from the NZ Centre for Political Research
New road signs coming to your location soon.
He Tohu Huarahi Māori bilingual traffic signs consultation
Waka Kotahi is seeking feedback on a package of bilingual traffic signs in the draft Land Transport Rule: Traffic Control Devices (Bilingual Signs) Amendment 2023. Feedback closes at 5pm, Friday 30 June 2023.
And from the NZ Herald:-
Māori place names are being added to new road signs in Hastings.
Hastings District Council is replacing more than 20 blue directional road signs which were faded and hard to read, and taking the opportunity to add the Māori names.
For example, a sign to Havelock North will also read Karanema — the original Māori name for the area.
Ngāti Kahungunu chair Bayden Barber said the addition of te reo Māori was important for the iwi’s identity and tikanga.
“They talk about place and our connections to that place, and we are happy seeing that being recognised in this way.”
The big problem with this is that the small minority language (spoken by about 1% of the population) comes first — it should come second. The KCDC has also started doing this with its agendas. When it comes to adding or changing placenames, at least Kapiti people won’t have to face it as all the District’s place names are Maori and always have been. If the Maori Party gets its way, however, all the District’s street names that are English (about half of them) might have to be given Maori ones. That should be fun.
New Zealand needs National or Act to pledge that it will replace all signage in maori with English.
While we are at it this woke council could do something useful and also pledge.
THank you for making us aware. I send it to 3 people,they send it to 3 people and so on. Wonder if the honestly will print the statistics.
Maori never built the cities,roads, streets or infrastructure, they have no moral or other right to demand that names are changed. They changed names to reflect different actions, there is plenty of reasons to change most, if not all maori names to English
If they intend changing signs like this ( and they shouldn’t ), then the signs in high speed areas like the open road and motorways are going to see more confused drivers and possibly more accidents because a driver will look up to read the sign and immediately see nonsensical gibberish above the English
Words. Put English at the top for the 99% who speak and read it.
Karanema is not the ‘original Maori name for the area’. It comes from a reserve set aside in 1853 as part of a sale by Karanama Te Nahu, but that ‘paper’ name was dropped in 1858 and the land was sold to become Havelock North. The name ‘Karanama’ is derived from the English name ‘Cranmer’. Karanama does not appear in the official New Zealand Gazetteer maintained by Land Information NZ. It has no official status.
Thanks, so basically this sign points to a fictional place that doesn’t exist. How woke.