A pointless petition
Radio NZ reports:
The Green Party is demanding Māori names be reinstated to electorates in the capital.
It has launched a petition after the Rongotai electorate became Wellington Bays in boundary changes announced last week.
The Representation Commission confirmed final boundary adjustmentsahead of next year’s election.
“Rongotai means ‘sound of the sea,’ it has been the te reo name of our electorate for almost three decades and has been taken away with next to no consultation,” MP Julie Anne Genter said.
Rather than concentrating on issues affecting NZers such as the cost of living, they are doing a petition that is pointless. The reason it is pointless is because the Representation Commission can’t change a decision, once final boundaries are released. The final report is, final. It’s the law.
As for the substance of the decision, Wellington Bays is a pretty uninspiring name. But it is a technically correct name – the electorate has 19 bays in it. Rongotai is the name of a suburb in the electorate which has 40 people living in it, out of over 50,000 in the electorate.”
This is yet another attack on te reo, we have seen it with road signs, passports and now the name of an electorate,” Paul said.
The Representation Commission is primarily made up of public servants and is chaired by a judge. They are independent of government. And the hysteria is misplaced. They have also changed some names from English to te reo. For example:
- New Lynn becomes Waitākere (water falling from the rock)
- Bay of Plenty becomes Mt Maunganui (large mountain)