by Ross Muir

Maori have dug back into the past and found that Petone in the Hutt Valley was once known as Pito-one (Pito means:- at first; end; navel; One means:- beach; sand), so now they are calling for it to revert back to the original name.

The Hutt City Council led by Mayor Campbell Barry are backing it. (Petone was a separate borough until 1989 when it became part of Hutt City.)

Have these idiots even considered the expense (and confusion) this will entail for every business and all the households in the suburb – or even businesses with branches there?

Every business will have to throw out all their stationary – letterheads, business cards, etc. — and have it re-designed and reprinted. Websites will have to be changed (not cheap for a commercial firm), signwriting where applicable changed, practically everything in the Council buildings and offices amended to suit – the list goes on

Residents will need to notify every person they are in contact with to change their addresses and the considerable number that have their own business cards or return address stickers for their mail – reprint.

The Post Office will have to modify the automatic sorters for mail to accept two names for an extended period

Every organisation, club, group will have to make the change with the concomitant costs.

All this is to please a small number of stirrers. However, what really annoys me, and no doubt many who still have the ability to think, is the fact that they have a Council who are willing to cause upset and expense just to look so Woke without any thought at all for the people they are supposed to be representing. 

The same thing happened a few years back with the Rimutaka Range; it had to be respelled as Remutaka. At least that name rarely featured in addresses, the main impact it had was on the Rimutaka Incline rail trail. —Eds