The parliamentarians told him to stop complaining about the use of the name Maorí

The president of the house in the New Zealand Parliament says that he will not consider any other complaints of legislators about the use of the country’s Maori name in the procedures.

“Aotearoa is used regularly as a name of New Zealand,” said speaker Gerry Brownlee in a Parliament failure on Tuesday.

His comments occur after the viceprimer minister Winston Peters asked Brownlee to prevent the use of the name Aotearoa, and suggested that a referendum would be needed so that anyone uses it in Parliament.

Although New Zealand is the legal name of the country and can only be changed by law, Aototeoa, which translates into “land of the long white cloud,” has long been used when referring to New Zealand in Maorí.

“(Aotearoa) appears in our passports and appears in our currency,” Brownlee said on Tuesday. The name is also used in the Maori version of the New Zealand National Anthem, which is commonly heard before the English version.

“If other members do not like certain words, they do not have to use them. But it is not a matter of order, and I do not hope to have more points of order raised about it,” he added.

Parliamentarians can use any of the three official languages ​​of the country (English, Maori and sign language of New Zealand) when speaking in Parliament.

The objection of Peters, which is Maori, emerged last month, when the green deputy Ricardo Menéndez March used it during a parliamentary session.

“Why did someone who requested to come to this country in 2006 are allowed to ask a question of this Parliament that changes the name of this country without the referendum and the sanction of the people of New Zealand?” Peters asked.

Menéndez’s march is originally from Mexico, but he is a citizen of New Zealand, as all parliamentarians should be.

Shane Jones, another government minister who is a member of Peters’s first party in New Zealand and is also Maori, questioned “the suitability of recent immigrants who tell Maori what the name of our country should be?”

At that time, Brownlee encouraged legislators to use the name Aotearoa New Zealand to avoid any confusion, but said it was not a requirement.

Not all Maori have the same connection with the name Aotearoa, which was originally used to describe only the northern island of New Zealand. However, they often use it do not maoris out of respect for indigenous peoples.

Winston Peters said Tuesday that he did not agree with Brownlee’s ruling, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported.

He added that he only had a problem with which Aotearoa was used in Parliament, not of the Maori in general, and that, if he was addressed in the future using the name, he would not answer.

The use of Maori in public has grown considerably in New Zealand in recent decades, after the defense of indigenous leaders.

The Maori party, an official political party, launched a petition to officially change the name of the country to Aototeoa, which received more than 70,000 signatures.

“New Zealand is a Dutch name and has no connection with this when (land). How many people in Aototeoa can even point out” old “Zealand on a map?” The co-leader of the Maori party, Rawiri Waititi, said at that time.

Since the current administration came to power in 2023, it has required that the government departments prioritize their names in English and communicate mainly in English, unless they are specifically related to the Maori.

Another of the members of the coalition, the law party, is also seeking to redefine the terms of the Founding Document of New Zealand, the Waitangi Treaty, which has been He met with a fierce opposition.