The Absolute Moron (AM) show over at NewsHub were running their daily “rark up the rednecks” segment, this time it was Te Pāti Māori's campaign to officially change New Zealand's name to Aotearoa.
They asked James Shaw what he reckoned. It wasn’t the policy of his party but NewsHub had found that if they wanted to get a certain segment of the population really worked up then associating an issue with the Greens was a sure-fire method.
James said well it’s not policy but yeah, I reckon that’d be a good idea.
"I think that it would be good to have a name that is indigenous to Aotearoa, to our country - to New Zealand," he told AM.
He added Aotearoa "should be proud of who we are and where we're located".
Horrified talkback listeners were further horrified and accused James of “having an agenda”, you know, a plan. Apparently these people are opposed to those with plans, this is possibly why they support Luxon, Willis, and Seymour, even though they sound like the sort of law firm whose Christmas party you’d read about in the news.
Winston Peters sprang into action, not actually Winston of course he seldom sprang these days other than to fetch a whiskey decanter, but the hate bot that was used to generate the messages on his social media accounts.
A TVNZ reporter was on the streets with a microphone, interviewing people for their outrage segment. “I don't care, as long as it's not another bloody Mowree word, sick of it!”
Over at the Labour office they were agreeing that no referendum should take place. “Look how the flag and cannabis referenda ended up partisan votes. That Key flag vote failed because it was all about him and half the country hated his guts, of course the awful options they offered didn’t bloody help”, argued Grant.
“Surely at least some National supporters didn’t buy Paula Bennett’s Reefer Madness rhetoric, if “Just Say No” wasn’t the party position they’d have voted to liberalise. There was a time when quite a few liberals supported National, they’d have welcomed the end to the insanity of using police resources on a local plant crop that causes less damage than beer. A crop quite a few enjoy themselves, or so I’ve been told”, he said with a wistful grin.
Chris Hipkins chipped in “Aotearoa is cool. New Zealand sounds out of date, ridiculous, like something from a centuries old naval chart. It’s hard to imagine anyone feeling an attachment to it other than it being what they grew up with”.
“The “my grandfather fought for New Zealand” crowd can calm down too. I’m not sure what Grandpa thought he was fighting for, but it wasn’t to defend a tired colonial flag, anthem, or country name”.
We all know it’s going to change, the current one was a half assed effort by Dutch explorers who weren’t much interested in the place, using a minor province’s name - Nieuw Zeeland. The English, who had quite a habit of naming things, didn’t even bother to change it. It doesn’t reflect a modern, multi-cultural country at the bottom of the Pacific.
Realistically it’s not going to change to something else is it? We’re not going to turn it over to a committee like the John Key Flag debacle, what would they come back with? HobbitLand?”
Jacinda spoke up “we want to minimise people being upset, change will be hard for some. If we just assume for the moment that one day the country will have a Te Reo name. We could spend 10 years getting there, have lots of heated discussion with no one listening or changing their minds. We could have a divisive referendum that would be used by politicians for their own purposes.
Or we could accept change will come and do it quickly, rip the band-aid off. From midday on New Years Eve the country shall be officially called Aotearoa. You can still say New Zealand if you want but not many will after a while - when was the last time you heard someone say Mount Egmont?”
Grant looked in shock, like the time she’d bought him a salad roll rather than a Mince n Cheese on budget day, “after the election I mean, end of next year”, she added. There was a sigh of relief all round.
Over at National HQ Nicola was being a bit of a downer for a change. “Kiwis don’t care about this they want us locking up ram raiders and dropping taxes not changing the name of the place. They hate names changing. First it was place names, now they’re worried whether they’d know which bathroom to go to if they went into a city.”
“It’s all about messaging”, said Christopher. “We can’t have people saying ‘why the bloody hell are they changing the name of the country to AB-istan instead of having a policy for Health?’ We need them saying ‘thank goodness for National coming up with a name showing All Kiwis Matter and not just giving it a Maori name like everything else’.”
Nicola was sceptical, “You sure you want to be closely associated with the rugby team, they don’t win as often as they used to. It’s not like when your hero John used to hang out in the changing room to celebrate with Richie McCaw while drinking the sponsors beer”.
“Ooh how about RichieLand?” he suggested, Nicola glared.
It was agreed that the lure of the All Blacks wasn’t as reliable as it once was. Some people even claimed not to care about rugby these days - wasn’t that treason? They decided to get the band back together and reassembled the John Key Flag Committee with the original members.
Just like the first time around the committee came up with options that would have been at home on the side of a Weet-Bix box - Newer Zealand or NZ Inc. They did include a younger “cooler” option this time, the Laser Kiwi entry - Nu Zild.
Paul Goldsmith said “why wouldn't we put out an RFP and just choose the highest bidder? We could be Muskland or Bezos Islands”.
Some of the options from the committee sounded as if they were left over from when they’d been designing the flag for John Key. The Pony Tail Islands, NewKey Land, Planet Key, OurKeyAroha or even Keylargo - “tax haven of the South Pacific”
Some just took the piss out of the new leader - South Hawaii or Te Puke? “C’mon let it go” he said, “you know we can’t have something that sounds Maori. Look, we need something to send the right signals to the market, like ForSaleLand or YourNameHere”.
He looked up to see what the noise was, Paul and Nikki were having a real argument. Goldie said “what about the brand overseas and how much it would cost to change the name? That’s one of the excuses we gave for not supporting Aotearoa”. Nicola hissed “I guess that’s why companies never change their names Paul - you know like Vodafone or Telecom?”
Chris looked downhearted, as if he’d just had to tell a customer at the drive-through that the soft serve machine was out of order.
He said “we all know Aotearoa wasn’t the only name used by Maori in pre-European times, especially for the South Island, but most people quite like it now, especially the ones that don’t vote for us. What if we have separate names since one group is making most of the fuss, and judging by the emails I receive some of them are filthier than a family reunion in Gore”.
“Why don’t we call the North Island Aotearoa and the South Island can be PakehaLand - everyone will be happy”.
Nicola stared at him and she counted the days.
Wow, you're an awesome writer, love how you express with calm truthful humour.
Gazette the name change and let's watch these fools self combust with rage.