Politicking on bilingual road signs misguided
Gena Geeson, who has been singing since she was a ‘‘wee girl’’, won the Gold Guitar trophy in June 1983, along with $1000, a guitar worth $1000, the opportunity of a 10day working tour of the South Island, and an audition with the Music World record company. Gena has been competing at the Gold Guitars since 1975, but although she has made it into the female finals before, this was her first win. ‘‘I just went blank when they called my name,’’ she said.
IT may seem unfair to criticise in successive columns statements by National Party leaders, but the temptation’s irresistible when they display so many examples of footinmouth disease (it seems to be as infectious for National’s present politicians as footandmouth is for clovenhoofed animals).
Last week it was prescription fees and the confused and irrational responses by party leader Christopher Luxon and deputy
Nicola Willis to their elimination. This week it’s hard to overlook National’s transport spokesman Simeon Brown’s response to the proposal of Waka Kotahi NZ Transport to include te reo Ma¯ori wording on motorway and expressway signs, destination signs, public and active transport signs, walking and cycling signs, and advisory and warning signs, on which it’s consulting.
Mr Brown, at a transport meeting in the Bay of Plenty on May 26, said that having signs include te reo as well as English would be confusing. ‘‘Signs need to be clear,’’ he said. ‘‘We all speak English, and they should be in English.’’ The same day he lodged a Written Question in Parliament to the Minister of Transport: ‘‘16144 (2023). Simeon Brown to the Minister of Transport (29 May 2023): What are the 94 sign proposals that the He Tohu Huarahi Ma¯ori bilingual traffic signs programme is currently consulting on, and how are each of these signs grouped?’’.
The information he ostensibly seeks through that question is available on Waka Kotahi’s website (as is research showing increased safety and other advantages of bilingual signs), so the motive for the Question must be to use Supplementary Questions, or debate, during the Adjournment Debate, about the reply, to make political points in the House of Representatives, perhaps in line with Mr Luxon’s comments some time ago opposing the use of bilingual names for government departments (but didn’t he encourage use of te Reo Ma¯ori, and try to copyright ‘‘Kia Ora’’, when running Air NZ?).
Like Mr Luxon and Ms Willis regarding prescription fees, Mr
Brown doesn’t seem interested in evidence. Is he really, as transport spokesman, unaware of the use of bilingual signs in Canada (French and English), Wales (Welsh and English), and Scotland (Gaelic and English), and trilingual signs in Singapore, or that Waka Kotahi reported in 2021 that ‘‘The use of bilingual traffic signage is common around the world and considered ‘‘standard’’ in the European Union. Culture, safety and commerce appear to be the primary impetuses behind bilingual signage.’’
Mr Brown also said ‘‘NZTA should be focusing primarily on fixing the potholes on our roads and they shouldn’t be distracted by changing signage up and down our country’’. He seems to have overlooked the fact that Waka Kotahi only intends to change signs as they require replacement due to damage or wear and tear. He should do his homework before pontificating, particularly on matters for which he’s his party’s official spokesman.
National MP Chris Bishop, and then Mr Luxon, have since said that National isn’t against bilingual signs on principle, but recycled Mr Brown’s baseless suggestion that changing signs is of higher priority to Waka Kotahi than road maintenance. But one National MP, Barbara Kuriger, was more realistic: ‘‘If it’s done progressively, and it’s not taking priority over potholes, I’m comfortable with it.’’
Another commentator has suggested that National’s many inconsistencies (including its NIMBYdriven Uturn on Nicola Willis’s bipartisan agreement with the Government over housing density) may be deliberate, hoping that uncommitted voters will remember something that resonates with them (like Don Brash’s ‘‘IwiKiwi’’ placard), and not hear, or tune out, the contradictions.
But is there another motive behind the dogwhistling to racists who object to use of Ma¯ori by public media and state bodies? Is National softening up the electorate for it agreeing, in any postelection negotiations regarding coalition with Act NZ, to accept that party’s ‘‘bottomline’’ of a referendum on legislating Te Tiriti o Waitangi, this nation’s founding document, into irrelevance?