Te Pāti Māori, Greens outraged at 'marginalising' passport changes
RNZ / Mark Papalii
Te Pāti Māori says the government's changes to passports are an attempt to whitewash the national identity.
The government confirmed on Friday
New Zealand's passport is being redesigned
to place the English words above the te reo Māori text. The new look won't start being rolled out until the end of 2027.
Since 2021, passports have had "Uruwhenua Aotearoa" printed in silver directly above New Zealand Passport.
Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden said the positioning of text on passports will change to reflect the government's commitment to using English first.
She said the redesign - which would be unveiled later this year - was being done as part of a scheduled security upgrade, ensuring no additional cost to passport-holders.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the change diminishes the visibility of tangata whenua.
"Our passport is not just a travel document, it's a statement of who we are as a nation. So, the stripping down of te reo Māori, or marginalising our indigenous identity, reflects this government's sad obsession with erasing Te Tiriti o Waitangi and dragging us back to a monocultural past," she said.
Ngarewa-Packer said the move undermined Aotearoa's reputation as a leading nation in recognising indigenous rights.
"Restoring our reo took a long time. I mean imagine doing this in Ireland, imagine doing this to the Welsh. This was hard fought for. It's not re-ordering of words, the reformatting is deliberately done to undermine the mana [and] to sideline us tangata whenua."
Benjamin Doyle
Photo:
RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Green Party MP Benjamin Doyle said the move is not what New Zealanders need from the government.
"We are seeing day by day, the rights and dignities of minority communities being stripped away while they leave the majority of New Zealanders suffering under the government's current decisions," Doyle said.
"This is not a positive vision for Aotearoa, this is not a positive step towards unifying kotahitanga and it's not benefiting anyone. Really, its just dog-whistling politics. It's the tail wagging the dog."
The ACT Party celebrated van Velden's move on social media, saying the change would "restore English before te reo Māori - without costing taxpayers".
The change comes as part of a deliberate push by the coalition to give English primacy over te reo Māori in official communications.
New Zealand First's coalition agreement with National stipulates that public service departments have their primary name in English and be required to communicate "primarily in English" except for entities specifically related to Māori.
It also includes an as-yet-unfulfilled commitment to make English an official language of New Zealand.
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