The speaker of New Zealand’s parliament has told lawmakers that he will not consider further complaints about the use of the country’s Māori name, Aotearoa, in Parliament, after one made a bid to have it banned.

“Aotearoa is regularly used as a name of New Zealand,” Speaker Gerry Brownlee said in a ruling on Tuesday at Parliament in Wellington. “It appears on our passports and it appears on our currency.”

Ricardo Menéndez March, from the left-leaning Green Party, used the name Aotearoa during a question to a government minister. The composite word means “land of the long white cloud” in te reo Māori, the Māori language.

Winston Peters — who is deputy prime minister, foreign minister and leader of the populist party New Zealand First — objected in a point of order.

A flamboyant politician who is New Zealand’s longest-serving current lawmaker, Peters favors populist policies and has been decried before for remarks about Asian immigration to New Zealand. Peters, who is Māori, opposes initiatives intended to advance Māori people and language.

  • ReputedlyDeplorableEnglish
    3·
    6 hours ago

    It’s probably reduced brain function from COVID. I think that is affecting things more than people realize. Or everyone just got more greedy during that time.