Weneed to debate our country’s name

A well-organised campaign for a name change led by respected opinion leaders might well be successful.

Have you noticed how often our country is now referred to as Aotearoa or Aotearoa New Zealand? Lots of public figures, celebrities, political activists, and media organisations regularly use one or the other of these terms.

The terms have become so fashionable, and not just among woke trendies and millennials, that you might well wonder if there were some deliberate and carefully orchestrated plan to change the name of the country by stealth.

None of the political parties are campaigning for it, and both Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins were lukewarm about a name change in their election-time leaders’ debate.

Referring to New Zealand as Aotearoa is coupled with a massive increase in the use of te reo phraseology, greetings, and references among the general population.

I asked Emanuel Kalafatelis of Research New Zealand to poll New Zealanders about a name change. His polling found that only 10 per cent wanted to change the name of the country (71 per cent opposed and 19 per cent neutral).

However, reminded that New Zealand is often referred to as Aotearoa (or Aotearoa New Zealand), support for a name change rose to 31 per cent (10 per cent for Aotearoa and 21 per cent for Aotearoa New Zealand).

So why the difference? Emanuel told me, ‘‘I suspect the jump has something to do with the fact that name change isn’t on most people’s current radar. However, it becomes front and centre when you raise the possibility of a change to Aotearoa (or Aotearoa New Zealand).’’

Which suggests that awell-organised campaign for a name change led by respected opinion leaders might well be successful.

I amnot opposed to a name change, but I believe it needs to come after an informed debate, and be approved in a referendum, not arrived at by some covert process. Our last constitutional discussion – the flag debate of 2015-16 – was a disaster, much of that due to the incompetent and clumsy Flag Referendum Panel.

I liked the large silver fern on a black background favoured by the late Lloyd Morrison, the millionaire businessman who kicked off the whole flag-change debate.

However, the silver fern option the panel put up in the first referendum was so badly rendered and so different from the Morrison version that it came fourth out the five options available and was eliminated from the second referendum.

The other guilty partywas Labour, which so muddied the waters around the referendum that it became more a vote about the Key government than a genuine choice about the flag. An opportunity sadly lost.

Another change I have long favoured is for New Zealand to become a republic within the British Commonwealth with a Kiwi as our head of state.

Sir Bernard Fergusson (1962-67) was our last British-born governor-general. All 11 governorsgeneral since then have been New Zealanders (although Sir David Beattie was born in Australia).

It would be a simple change. In future, Dame Patsy Reddy and her successors would not be called governor-general but something else. Suggestions welcome, but perhaps not president please.

The death of the current Queen might occasion a change, but I doubt it. The Queen and the British government secured the agreement of all Commonwealth countries to having Prince Charles as her successor as head of the Commonwealth at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2018.

Our prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, supinely went alongwith this. It would have been a great time for her to have said, ‘‘OK, we agree about Charles being head of the Commonwealth, but, by the way, my government is looking to have our own head of state.’’

Only 16 of the 54 Commonwealth countries have the English monarch as their head of state.

New Zealanders in their tens of thousands would have applauded her courage, leadership, and principles. An opportunity lost for Ardern’s government to be genuinely transformational, but it is not that.

Iwas curious whether anything was happening officially or unofficially about a name change. In an OIA I asked the Ministry of Justice if it had given any advice to ministers, conducted any polls or discussion groups, or had conversations with other government agencies about changing the name of New Zealand to something else.

The ministry replied, ‘‘to date, no work has been undertaken by the Ministry of Justice on changing the name of the country from New Zealand to Aotearoa or to any other name. There have been no discussions with other agencies or external parties on changing the name of the country’’.

I’d back a package of reforms: change the name of our country, adopt a new flag, and secure our own head of state. That’d be worth fighting for.

Where would we find a government with the political courage to do that?