Fluency for the Few, Cost for the Many
Why You’re Paying for a Language Almost No One Uses - or Understands
“We’re all forced to echo small words that make big noise and mean nothing to most of us.”
Indeed. Small words, big noise. That, in essence, is what te reo Māori has become in modern New Zealand: a disproportionately celebrated state hobby enforced by bureaucrats, virtue-signallers, and treaty-industrialists under the pretext of national identity. Te reo is not our national language. It is not widely spoken, understood, or requested. It is being rammed down our collective throat by Wellington’s bureaucratic caste and the Māori elite, a partnership more obsessed with symbolism than with service.
Take, for instance, the Ministry of Education's latest ideological indulgence: over $100 million pledged to force-feed te reo into 51,000 teachers across the country. Why? For a language that fewer than 5% of New Zealanders can converse in fluently. Is this education or ethno-linguistic cosplay? Our children lag in international benchmarks, yet the curriculum is now drenched in state-mandated linguistics that serve no practical purpose. It’s not about learning anymore. It’s about ticking cultural boxes.
Then there is the signage farce. Waka Kotahi’s bilingual road signs, “Tūnga Pahi” instead of "Bus Stop", were described as 'inclusive'. Inclusive of whom, exactly? The 92% who speak English or the 8% who speak te reo? When Winston Peters suggested English-first signage for clarity and utility, he was lambasted by the same Twitterati who think TikTok is a form of scholarship. Labour MPs, as expected, compared it to Canada - ignoring the obvious fact that in Canada, both English and French are spoken by millions. Here, barely five percent can hold a conversation in te reo.
In the public service, formerly neutral institutions have mutated into cultural PR departments. "Te Whatu Ora" was only recently walked back to "Health New Zealand" after widespread confusion demonstrated the limits of performative biculturalism. Ministers now indulge in verbal cosplay, utterly unintelligible to the populace, but a fine means of virtue-hoarding within Wellington’s bureaucratic aristocracy.
And the price? A staggering $142 million per annum devoted to te reo broadcasting, signage, education, and promotional resources. This is not a revival; it’s a racket. A multi-million-dollar linguistic Ponzi scheme for a small cabal of te reo consultants, commissioners, and culture-merchants whose true mastery lies in milking the taxpayer.
This bureaucratic bacchanalia has seeped into courtrooms too, where Tikanga, undefined, elastic, and often irreconcilable with common law, is being granted quasi-legal standing. The justice system, once blind, now squints through a bicultural lens. What next? Sentencing circles in the style of tribal arbitration? Shall we litigate via karakia?
When Don Brash warned of this trajectory, he was dismissed as passé. He was not. He was prescient. A nation cannot function with two legal systems, two languages, and two realities.
This is the crux of the constitutional heresy: the ludicrous notion that because te reo is "official," it must be omnipresent. Parliament may pass statutes, but no Act can animate a dead tongue. Statutory bilingualism in the absence of societal demand is not democracy; it is doctrinal imposition.
Let us not confuse the legal with the lived. Yes, te reo is "official." But in the real world, it is ornamental, a linguistic lapel pin wielded by bureaucrats to signal sophistication while the system beneath them atrophies. Hospitals in crisis, educational decline, public safety eroded, and yet, the Minister for Māori Development assures us the pronunciation of “Taupō” is our top priority.
No one seeks to erase te reo’s historical significance. But there’s a chasm between respect and reverence. What we face today is not cultural preservation, it is cultural hegemony dressed up as national pride. This is not a bicultural partnership. It is a monologue with compulsory subtitles.
Policy prescription: strip out the pork. Defund all non-essential te reo initiatives. Let the language rise or fall on merit, not on mandatory virtue quotas. Redirect the $100 million currently wasted on language tokenism into subjects that actually build national competence - maths, science, and literacy. Fields where fluency actually feeds the nation.
National identity is not found in vowel corrections. It is found in shared values, civic duty, and common purpose, not in Tikanga on Tuesday and Treaty workshops on Thursday. The notion that we can glue the country together with a few reo soundbites and bilingual signage is as delusional as it is expensive.
The state should serve the people, not a priesthood of te reo puritans whose mana is funded by the middle class. Let te reo live if it can. Let it fade if it must. But for God’s sake, stop treating it like gospel.
Further Reading:
NZ Government Budget 2024 – Māori Language and Broadcasting Allocations
Stats NZ: Census Data on Te Reo Fluency (2023)
Waka Kotahi: Tohu Huarahi Māori Bilingual Signage Consultation
Māori Language Act 2016
Ministry of Education: Curriculum Revitalisation Projects