Olivia O’Malley is a former press secretary to New Zealand’s Leader of the Opposition and long-time Conservative staffer. She currently works in public affairs.
Last week, I saw a funny assertion on Twitter – the truth of which I have been thus far unable to verify – suggesting that bilingual signs had the advantage of preventing crashes because drivers slowed down to read them. An unalloyed positive, you might think.
But irrespective of their ability to prevent crashes, the prospect of bilingual signs has sparked a debate in New Zealand, less than five months out from an election in which two freshly minted political leaders named Chris will be competing for the votes of the centre.
The Māori language, or te reo Māori, as it is commonly known, has been an official language of New Zealand since 1987. It is one of the many things that is completely unique to New Zealand and is not spoken anywhere else.
It remains uncommon to hear Māori used conversationally in day to day life. Despite growing up in New Zealand, I cannot recall hearing a single instance of it being spoken in the street. It is still not compulsory in schools, which routinely prioritise more widely-spoken languages such as Japanese.
This is in no small part because for several decades the language was suppressed, and younger Māori were discouraged from learning it by parents conscious that English was the language you needed to succeed.
In this respect, it differs little from Welsh or Irish, both of which are now included on the road signs of their respective nations. Yet both Welsh and Irish are near universally taught in school in Wales and Ireland.
Given that te reo Māori has been an official language of New Zealand for 36 years, it is not entirely a surprise that the Labour government has proposed a gradual phasing in of bilingual signs, and put forward several new signs for consultation. If anything, what is surprising is that it has taken this long.
In the past decade, te reo Māori appears to have undergone something of a revival. Brands are looking for names in Māori, and most government departments have rebranded: the New Zealand Transport Agency is now Waka Kotahi, while St John Ambulance appears to be going by the branding Hato Hone.
Every time I go back to visit, new Māori words have been incorporated into the vernacular. Ten years ago, it would have been strange to hear phrases such as “doing the mahi (work)”, but this is now relatively commonplace.
Yet the National Party’s first instinct was to oppose the introduction of bilingual signs.
Simeon Brown, the National MP representing the constituents of Pakuranga, said it would make driving “more confusing“. Christopher Luxon, the National leader – who has previously said he is learning the language – criticised the amount of Māori being used by government departments, suggesting many New Zealanders were unable to differentiate between the various departments using a Māori moniker.
Both are probably playing to what they expect their base wants to hear: the comments were made at public meetings geared towards older voters unaccustomed to seeing the language in practice.
But polls have found that the majority of New Zealand voters want to see more Māori used, not less. So if the National Party is courting the political centre, making use of the Māori language a hot topic in an election year when there are many other critical issues at play – interest rates, the price of petrol and food, to name a few – would seem unwise.
National appears to know this, too. Chris Bishop, a senior National MP, later clarified that the party supports bilingual road signs in principle, but that it simply did not see the issue as a priority right now.
But 36 years since Māori became an official language – with 18 years of National-led governments in between – it feels fair to ask the question of when the party does expect the issue to become a priority.
There are some New Zealanders who genuinely do not see Māori as part of their identity, pointing out that just one in six New Zealanders has any Māori heritage.
But in an official context, there is little reason not to be more inclusive – not least because greater use and recognition of te reo Māori is something iwi (tribes) have called for. It also serves to preserve a language which is unique to the country and which, despite renewed enthusiasm, just four per cent of New Zealanders can hold a conversation in.
If Māori is to remain a living language, the government will be required to do much more than rolling out some bilingual signs.