MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Move to Māori names “madness”

Imagine you’d decided to leave the car at home and make the shift to public transport.

After all, if you live around the Pakuranga part of town, you’ve been the subject of construction fatigue for years and years, and you finally thought “I might give the Eastern Busway a go”.

Well, even though work started way back in 2018, the only part that’s complete so far is the leg called EB1 from Panmure to the Pakuranga Town Centre.

The other parts: EB2, 3, and 4 (along Ti Rakau Drive to Botany) are still a long way from completion.

But when they do open, you’ll have to be aware of the names of the new bus stations that are being used by Auckland Transport (AT) and will be signposted accordingly: Te Taha Wai, Koata, and Pōhatu.

Now go on, be honest: how many of you could take me to one of these bus stations if you were asked? Note that in the last census, just under one per cent of the people of Howick said they spoke te reo.

Now it turns out these three new bus stations are located in reasonably well-known parts of the Pakuranga landscape. They’re all along Ti Rākau Drive at Edgewater, Gossamer and Burswood.

If you said I’ll meet you at the Gossamer bus station, I’d be cool with that. But if you said meet me at Te Taha Wai bus stop, I wouldn’t have a clue.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to using Māori place names, especially when they’re well known and part of the everyday lexicon.

During my time as a Member of Parliament for Pakuranga, I had to fight the Electoral Commission on two separate occasions when it wanted to change the electorate’s name.

I’m proud of the name Pakuranga and did not want it changed under any circumstances.

And before you start calling me racist, can I just remind you that as Minister of Broadcasting, I set up 23 Māori language radio stations across New Zealand and created the Māori Broadcast Funding agency Te Māngai Paho.

For me, it’s just that when place names like Edgewater, Gossamer and Burswood have been here for decades, and it’s well-known roughly where they’re located, why are we forcing the public into having to learn new place names in a language that only one per cent say they can speak?

The same goes for the huge flyover that’s been built over the top of Reeves Road.

It was always referred to as the Reeves Road Flyover, but now AT insists we call it Ra Hihi.

And here’s a classic. Big signs have gone up around the ward that say Waka Kōpiko.

That supposedly directs travellers to the ferries. But I’ve asked two very fluent Māori speakers what Kōpiko means, and both say it means curved or bent.

This is just madness. If we have to have bilingual signs out here, then how about Mandarin, which is spoken by more than 35 per cent of the residents?

Maurice Williamson had a 30-year career as the National Party Member of Parliament for Pakuranga and is currently an Auckland City councillor. This post was sourced from Breaking Views and first published at Eastern Times