Changes around Māori language come into focus as New Zealand government approaches 100-day milestone

Pounamu Diamond, Ihapera Kaihe and Natasha Diamond believe planned changes to the use of reo Maori across New Zealand threatens the past 50 years of progress. (ABC News: Daniel Irvine)

At the age of 66, Ihapera Kaihe sometimes calls on her young grandchildren to translate Māori words into English.

Those moments are both a difficult reminder of the injustices of the past and a glimmer of hope that maybe the future can be different.

Because when Ihapera was growing up, her parents were not allowed to speak Māori; she has memories of them keeping their reo Māori a secret and with only English spoken at home and at school, her connection to her native language was lost.

In the classroom, she endured years of those around her mispronouncing her name and as she explains how that would come to impact her life, her voice starts to break.

“I went through years of not being able to have it pronounced properly, and it was the reason I named all my kids English names,” she said.

“I never ever spoke reo because mum and dad weren’t allowed to at all and by the time they brought it into my college … I’d finished school by then.”

Ihapera named her children Natasha, Joseph and Ethan.

Natasha Diamond is now 40, but times have changed in New Zealand.

And when Natasha had a daughter of her own, she sent her out into the world with the name Pounamu, teaching her that if someone couldn’t say her name correctly, she didn’t have to respond.

Pounamu grew up in wharekura — a “full immersion” Māori language school.

“That has a lot to do with past generations. They weren’t as privileged to learn about our culture and our language,” Pounamu said.

“It is definitely a big part of who I am.”

As the three generations of Māori women reflect on how their country, and the experience of their family, has changed over the past 50 years, there is an uneasy feeling that the gains made around Māori language are now at stake.

The new three-party Coalition government has promised to repeal a whole raft of Labour-era policies that impact Māori and has also brought some new policies to the table.

Some of those agenda items have been criticised as trying to diminish the use of te reo Māori in New Zealand. For people like Ihapera, that hits a very deep and very painful nerve.

She starts to cry as she recalls what it was like when it was forbidden to speak Māori in Aotearoa.

Ihapera was 12 years old, when one day when her father suddenly broke into reo Māori.

“I never even knew my dad spoke te reo until one day he got up and started speaking Māori. It was very hard,” she said.

“I remember somebody saying, ‘what’s the point in learning reo, you’re not going to do anything with it. You can’t get paid using it’.”

Over the past three months there has been a lot of debate about the future of New Zealand’s treaty document, but the agreements Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made with his two coalition partners also included specific policies on language use.

The government will change the primary names of some public departments from te reo Māori to English, “except for those specifically related to Māori”.

The government will also require departments to communicate “primarily in English” and will work to halt any additional public servants from receiving a bonus for the proficient use of te reo Māori, something that has been part of binding collective agreements since the 1980s.

And new legislation will be drafted to make English an official language of New Zealand, a status it does not currently have.

English isn’t a legislated official language in Australia either. That’s a move sometimes taken when a language needs to be protected.

‘I will not speak Māori’ 

A lot has changed since Ihapera’s parents were forbidden to speak their language, but not without an immense fight from Māori activists like Tame Iti.

Tame has been fighting for the preservation of te reo Māori for decades, telling crowds gathered at Waitangi this year he walked the grounds 52 years ago as a young man with the same message.

It was 1972 and decades of bans and restrictions on the Māori language had led to fears it would soon die out.

Tame told the ABC that when he was in school he was given a choice.

“I had to write 100 lines every time I got busted for speaking the language on the school grounds,” he said.

“You have a choice, you either go with the wheelbarrow and pick up horse shit or you write 100 lines of ‘I will not speak Māori.'”

Tame would go on to become a key figure in Ngā Tamatoa — The Warriors — one of two Māori protest groups that, in September of 1972, delivered a petition calling for the recognition and revitalisation of te reo Māori to New Zealand’s parliament.

He said the government of the day “perpetuated violence against children”.

“They used children as the first target of [saying] no to the language and it affected a lot of people, my generation,” Tame said.

“As a result of that, us, the young people, formed an organisation to resist against government policy.”

It is likely not a coincidence that as the New Zealand government moves to make changes around language, Tame directed an artistic performance that paid tribute to the members of Ngā Tamatoa.

He has been around long enough to read the politics of the situation.

Government approaches first 100 days

It was in late November when Mr Luxon signed the coalition deal with David Seymour of the ACT Party and Winston Peters of NZ First.

And on Friday, the coalition government will face the first test it set for itself — its 100-day deadline.

Mr Luxon announced a long list of targets the government would reach by March 8 and his government has been pushing changes through.

Among the changes was the repeal of New Zealand’s world-first tobacco ban and the disbanding of the Māori Health Authority.

The Luxon government has also ended fair pay agreements and brought back negative gearing.

Luxon’s National Party campaigned on some of these changes, but a lot of the policy shifts that relate to Māori rights and recognition have come out of the coalition agreement, in particular the deal with NZ First.

For some National voters, they have become unexpected distractions.

Political analyst at Victoria University of Wellington Lara Greaves said some of the changes were at odds with what New Zealanders have long said they want action on.

“One of the criticisms of this coalition agreement was there were things in there that no-one really campaigned on, or that no-one voted for National based on,” she said.

“They didn’t necessarily expect there to be this change on the tobacco [ban], or necessarily expect there to be this change in the language policy.”

She said in voter surveys there were “very few people who are saying Māori issues, treaty issues are on the top of their agenda”.

“What we saw by and large in every single piece of data in the lead up to the election was cost of living, cost of living, cost of living, Dr Greaves said.

“Mostly we’re talking about Māori issues and most New Zealanders, based on polling data, wanted to talk about the economic issues.”

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Luxon’s office told the ABC in a statement that the changes to the use of te reo Māori were about public access.

“Government organisations will continue to use dual names [or] branding, albeit there may be some change in emphasis,” the statement read.

“This allows all people of New Zealand to navigate their way easily when they are accessing critical services like health.

“People must be able to effectively access and communicate with public services, no matter what language they use, whether it is te reo Māori, English or New Zealand Sign Language.”

The spokesperson said the government valued “Māori language and culture which are fundamental to New Zealand’s past, present and future”.

Pounamu said she could not see the practical reason for the shift given most public uses of reo Māori were accompanied by an English translation.

“My issue is I just don’t I don’t understand what big change this is going to make, other than make us feel like we’re less of a people,” she said.

“It boils frustration inside me, as a younger generation, knowing what the older generations went through. It frustrates us to know that they’re trying to reverse it.”

Message to government: ‘Bring it on’

Tame believes the language he fought so hard for has become something the next generation will defend too, and they will do it speaking reo Māori.

After so many years of activism, protest and now art, he takes a very long view.

“You get elected for three years, and then they might not get in next time, but I don’t really care what they do because we are going to continue,” he said.

“I’ll just say this, bring it on.

“You’re dealing with a whole different group of young people, they’re a different breed of people. They don’t have the same trauma that a lot of us have. They haven’t been undermined as a child.”

Ihapera is learning te reo Māori, and that younger generation is helping.

Ihapera explains that she will often ask her six-year-old moko, or grandchild, to translate, as she tries to keep up with the conversation going on around her.

“I just ask them ‘What did they say?’ [And he explains] ‘He just wanted you to open up his water bottle’ and this was a six-year-old,’ she said.

“I’m getting there. Slowly, but I’m getting there. It’s so nice.”