I get why the left-wing parties are calling this dumb, both politically and because there's probably something of a racist background to it, but it seems kind of obvious to have Maori and English...
I get why the left-wing parties are calling this dumb, both politically and because there's probably something of a racist background to it, but it seems kind of obvious to have Maori and English as official languages, not just one or the other.
Is that not the purpose of an official language or am I missing something?
I agree. There's no real harm in making it official and the rhetoric that it's a waste of time make it seem like this will cost hundreds of work hours when I don't think that's true. This quote,...
I agree. There's no real harm in making it official and the rhetoric that it's a waste of time make it seem like this will cost hundreds of work hours when I don't think that's true.
the purpose of the “short, straightforward bill” is to “recognize in legislation what has long been assumed in New Zealand. Namely, that English is an official language of our country.”
This quote, while I'm sure someone will tell me that politician is a racist hack, is fairly mundane when taken at face value.
For what it's worth for people who want to know: She objects to inclusive language around gender and directed Health New Zealand to roll that language back. She was a lobbyist for a right wing...
For what it's worth for people who want to know:
She objects to inclusive language around gender and directed Health New Zealand to roll that language back. She was a lobbyist for a right wing group that wanted to break the partnership between the Crown and the Maori people insisting any policies that attempt to redress historical wrongs are "racist and separatist".
Her party New Zealand First actively pushes for transphobic/discriminatory bathroom and sports policies. Some of their candidates were full QAnon/plandemic level of conspiracy theorists. It's a right-wing populist party and though that looks different than in other countries - they at least say they want to invest in social services - they do play on fear of Asian immigrants, use the law & order rhetoric, and were campaigning to abolish the Maori electorates until they dropped it in negotiations to form a coalition government.
They have won Maori votes in the past, not sure about the present as they've pivoted more right. That's what I can glean from Wikipedia at least. Would love a local to correct/elaborate as needed because understanding those dynamics is helpful for me!
That's the trap with these sorts of things. What they push for here may not be itself problematic, but it begs questions of why they're doing it. Why does New Zealand actually need to enshrine...
That's the trap with these sorts of things. What they push for here may not be itself problematic, but it begs questions of why they're doing it. Why does New Zealand actually need to enshrine English as an official language if everyone's already using it? Are there actually laws that require "official languages" to be written down before certain things can happen? Would official documents not appear in English if it weren't marked "official"?
I suspect the answer to those latter two questions is usually "no," which means the reason for this law becomes suspiciously likely to be "I want to enshrine things I associate with white people into law, so as to subtly entangle the country's laws with my racism." So when you look into the person pushing for it, well... Go figure.
Kinda makes sense that this was pushed by a right wing extremist, but that doesn't make the policy automatically bad. If you're a country that has official languages, it seems pretty obvious that...
Kinda makes sense that this was pushed by a right wing extremist, but that doesn't make the policy automatically bad. If you're a country that has official languages, it seems pretty obvious that the most commonly spoken one should be one of them.
Take it up with the UK. Official language doesn't mean the same thing in every country. And de facto and de jure languages exist in different ways in different countries.
Take it up with the UK.
Official language doesn't mean the same thing in every country. And de facto and de jure languages exist in different ways in different countries.
Well, the UK doesn't have an official language. Neither does the US, despite Donald Trump thinking he can make it so via royal decree. New Zealand did have an official language though, except only...
Well, the UK doesn't have an official language. Neither does the US, despite Donald Trump thinking he can make it so via royal decree.
New Zealand did have an official language though, except only around 4% of the population speaks it. It makes sense that Maori is an official language, it doesn't really make sense that English wasn't though, considering it's the native language of the vast majority of the population.
It's worth noting that the Māori Language Act 1987 doesn't make Māori the official language, it makes it an official language. That is, the language of the bill is not about codifying the complete...
It's worth noting that the Māori Language Act 1987 doesn't make Māori the official language, it makes it an official language. That is, the language of the bill is not about codifying the complete set of official national languages, it is asserting that Māori must be officially recognised as one of those languages. The assumption throughout the Act is that English already is an official language (English is made reference to several times as a comparison).
So in that regard, further legislation is unnecessary - English is an official language, as are Māori and NZSL, there's not much that needs to change.
That said, I think the original lawmakers kind of shot themselves in the foot by using the language of "official language". The Welsh equivalent the the New Zealand legislation is in part based on does not use this idea of an official language, it simply says that it can be used for official purposes. Wales didn't gain an official language until 2011, and even then, the status of official language is defined far more explicitly than in NZ's 1987 Act. I suspect some of this could have been resolved with tighter wording there, and avoiding the specific wording of "official language".
I linked a professor making the point of why te reo and NZSL were made official - to provide protections not otherwise granted in a de facto English system - that English doesn't need because it's...
I linked a professor making the point of why te reo and NZSL were made official - to provide protections not otherwise granted in a de facto English system - that English doesn't need because it's the de facto English system.
Official language doesn't mean the same thing in each country and recognizing minority languages to protect them doesn't mean you have to recognize English out of some odd "fairness" or something unless you assume that the languages exist in opposition to each other.
As noted by someone else that they really wanted to control some other aspects of language in the government by requiring it to be in English instead of Māori which again suggests this is not a "neutral" act done to even things up.
Which is why the "who" is doing it and their intentions matter in the first place.
Personally, I think their intention is the same as all dogwhistles are. To sow doubt and uncertainty, and to make their opposition look unreasonable. Same as when people hold signs that say "it's...
Personally, I think their intention is the same as all dogwhistles are. To sow doubt and uncertainty, and to make their opposition look unreasonable. Same as when people hold signs that say "it's ok to be white" and other such stuff.
I think the best way to handle this stuff is to evaluate them solely on their face value and react accordingly.
The reason dogwhistling is so effective is because it's a win win. Either the other side lets you do it, and you gain some small percieved cultural victory, or the other side doesn't, and you get to use it as fuel for showing how unreasonable and psychotic they are, which sways moderates over to their side.
Personally I think the lesser of two evils is usually to just allow them to do whatever dumb little thing they deem as important, as long as it doesn't harm people. In this case, designating English as an official language in the same way that Maori is makes complete sense, even though it's not necessary.
More importantly, it doesn't actually harm anyone, and not allowing it to be done gives fuel to the "look at how insane the woke PC lefties are!" argument that works to lure people over to their side.
Almost every example that fascists use of the "insanity of progressives" is in response to some dogwhistle like this, and it's been shockingly effective in cultivating a base of uninformed right wing extremists. I think not taking the bait is the least harmful action you can take.
I understand that perspective and I disagree that we shouldn't make a fuss because it's not that bad. Not only do there appear to be actual actions they're taking that take advantage of this...
I understand that perspective and I disagree that we shouldn't make a fuss because it's not that bad. Not only do there appear to be actual actions they're taking that take advantage of this change and/or will be eased by this change, but also people said the exact same thing about trans women in sports in the US. And any number of other things I've been told not to care so much about.
I'm not from Aoteoroa/NZ, though I knew how to spell it without looking it up, so I'm not going to tell them not to care or how to fight their right wing coalition government. So ultimately none of this matters. But my opinion in general is that you don't go without calling out their actions, even ones we think are stupid. The response I've seen from NZ seems to be the best one they could do given their current government.
I'm always going to call out the white supremacists doing a thing, because there's usually a reason they're wanting to do that thing. And by doing so I will avoid falling into the trap outlined by Hemingway
But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the times comes.”
We can't destroy it but we can recognize it and teach others to by calling it out. Even the trolling and the dogwhistles.
Notably, this law specifically states that no other changes will occur other than this designation. From the general policy statement: And here is the entirety of the new law:
Not only do there appear to be actual actions they're taking that take advantage of this change and/or will be eased by this change
Notably, this law specifically states that no other changes will occur other than this designation. From the general policy statement:
Legislative recognition of the status of English as an official language will not affect the status or use of te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language as the 2 other official languages of New Zealand.
And here is the entirety of the new law:
The Parliament of New Zealand enacts as follows:
1 Title
This Act is the English Language Act 2025.
2 Commencement
This Act comes into force on the day after Royal assent.
3 Purpose
The purpose of this Act is to provide legislative recognition of the status of English as an official language of New Zealand.
Yes the law says that, and the government and specifically the far right part of the coalition, are already wanting to make additional changes/are making additional changes that this law only...
Yes the law says that, and the government and specifically the far right part of the coalition, are already wanting to make additional changes/are making additional changes that this law only facilitates. Which is what I said. I didn't say that this law includes other things.
I've read the law ages ago, I mean, I believe I linked it for you. I also went back and read articles from each of its readings in Parliament and with academics and linked other things for you too.
We had a whole other conversation thread. I don't know why you're explaining things you have to know I'm well aware of. If you want to continue our conversation in the thread where I did a ton of labor, that'd be more productive.
Otherwise, I just disagree with you, firmly and entirely. I'm not misunderstanding you, to the best of my ability to check, and I'm not missing the point you're making; I just do not agree with you, like I firmly and entirely disagreed with you about how banning trans women from sports might end up being "beneficial for trans rights in the long run."
In both cases you're advocating for "strategic reallocation of resources" by not defending something on principle, because you find it disadvantageous politically. I do not and will not agree with that position.
I think the thinking of that having English as an official language would further reinforce it as the default language in the country. It's similar to the US making English the official language...
I think the thinking of that having English as an official language would further reinforce it as the default language in the country. It's similar to the US making English the official language of the country last year (though this was only through Executive Order). Previously the US had an executive order stating that federal agencies and federally funded programs had to make accomodations to those not speaking English but the 2025 EO undid that and said these must now be done in English (but doesn't explicitly say you can't use other languages).
English isn’t the official language of the United States because of that EO. All it really did was ignore jurisprudence related to Title VI and the 14th Amendment and language access. It’s no...
English isn’t the official language of the United States because of that EO. All it really did was ignore jurisprudence related to Title VI and the 14th Amendment and language access. It’s no different than Trump‘s EO on birth right citizenship, it’s just a thing he “did” to say he “did it” even though he actually didn’t.
It’s kind of shit right now because agencies have stopped investigating/enforcing disparate impact claims and there’s no private right of action under Title VI, but that doesn’t change the fact that the EO didn’t actually make English the “official” language.
Yeah they point out that England/UK doesn't list English as an official language as they don't have one. (They recognize Welsh for example regionally but not nationally.) Which makes this feel...
Yeah they point out that England/UK doesn't list English as an official language as they don't have one. (They recognize Welsh for example regionally but not nationally.) Which makes this feel "stunty" and with likely racist backing
It's definitely a "don't give ground even when it feels stupid" thing for me
I think this controversy is stupid, but if you reflexively oppose harmless changes then it makes your own side look stupid, too. And that's what they want.
I think this controversy is stupid, but if you reflexively oppose harmless changes then it makes your own side look stupid, too. And that's what they want.
I don't think there's a guaranteed lack of harm here. Many times things like this are a first step with future ones planned. Especially if they want to erode Maori rights or severely limit...
I don't think there's a guaranteed lack of harm here. Many times things like this are a first step with future ones planned. Especially if they want to erode Maori rights or severely limit immigration. Also opposing that isn't necessarily "reflexive", it can be quite principled. Neither assumption holds water IMO.
To put it another way, "the other side wants it" is a heuristic that might understandably make one suspicious, but it's only convincing to committed partisans. If there are other, better arguments...
To put it another way, "the other side wants it" is a heuristic that might understandably make one suspicious, but it's only convincing to committed partisans. If there are other, better arguments then they should stand on their own.
They did. Also why Maori and NZ sign language are given special status (mirroring Welsh being recognized regionally in the UK but English being given no de jure status) And this is just a sample...
They did.
In a report presented to the House in June, the country’s Justice Committee said it received written submissions from 1,601 people and groups regarding the bill, and almost two-thirds of these opposed it.
According to the report, opponents of the move argued that making English an official language would be “an unnecessary use of resources,” create “unnecessary division within society,” and would be “undermining the two other official languages” and their legislation, which gave those minority languages stronger rights and supported their use in legal proceedings.
Also why Maori and NZ sign language are given special status (mirroring Welsh being recognized regionally in the UK but English being given no de jure status)
Paul added that the Māori language has protected status “because it was beaten out of Māori systematically. We had to march our asses to parliament demanding that the indigenous first language of this country be recognized and not beaten out of the mouths of its native speakers.”
And this is just a sample of them, so they did make these arguments, and did believe it was worth standing up for. I don't think telling them not to care would be useful or effective political advice from a country with a very different system.
Okay, clearly many sympathetic people have argued against it. But this brief summary doesn't tell us how good the arguments are. For example, I'm wondering how expensive this measure could be when...
Okay, clearly many sympathetic people have argued against it. But this brief summary doesn't tell us how good the arguments are. For example, I'm wondering how expensive this measure could be when it seemingly doesn't do anything substantial? And how exactly does it undermine the official status of other languages?
There don't seem to be more substantive arguments in favor of this change shared in this article. either. I don't understand why you're only skeptical of the opposition rather than equally...
There don't seem to be more substantive arguments in favor of this change shared in this article. either. I don't understand why you're only skeptical of the opposition rather than equally critical of the proponents if you think the whole thing is "stupid" not just the opposition to it. I found the summary in the article to demonstrate the arguments made as reasonable and valid criticism of the concept.
This is what feels like the whole Just Asking Questions phenomenon where your criticism is originally that they're doing it "wrong" by not making substantive arguments while now admitting you have no idea what the strength of their arguments actually was. And you're "just asking" whether they did a good job, but actually you seem to be assuming it.
I don't think that's reasonable criticism as it's based only on a hypothetical framed as judgement of the opposition for doing a poor job despite lacking the evidence. Maybe they didn't do well and despite the summaries. But I won't start from the assumption that they're being stupid while fighting this stupid policy as even though I've done a decent amount of reading on this and still know I don't understand the intricacies. Nor will I assume they're in reflexive opposition rather than reasonable one.
So you're free to assume and do your own research or not as you like but I don't think any of your posts here are making cogent points given the assumptions they're making. Perhaps another article will provide you with more detail.
Not really, no. The way I'd expect it to work for something symbolic and uncontroversial, like legislation declaring national peach tree day or something like that, is that if nobody wants it,...
Not really, no. The way I'd expect it to work for something symbolic and uncontroversial, like legislation declaring national peach tree day or something like that, is that if nobody wants it, there's no reason to do it, but given that some people do want it, there's no reason to oppose it.
This is obviously a controversial issue, but I don't really see why it should be. It's hard to imagine any compelling arguments either way for something that doesn't seem to matter much. The ones briefly summarized so far don't seem compelling.
But since that's just a first impression, I'm leaving the door open to there being more to it.
Nobody needs a reason to oppose it – though as has been explained to you, they absolutely do and have given them – precisely because this is "symbolic." When talking about things we know to have...
Nobody needs a reason to oppose it – though as has been explained to you, they absolutely do and have given them – precisely because this is "symbolic." When talking about things we know to have little to no benefit, opinion and emotion become what you weigh the decision on. Asking people to justify their opinion on such a thing is ridiculous at its face. You're asking people to justify why they like apples.
This is also serving to position neutrality as though it's in favor of the measure in question, as if to say "This doesn't make sense to fight over, so it should pass." That's not how neutrality works.
The issue to me is that with only Maori and ESL as official languages, that technically means that all government business needs to be conducted in Maori. I think the right solution would maybe to...
The issue to me is that with only Maori and ESL as official languages, that technically means that all government business needs to be conducted in Maori. I think the right solution would maybe to have originally named Maori a "national language" or "official cultural language" or something that gives it a status but doesn't technically mean everyone is using the wrong language.
Normally I'd say "who cares if the languages have the 'incorrect' status? Just be reasonable." But I mean...it's the government. If they want to make sure the rule of law is upheld, they should be following the law.
That's not true and certainly hasn't been the case since te reo/Māori was named official in 1987. Also it's NZSL not ESL (which is English as a Second Language). Also weird that you wouldn't have...
The issue to me is that with only Maori and ESL as official languages, that technically means that all government business needs to be conducted in Maori.
That's not true and certainly hasn't been the case since te reo/Māori was named official in 1987. Also it's NZSL not ESL (which is English as a Second Language). Also weird that you wouldn't have to conduct all business in NZSL too under this false assumption.
Fwiw, Australia and the UK also do not list English as an official language and still do business daily.
Official languages only give a requirement like thatif that is written into the law. From a law professor from the wiki:
English is already a de facto official language, which may be used in any or all public or official contexts. (...) [W]e legislated te reo [Māori] and sign language as being "official languages", in order to affirmatively grant the right to use them in particular, specified situations where they otherwise could not be used. This is not the case with English. It's simply a general, background cultural presumption in our particular society that this is the language of our government. (...) English is so much an "official language" that our law actually specifies in various places it must be used in place of any other.[4]
But I mean...it's the government. If they want to make sure the rule of law is upheld, they should be following the law.
So the government has been following the law the entire time. It seems like you're making a lot of assumptions using perhaps an American paradigm. The "rights" of an official language vary depending on what has been put into law. And NZ law does not, to the best of my ability to search, have any of the provisions you're claiming. So if you have a citation I'm open to being wrong, but otherwise afaict this is just factually incorrect
ETA it is genuinely upsetting to see outright falsehoods upvoted.
I don't know how I could possibly be using an American paradigm when we also don't have an official language. I won't argue with what some professor who surely knows more than me has said, but...
I don't know how I could possibly be using an American paradigm when we also don't have an official language.
I won't argue with what some professor who surely knows more than me has said, but you're completely missing the point with your other comments. Yes, Australia and England don't have official languages (just like the US). But New Zealand already does have them. That's the distinction. That's why I don't see this as a big deal. If there were no official languages already, I would say this exclusively tries to wash away Maori. But there are.
But also, if the laws state that English must be used, that makes it de jure and not de facto.
But surely you can see how, to many people, it would seem silly to have laws saying you must use one language while another is labeled the official language, especially considering the regular definition of the word "official." Yes, you can apply any name and definition while writing a law, but twisting words to mean something different from what everyone understands them to mean doesn't make you look good; it makes you look out of touch.
If two languages are labeled as "official" in order to allow them to be used, and another language is not set as official and has to be used, there is a disconnect somewhere.
To be clear, I don't give a fuck what New Zealand's laws state. I think this is a weird case and I hope they will respect everyone because the Maori as a whole have been particularly badly oppressed since the founding of the colony there. I do not suspect that arguing against this law will make politicians look reasonable in the eyes of most of the electorate, even if it's proposed by the fascist "let's oppress the Maori even more" party.
I am not missing the point. I disagree with you. I am telling you that an "official language" means different things in different countries. It's not "twisting" anything to tell you that you're...
I am not missing the point. I disagree with you.
I am telling you that an "official language" means different things in different countries. It's not "twisting" anything to tell you that you're wrong when you state all business must occur in Māori. Wales similarly has de facto English and de jure Welsh recognition and they haven't fallen apart any time recently.
That is just how "official language" - something many countries don't have and some are "officially multilingual" instead of having one or many "official languages" works as a term in various countries in various legal systems. Never mind when "official language" is only a translation.
You are arguing with the professor because you're contradicting his precise point. I don't know why as you've cited no sources, just insisted that your interpretation is correct and that the way other countries use it is "twisting" the term. That's not even an argument.
That's independent of you caring, or not, about what NZ does, a thing irrelevant to the unsourced, inaccurate claims you keep making. If you would like to cite sources that say I'm wrong about my interpretation of NZ law and this process, I'm open to learning. I'm using Wikipedia and while I'm acknowledging that there is certainly more complexity than I can glean just from there, it's pretty clear about official languages varying worldwide.
But this:
Normally I'd say "who cares if the languages have the 'incorrect' status? Just be reasonable." But I mean...it's the government. If they want to make sure the rule of law is upheld, they should be following the law.
Is false. Not only was the government upholding the law from the 80s to the present, but nothing was incorrect previously.
So no, I'm not missing your point, I don't agree with your point, or your premises. I also don't agree with the conclusion that one shouldn't fight the thing the "fascists" do (your word) because you think it's silly. You said similar about other topics and we fundamentally disagree that giving ground is productive.
A prior briefing to then-Public Service Minister Judith Collins in early April stated Collins had previously instructed the Public Service Commission to reverse the ordering of te reo Māori and English names in its branding “quickly and at minimal cost”.
The Public Service Commission advised that the changes could be viewed negatively by some, given a Waitangi Tribunal inquiry on the use of te reo in the public sector.
“Given the tribunal’s findings, the proposed changes are likely to be seen as inherently detrimental and a de-prioritisation of the promotion of te reo Māori (as the language in need of revitalisation in order to survive), and as diminishing Crown efforts to meet its duties of active protection and partnership, thus doing material harm to the Crown-Māori relationship,” officials said.
“It doesn’t make much sense on the face of it that English is so widely used [but isn’t an official language like Māori and NZSL],” says Dr Julia de Bres, a sociolinguist and senior lecturer at Massey University.
“If it was just about tidying the legislation, I wouldn’t have a problem with the proposal,” she says. But in the context of the Government’s promised changes to Te Tiriti o Waitangi relations and co-governance, “I don’t think that’s what it’s about”.
If it isn’t needed for practical reasons, we can infer it’s being done for symbolic or other reasons, she adds.
“Dominant social groups work to maintain their power. And it’s possible some people feel if more Māori is being used, that means English is losing its power. So it’s a move to maintain the linguistic status quo.
“It can be framed as a tidying up exercise, but if English is named as ‘official’, that’ll be used by people to impose English in places where otherwise te reo Māori might have had a chance.”
And a dozen more news articles and links I clicked through.
(Top comment that started this thread) I think it’s interesting that you’ve become less open minded throughout this thread. You started with a question suggesting you’re unsure of what it means to...
Is that not the purpose of an official language or am I missing something?
(Top comment that started this thread)
The issue to me is that with only Maori and ESL as official languages, that technically means that all government business needs to be conducted in Maori.
I think it’s interesting that you’ve become less open minded throughout this thread. You started with a question suggesting you’re unsure of what it means to have an official language, but by the time you got a few comments deep, you were leaning more heavily on the assumption that your own original question was answered in a way to reinforce your initial assumption.
I don’t have anything else to contribute to this discussion, but give yourself some time to mull this over and decide whether you want to address this.
I'm pretty sure the first question was a rhetorical device. Let's please not try and hand out internet timeouts in what is otherwise a normal discussion. It's corny and accomplishes nothing.
I'm pretty sure the first question was a rhetorical device.
but give yourself some time to mull this over and decide whether you want to address this.
Let's please not try and hand out internet timeouts in what is otherwise a normal discussion. It's corny and accomplishes nothing.
It's a bit silly. You don't need to legislate that the sky is blue. You can tell that English is an official language in NZ because all our official documents are written in English. Another thing...
It's a bit silly. You don't need to legislate that the sky is blue. You can tell that English is an official language in NZ because all our official documents are written in English.
Another thing New Zealand First (the party behind this change) pushed for, along similar lines, was that government agencies must use English names primarily. It was becoming popular in recent years to rebrand to Māori names, but everyday New Zealanders find all these Māori names too hard to understand, they said. So no more Te Whatu Ora -- you need to call yourself Health NZ (not to be confused with the Ministry of Health). It's not obvious what Waka Kotahi means -- you need to call yourself NZTA (New Zealand Transport Agency is too much of a mouthful, so you'll only hear it referred to by its initialism).
But putting too much emphasis on how silly this all is just ends up playing into dog whistling narrative they're framing up with these efforts.
Best thing to do is vent to a friendly audience and move on.
Government agency names being in English is pretty defensible though. In your example, Health NZ is much more understandable to an English speaker than Whatu Ora and the confusion with Ministry of...
Government agency names being in English is pretty defensible though. In your example, Health NZ is much more understandable to an English speaker than Whatu Ora and the confusion with Ministry of Health is still present even if Whatu Ora is the name. NZTA is easy to understand too, as NZ is obviously New Zealand and then an English speaker only has to map TA to Transport Agency. I never get confused that CTA is Chicago Transit Authority. The "T" is easy to remember as something transportation related. Naming official government agencies in a language only 4% can speak doesn't make much sense to me.
It makes plenty of sense to me if you are trying to redress some of the long-term effects of colonialism. It would be one thing if places like NZ existed in a vacuum - if there were two language...
It makes plenty of sense to me if you are trying to redress some of the long-term effects of colonialism. It would be one thing if places like NZ existed in a vacuum - if there were two language groups coexisting with no other historical context and one is bigger then sure, the argument that more people will understand agency names in the majority language holds water. But it's kind of messed up for European colonizers to move into a place that is already occupied, then systematically oppress, enslave, and kill the folks that were there before until the language of the colonizer is the majority language (often this is accomplished systematically as well, by outlawing the use of native languages in schools or by just straight up stealing native children and giving them to colonizer families or institutions to be raised within the colonial culture.) and then arguing "well, most people understand our language so no point in using yours for anything". You address that sort of thing by (somewhat artificially) encouraging the use of the minority language in public, teaching it in schools, etc. There might be some mild inconvenience to the majority population, but that seems like a small thing to ask to allow those cultures to coexist in a way that doesn't continue the trend toward cultural and linguistic extinction.
ETA: I'm not from NZ (Aoteorea?). I'm sure there is history and nuance there that is different from other colonies. I'm speaking generally, as someone who thinks that it's worthwhile to try and preserve cultures that were nearly wiped out by colonialism, because it is too late for some and because I think we're generally better off when cultures are able to coexist even when that is mildly inconvenient to me.
I get why the left-wing parties are calling this dumb, both politically and because there's probably something of a racist background to it, but it seems kind of obvious to have Maori and English as official languages, not just one or the other.
Is that not the purpose of an official language or am I missing something?
I agree. There's no real harm in making it official and the rhetoric that it's a waste of time make it seem like this will cost hundreds of work hours when I don't think that's true.
This quote, while I'm sure someone will tell me that politician is a racist hack, is fairly mundane when taken at face value.
For what it's worth for people who want to know:
She objects to inclusive language around gender and directed Health New Zealand to roll that language back. She was a lobbyist for a right wing group that wanted to break the partnership between the Crown and the Maori people insisting any policies that attempt to redress historical wrongs are "racist and separatist".
Her party New Zealand First actively pushes for transphobic/discriminatory bathroom and sports policies. Some of their candidates were full QAnon/plandemic level of conspiracy theorists. It's a right-wing populist party and though that looks different than in other countries - they at least say they want to invest in social services - they do play on fear of Asian immigrants, use the law & order rhetoric, and were campaigning to abolish the Maori electorates until they dropped it in negotiations to form a coalition government.
They have won Maori votes in the past, not sure about the present as they've pivoted more right. That's what I can glean from Wikipedia at least. Would love a local to correct/elaborate as needed because understanding those dynamics is helpful for me!
🤦 I just knew it. Such a simple, harmless quote out of context. I just knew, in my bones or something, it was said by someone reprehensible.
That's the trap with these sorts of things. What they push for here may not be itself problematic, but it begs questions of why they're doing it. Why does New Zealand actually need to enshrine English as an official language if everyone's already using it? Are there actually laws that require "official languages" to be written down before certain things can happen? Would official documents not appear in English if it weren't marked "official"?
I suspect the answer to those latter two questions is usually "no," which means the reason for this law becomes suspiciously likely to be "I want to enshrine things I associate with white people into law, so as to subtly entangle the country's laws with my racism." So when you look into the person pushing for it, well... Go figure.
Yeah I mean I certainly wasn't surprised and I'm not sure I'm capable of being disappointed.
Kinda makes sense that this was pushed by a right wing extremist, but that doesn't make the policy automatically bad. If you're a country that has official languages, it seems pretty obvious that the most commonly spoken one should be one of them.
Take it up with the UK.
Official language doesn't mean the same thing in every country. And de facto and de jure languages exist in different ways in different countries.
Well, the UK doesn't have an official language. Neither does the US, despite Donald Trump thinking he can make it so via royal decree.
New Zealand did have an official language though, except only around 4% of the population speaks it. It makes sense that Maori is an official language, it doesn't really make sense that English wasn't though, considering it's the native language of the vast majority of the population.
It's worth noting that the Māori Language Act 1987 doesn't make Māori the official language, it makes it an official language. That is, the language of the bill is not about codifying the complete set of official national languages, it is asserting that Māori must be officially recognised as one of those languages. The assumption throughout the Act is that English already is an official language (English is made reference to several times as a comparison).
So in that regard, further legislation is unnecessary - English is an official language, as are Māori and NZSL, there's not much that needs to change.
That said, I think the original lawmakers kind of shot themselves in the foot by using the language of "official language". The Welsh equivalent the the New Zealand legislation is in part based on does not use this idea of an official language, it simply says that it can be used for official purposes. Wales didn't gain an official language until 2011, and even then, the status of official language is defined far more explicitly than in NZ's 1987 Act. I suspect some of this could have been resolved with tighter wording there, and avoiding the specific wording of "official language".
I linked a professor making the point of why te reo and NZSL were made official - to provide protections not otherwise granted in a de facto English system - that English doesn't need because it's the de facto English system.
Official language doesn't mean the same thing in each country and recognizing minority languages to protect them doesn't mean you have to recognize English out of some odd "fairness" or something unless you assume that the languages exist in opposition to each other.
As noted by someone else that they really wanted to control some other aspects of language in the government by requiring it to be in English instead of Māori which again suggests this is not a "neutral" act done to even things up.
Which is why the "who" is doing it and their intentions matter in the first place.
Personally, I think their intention is the same as all dogwhistles are. To sow doubt and uncertainty, and to make their opposition look unreasonable. Same as when people hold signs that say "it's ok to be white" and other such stuff.
I think the best way to handle this stuff is to evaluate them solely on their face value and react accordingly.
The reason dogwhistling is so effective is because it's a win win. Either the other side lets you do it, and you gain some small percieved cultural victory, or the other side doesn't, and you get to use it as fuel for showing how unreasonable and psychotic they are, which sways moderates over to their side.
Personally I think the lesser of two evils is usually to just allow them to do whatever dumb little thing they deem as important, as long as it doesn't harm people. In this case, designating English as an official language in the same way that Maori is makes complete sense, even though it's not necessary.
More importantly, it doesn't actually harm anyone, and not allowing it to be done gives fuel to the "look at how insane the woke PC lefties are!" argument that works to lure people over to their side.
Almost every example that fascists use of the "insanity of progressives" is in response to some dogwhistle like this, and it's been shockingly effective in cultivating a base of uninformed right wing extremists. I think not taking the bait is the least harmful action you can take.
I understand that perspective and I disagree that we shouldn't make a fuss because it's not that bad. Not only do there appear to be actual actions they're taking that take advantage of this change and/or will be eased by this change, but also people said the exact same thing about trans women in sports in the US. And any number of other things I've been told not to care so much about.
I'm not from Aoteoroa/NZ, though I knew how to spell it without looking it up, so I'm not going to tell them not to care or how to fight their right wing coalition government. So ultimately none of this matters. But my opinion in general is that you don't go without calling out their actions, even ones we think are stupid. The response I've seen from NZ seems to be the best one they could do given their current government.
I'm always going to call out the white supremacists doing a thing, because there's usually a reason they're wanting to do that thing. And by doing so I will avoid falling into the trap outlined by Hemingway
We can't destroy it but we can recognize it and teach others to by calling it out. Even the trolling and the dogwhistles.
Notably, this law specifically states that no other changes will occur other than this designation. From the general policy statement:
And here is the entirety of the new law:
Yes the law says that, and the government and specifically the far right part of the coalition, are already wanting to make additional changes/are making additional changes that this law only facilitates. Which is what I said. I didn't say that this law includes other things.
I've read the law ages ago, I mean, I believe I linked it for you. I also went back and read articles from each of its readings in Parliament and with academics and linked other things for you too.
We had a whole other conversation thread. I don't know why you're explaining things you have to know I'm well aware of. If you want to continue our conversation in the thread where I did a ton of labor, that'd be more productive.
Otherwise, I just disagree with you, firmly and entirely. I'm not misunderstanding you, to the best of my ability to check, and I'm not missing the point you're making; I just do not agree with you, like I firmly and entirely disagreed with you about how banning trans women from sports might end up being "beneficial for trans rights in the long run."
In both cases you're advocating for "strategic reallocation of resources" by not defending something on principle, because you find it disadvantageous politically. I do not and will not agree with that position.
I think the thinking of that having English as an official language would further reinforce it as the default language in the country. It's similar to the US making English the official language of the country last year (though this was only through Executive Order). Previously the US had an executive order stating that federal agencies and federally funded programs had to make accomodations to those not speaking English but the 2025 EO undid that and said these must now be done in English (but doesn't explicitly say you can't use other languages).
English isn’t the official language of the United States because of that EO. All it really did was ignore jurisprudence related to Title VI and the 14th Amendment and language access. It’s no different than Trump‘s EO on birth right citizenship, it’s just a thing he “did” to say he “did it” even though he actually didn’t.
Language access in schools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lau_v._Nichols
It’s kind of shit right now because agencies have stopped investigating/enforcing disparate impact claims and there’s no private right of action under Title VI, but that doesn’t change the fact that the EO didn’t actually make English the “official” language.
Language access for drivers licenses and no private right of action for disparate impact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_v._Sandoval
Yeah they point out that England/UK doesn't list English as an official language as they don't have one. (They recognize Welsh for example regionally but not nationally.) Which makes this feel "stunty" and with likely racist backing
It's definitely a "don't give ground even when it feels stupid" thing for me
Edit Fixed a )
I think this controversy is stupid, but if you reflexively oppose harmless changes then it makes your own side look stupid, too. And that's what they want.
I don't think there's a guaranteed lack of harm here. Many times things like this are a first step with future ones planned. Especially if they want to erode Maori rights or severely limit immigration. Also opposing that isn't necessarily "reflexive", it can be quite principled. Neither assumption holds water IMO.
Better to call it out as stupid than to comply.
To put it another way, "the other side wants it" is a heuristic that might understandably make one suspicious, but it's only convincing to committed partisans. If there are other, better arguments then they should stand on their own.
They did.
Also why Maori and NZ sign language are given special status (mirroring Welsh being recognized regionally in the UK but English being given no de jure status)
And this is just a sample of them, so they did make these arguments, and did believe it was worth standing up for. I don't think telling them not to care would be useful or effective political advice from a country with a very different system.
Okay, clearly many sympathetic people have argued against it. But this brief summary doesn't tell us how good the arguments are. For example, I'm wondering how expensive this measure could be when it seemingly doesn't do anything substantial? And how exactly does it undermine the official status of other languages?
There don't seem to be more substantive arguments in favor of this change shared in this article. either. I don't understand why you're only skeptical of the opposition rather than equally critical of the proponents if you think the whole thing is "stupid" not just the opposition to it. I found the summary in the article to demonstrate the arguments made as reasonable and valid criticism of the concept.
This is what feels like the whole Just Asking Questions phenomenon where your criticism is originally that they're doing it "wrong" by not making substantive arguments while now admitting you have no idea what the strength of their arguments actually was. And you're "just asking" whether they did a good job, but actually you seem to be assuming it.
I don't think that's reasonable criticism as it's based only on a hypothetical framed as judgement of the opposition for doing a poor job despite lacking the evidence. Maybe they didn't do well and despite the summaries. But I won't start from the assumption that they're being stupid while fighting this stupid policy as even though I've done a decent amount of reading on this and still know I don't understand the intricacies. Nor will I assume they're in reflexive opposition rather than reasonable one.
So you're free to assume and do your own research or not as you like but I don't think any of your posts here are making cogent points given the assumptions they're making. Perhaps another article will provide you with more detail.
Does it matter? A lot of people don't want it. If meaningful benefit isn't found, that should be enough.
Not really, no. The way I'd expect it to work for something symbolic and uncontroversial, like legislation declaring national peach tree day or something like that, is that if nobody wants it, there's no reason to do it, but given that some people do want it, there's no reason to oppose it.
This is obviously a controversial issue, but I don't really see why it should be. It's hard to imagine any compelling arguments either way for something that doesn't seem to matter much. The ones briefly summarized so far don't seem compelling.
But since that's just a first impression, I'm leaving the door open to there being more to it.
DefinitelyNotAFae has laid out a lot of context, I would suggest starting there.
Nobody needs a reason to oppose it – though as has been explained to you, they absolutely do and have given them – precisely because this is "symbolic." When talking about things we know to have little to no benefit, opinion and emotion become what you weigh the decision on. Asking people to justify their opinion on such a thing is ridiculous at its face. You're asking people to justify why they like apples.
This is also serving to position neutrality as though it's in favor of the measure in question, as if to say "This doesn't make sense to fight over, so it should pass." That's not how neutrality works.
The issue to me is that with only Maori and ESL as official languages, that technically means that all government business needs to be conducted in Maori. I think the right solution would maybe to have originally named Maori a "national language" or "official cultural language" or something that gives it a status but doesn't technically mean everyone is using the wrong language.
Normally I'd say "who cares if the languages have the 'incorrect' status? Just be reasonable." But I mean...it's the government. If they want to make sure the rule of law is upheld, they should be following the law.
That's not true and certainly hasn't been the case since te reo/Māori was named official in 1987. Also it's NZSL not ESL (which is English as a Second Language). Also weird that you wouldn't have to conduct all business in NZSL too under this false assumption.
Fwiw, Australia and the UK also do not list English as an official language and still do business daily.
Official languages only give a requirement like thatif that is written into the law. From a law professor from the wiki:
So the government has been following the law the entire time. It seems like you're making a lot of assumptions using perhaps an American paradigm. The "rights" of an official language vary depending on what has been put into law. And NZ law does not, to the best of my ability to search, have any of the provisions you're claiming. So if you have a citation I'm open to being wrong, but otherwise afaict this is just factually incorrect
ETA it is genuinely upsetting to see outright falsehoods upvoted.
I don't know how I could possibly be using an American paradigm when we also don't have an official language.
I won't argue with what some professor who surely knows more than me has said, but you're completely missing the point with your other comments. Yes, Australia and England don't have official languages (just like the US). But New Zealand already does have them. That's the distinction. That's why I don't see this as a big deal. If there were no official languages already, I would say this exclusively tries to wash away Maori. But there are.
But also, if the laws state that English must be used, that makes it de jure and not de facto.
But surely you can see how, to many people, it would seem silly to have laws saying you must use one language while another is labeled the official language, especially considering the regular definition of the word "official." Yes, you can apply any name and definition while writing a law, but twisting words to mean something different from what everyone understands them to mean doesn't make you look good; it makes you look out of touch.
If two languages are labeled as "official" in order to allow them to be used, and another language is not set as official and has to be used, there is a disconnect somewhere.
To be clear, I don't give a fuck what New Zealand's laws state. I think this is a weird case and I hope they will respect everyone because the Maori as a whole have been particularly badly oppressed since the founding of the colony there. I do not suspect that arguing against this law will make politicians look reasonable in the eyes of most of the electorate, even if it's proposed by the fascist "let's oppress the Maori even more" party.
I am not missing the point. I disagree with you.
I am telling you that an "official language" means different things in different countries. It's not "twisting" anything to tell you that you're wrong when you state all business must occur in Māori. Wales similarly has de facto English and de jure Welsh recognition and they haven't fallen apart any time recently.
That is just how "official language" - something many countries don't have and some are "officially multilingual" instead of having one or many "official languages" works as a term in various countries in various legal systems. Never mind when "official language" is only a translation.
You are arguing with the professor because you're contradicting his precise point. I don't know why as you've cited no sources, just insisted that your interpretation is correct and that the way other countries use it is "twisting" the term. That's not even an argument.
That's independent of you caring, or not, about what NZ does, a thing irrelevant to the unsourced, inaccurate claims you keep making. If you would like to cite sources that say I'm wrong about my interpretation of NZ law and this process, I'm open to learning. I'm using Wikipedia and while I'm acknowledging that there is certainly more complexity than I can glean just from there, it's pretty clear about official languages varying worldwide.
But this:
Is false. Not only was the government upholding the law from the 80s to the present, but nothing was incorrect previously.
So no, I'm not missing your point, I don't agree with your point, or your premises. I also don't agree with the conclusion that one shouldn't fight the thing the "fascists" do (your word) because you think it's silly. You said similar about other topics and we fundamentally disagree that giving ground is productive.
https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2026/03/03/english-language-bill-labelled-a-nonsense-and-disgrace-passes-first-reading/
New Zealand coalition votes to make English an official language as critics decry ‘cynical’ bill | New Zealand politics | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/04/new-zealand-english-official-language-bill
Languages of New Zealand - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_New_Zealand
English Language Bill - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Language_Bill
Official language - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_language
National language - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_language
Languages of the United Kingdom - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_Kingdom
Languages of Australia - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Australia
Officials warned English-first logo change could harm Crown–Māori ties
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/officials-warned-english-first-logo-change-could-harm-crownmaori-ties/6N2GHTVCLVAHVJ2H24FP4LQTKM/
Why does it matter? (Emphasis mine)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/nzs-official-languages-what-you-need-to-know/YJDVQ6SKLBDLZCMBITR75V53UY/
And a dozen more news articles and links I clicked through.
The Irish constitution lists Irish as "first official language" and English as a second official language, similar phrasing might work here.
(Top comment that started this thread)
I think it’s interesting that you’ve become less open minded throughout this thread. You started with a question suggesting you’re unsure of what it means to have an official language, but by the time you got a few comments deep, you were leaning more heavily on the assumption that your own original question was answered in a way to reinforce your initial assumption.
I don’t have anything else to contribute to this discussion, but give yourself some time to mull this over and decide whether you want to address this.
I'm pretty sure the first question was a rhetorical device.
Let's please not try and hand out internet timeouts in what is otherwise a normal discussion. It's corny and accomplishes nothing.
I also don't see how those two are incompatible.
Does UK have English as official language?
[edit]
Somebody mentioned this already and there's an interesting discussion in down belo: https://tildes.net/~society/1vfu/new_zealand_has_a_new_official_language_english#comment-icjb
It's a bit silly. You don't need to legislate that the sky is blue. You can tell that English is an official language in NZ because all our official documents are written in English.
Another thing New Zealand First (the party behind this change) pushed for, along similar lines, was that government agencies must use English names primarily. It was becoming popular in recent years to rebrand to Māori names, but everyday New Zealanders find all these Māori names too hard to understand, they said. So no more Te Whatu Ora -- you need to call yourself Health NZ (not to be confused with the Ministry of Health). It's not obvious what Waka Kotahi means -- you need to call yourself NZTA (New Zealand Transport Agency is too much of a mouthful, so you'll only hear it referred to by its initialism).
But putting too much emphasis on how silly this all is just ends up playing into dog whistling narrative they're framing up with these efforts.
Best thing to do is vent to a friendly audience and move on.
Government agency names being in English is pretty defensible though. In your example, Health NZ is much more understandable to an English speaker than Whatu Ora and the confusion with Ministry of Health is still present even if Whatu Ora is the name. NZTA is easy to understand too, as NZ is obviously New Zealand and then an English speaker only has to map TA to Transport Agency. I never get confused that CTA is Chicago Transit Authority. The "T" is easy to remember as something transportation related. Naming official government agencies in a language only 4% can speak doesn't make much sense to me.
It makes plenty of sense to me if you are trying to redress some of the long-term effects of colonialism. It would be one thing if places like NZ existed in a vacuum - if there were two language groups coexisting with no other historical context and one is bigger then sure, the argument that more people will understand agency names in the majority language holds water. But it's kind of messed up for European colonizers to move into a place that is already occupied, then systematically oppress, enslave, and kill the folks that were there before until the language of the colonizer is the majority language (often this is accomplished systematically as well, by outlawing the use of native languages in schools or by just straight up stealing native children and giving them to colonizer families or institutions to be raised within the colonial culture.) and then arguing "well, most people understand our language so no point in using yours for anything". You address that sort of thing by (somewhat artificially) encouraging the use of the minority language in public, teaching it in schools, etc. There might be some mild inconvenience to the majority population, but that seems like a small thing to ask to allow those cultures to coexist in a way that doesn't continue the trend toward cultural and linguistic extinction.
ETA: I'm not from NZ (Aoteorea?). I'm sure there is history and nuance there that is different from other colonies. I'm speaking generally, as someone who thinks that it's worthwhile to try and preserve cultures that were nearly wiped out by colonialism, because it is too late for some and because I think we're generally better off when cultures are able to coexist even when that is mildly inconvenient to me.