Key points:
- Minister Paul Goldsmith had te reo greetings removed from a Matariki invite to an Australian Minister
- PM Christopher Luxon said it paid to be “incredibly simple” when dealing with Australians.
- Australia’s Tony Burke said he learnt what Aotearoa meant from Split Enz in 1982.
An Australian Government Minister has clarified he’s known the word Aotearoa for more than 40 years – thanks to Kiwi musicians.
The word, and some te reo Māori greetings, were removed from a formal Matariki invitation to Minister Tony Burke earlier this year on instructions from New Zealand’s Arts Culture and Heritage Minister Paul Goldsmith.
Goldsmith said this week that he didn’t think an Australian would understand what Aotearoa was, and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon yesterday said “it always pays to be incredibly simple and clear – and use English” when dealing with Australians.
But Burke, Australia’s Minister for Arts as well as Multicultural Affairs, said today: “I learnt the word in 1982 thanks to Split Enz including a reference in the lyrics to Six Months in a Leaky Boat.”
The song was a hit on both sides of the Tasman, and contains the lyrics “Aotearoa, rugged individual, glisten like a pearl at the bottom of the world”.
Australian media picked up on Luxon’s comment, with 7News Australia reporting it as “a dig at the intelligence of Australians”. The report said Burke had “found the comment funny”.
The Guardian, SkyNews Australia and the Australian Associated Press – which syndicates to many publications – also reported on it, the latter saying it was a “whack” and a joke that “fell flat”.
However, a seasoned commentator closer to home called it the best quip on Australians by a New Zealand politician since Robert Muldoon famously said New Zealanders moving to Australia raised the IQ of both countries.
1News earlier this week revealed Goldsmith’s directive to officials to amend the draft letter template, removing Aotearoa and the salutations “tēnā koe” and “nāku noa nā”. Other te reo Māori words, such as Matariki, karakia and hautapu, remained in the invite, which became a template for other invitations.
Goldsmith said he did it because the invitation was to an Australian Minister and he “didn’t think he needed a lot of te reo in his invitation, because he’s an Australian”.
“I thought, let’s just keep it simple. There was quite a lot of te reo language in an invitation to an Australian Minister so I thought, no, look, let’s take it out.”
Asked if he thought an Australian wouldn’t understand what Aotearoa was, Goldsmith said: “Yeah.”
Defending the decision in Parliament yesterday, Luxon said: “What I’d also say to that member is the correspondence was being directed to an Australian Minister overseas … in my dealings with Australians it always pays to be incredibly simple and clear – and use English.”
Luxon lived for many years in Australia with his family and has previously said he loves the country.
