the new Government’s actions in undermining te Tiriti o Waitangi it was announced that National would seek to remove bonus payments for Public Servants learning Te Reo.
From Phil Pennington at Radio New Zealand:
The government is trying to figure out how to stop any more public servants getting extra pay for being proficient in te reo Māori.
But it concedes it cannot dump existing allowances.
“I will … ask for advice on how we could stop these bonuses being negotiated into future collective agreements,” the Public Service Minister Nicola Willis told RNZ.
“While we would not have initiated the bonuses ourselves, and while we do not support them, we are left with little choice but to implement them given they are contained in binding collective agreements.”
This is not a recent brain fart. It was planned a while ago. Again from Radio New Zealand:
National’s Simeon Brown, now a Cabinet minister, was quoted by the Herald in July saying if National won it would “remove” the payments.
The party’s coalition agreement with NZ First does not mention the allowances. However, it requires all public service departments to have their primary name in English, and for them and all Crown entities to “communicate primarily in English”, except for agencies specifically related to Māori.
And it can be added to other insults to te reo and Te Ao Māori including:
Apart from being petty and divisive the action also appears to be a potential treaty breach.
Back in 1986 the Waitangi Tribunal decision on the Te Reo Māori Claim presented an important impetus to Te Reo’s rejuvenation. The importance of the issue was captured in this submission made to the Tribunal by Ngāpuhi leader Sir James Hēnare:
The language is the core of our Māori culture and mana. Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Māori. (The language is the life force of the mana Māori.) If the language dies, as some predict, what do we have left to us? Then, I ask our own people, who are we?”
This statement was reinforced in the judgment of the Tribunal which said:
Some New Zealanders may say that the loss of Māori language is unimportant. The claimants in reply have reminded us that the Māori culture is a part of the heritage of New Zealand and that the Māori language is at the heart of that culture. If the language dies the culture will die, and something quite unique will have been lost to the world.
The conclusion of the Tribunal is captured in this passage:
The evidence and argument has made it clear to us that by the Treaty the Crown did promise to recognise and protect the language and that that promise has not been kept. The ‘guarantee’ in the Treaty requires affirmative action to protect and sustain the language, not a passive obligation to tolerate its existence and certainly not a right to deny its use in any place. it is, after all, the first language of the country, the language of the original inhabitants and the language in which the first signed copy of the Treaty was written. But educational policy over many years and the effect of the media in using almost nothing but english has swamped the Māori language and done it great harm.
We have recorded much of what we were told of the effect upon Māori children of our educational policy and it makes dismal reading. it seems that many Māori children leave school uneducated by normal standards, and that disability bedevils their progress for the rest of their lives.
We have recommended that te reo Māori should be restored to its proper place by making it an official language of new Zealand with the right to use it on any public occasion, in the Courts, in dealing with government departments, with local authorities and with all public bodies. We say that it should be widely taught from an early stage in the educational process. We think instruction in Māori should be available as of right to the children of parents who seek it. We do not recommend that it should be a compulsory subject in the schools, nor do we support the publication of all official documents in both english and Māori, at least at this stage in our development, for we think it more profitable to promote the language than to impose it.
The primary recommendation of the Tribunal was that te reo be made an official language and that Kiwis be allowed to use te reo in “any dealings with government departments, local authorities and other public bodies”. And guess what you need to have to make that policy work? That is right, public servants who are proficient in te reo.
This attack on public servants becoming proficient in te reo is race baiting dog whistling policy of the worst kind.
Kīngi Tūheitia is to host a national hui for unity next month. He is seeking to bring together the many voices of Māori.
I suspect this meeting will be well attended. And they will have a lot to talk about.
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