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  New Zealander vs Kiwi Below is a copy of my challenge to Prime Minister Luxon. With regard to his excessive use of the term Kiwis when referring to New Zealanders in his recent State of the Nation speech. In the speech there were ten instances of the word Kiwis. Scattered through the speech there were five instances of the preferred and proper term New Zealanders. My point is that in any formal setting such as his speech Mr Luxon ought to show respect to all New Zealanders at all times by not using slang terms and colloquialisms. _____________________________________________________________________________ State of the Nation Subject Matter – Adjectivals and Demonyms. The basic issue is actually the use, abuse and misuse of the terms “Kiwi” and “Kiwis”. Later on allied to that issue of course is use of the word Aotearoa. Referring to the Prime Minister’s “State of the Nation” speech delivered on 19 th January. There are ten instances of “Kiwis” and two of “Kiwi”. In ...
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  Parsing Aotearoa From my Maori dictionary - Ao :: Cloud Tea :: White Roa :: Long Aotearoa is a compound word. In strict Maori grammar the adjective follows the noun. Here there are two adjectives following Cloud, which I suppose satisfies the rule, in manufacturing the word AoTeaRoa. Should the English language name of New Zealand now be changed to CloudWhiteLong or CloudLongWhite? Or would the language bigots and trolls be satisfied with LongWhiteCloud? Where LongWhiteCloud has a distinct North American Indian sound to it. No disrespect to North American Indians. Next time you order a coffee ask for a CloudWhiteLong. Your coffee man might not know what you are on about. Should Aotea Square in Auckland be known as CloudWhiteSquare? Or is it SquareWhiteCloud? Meet me at CloudWhiteSquare. Where is that? Recall the flag debate? A lot of reputations were damaged in John Key’s personal image and vanity project. Did the bigots and trolls then say “If we can’t change t...
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  Luxon Waitangi Day + Hosking Interview A lot has been made of the Hosking and Luxon interview. Headlined as a “Train Wreck”. True it was something of a revealing spectacle. I don’t know how many long form interviews he has given in recent times. Maybe not many as his weaknesses should have been revealed before today. Three weeks ago he gave a speech to the Ngai Tahu gathering on Waitangi Day. I tracked down a copy of the speech and was appalled at the grovelling salesman type language used. It turned out to be collection of overblown clichés and slogans. Obviously the speech writer knew inside out the type of language preferred by Luxon. This prompted me to write to Luxon, to get a point across that he needs to come down to earth. Maybe he needs a new speech writer. I listed the clichés for him. Here is what I sent in the email. Copied to Winston Peters, David Seymour and Shane Jones. No responses yet, apart from the standard Thank you for contacting etc…blah blah blah. ...
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Petone, New Update + Place Names

  Petone, New Update + Place Names The name Petone remains, as it should, and is probably safe from hereon in. The Minister of Land Information made the decision after having the issue referred to his office by the Geographic Board. At a guess the Board may have thought changing the name of a well-known area was beyond its remit and if there was to be any flak then the Minister would be the backstop to absorb it. So far there has not been any flak to remark on. A batch of naming decisions has been detailed in the Geographic Board’s latest press release. No detail on which are decisions of the Geographic Board or which are the Minister’s decisions. Many of the decisions should never have become issues in the first place. Along with Petone the name, Takanini also remains unchanged. The original proposal was to rename the area as Takaanini. The name was given for a nineteenth century Maori chief. A difference of one vowel “a” was to be inserted for the name correction. To what p...
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  Petone update The following is a submission I have made to the New Zealand Geographic Board regarding the Petone name change proposal _______________________________________________________________________ For: Secretary, New Zealand Geographic Board Petone/Pito One Name Change Submission General This submission will object to the proposal to rename Petone as Pito One. This submission will argue a case for the retention of the place name Petone. Points to be made will cover mainly language, history and social considerations. Written historical records indicate that there have been numerous variations in spelling of the name Petone. Generations of social and economic history have reinforced the Petone name allowing the name to establish its own character and status. The name is firmly embedded in the Wellington district psyche with Petone having been the first European settlement. The name is, in all cultures, regarded as part of the essence of the Hutt Valley. ...
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  Petone. Pitone. Pitune. Pito-one. Pitoone. I picked up recently on the Hutt City Council’s current interest in correcting the spelling of its suburb Petone. I sent a politely worded letter to the council a few days ago - see below. No response or acknowledgement as yet. Following on from that The Post (formerly The Dominion Post) published my letter (Friday 1 Dec) which duplicated much of what is below – apart from a pointed criticism of the council, and a final political point paragraph. I was trying to land within the Letters word limit. Too many of our New Zealand councils are going down too many rabbit holes or falling into the trivia swamp. The council sees the naming exercise as a local Maori Trust’s initiative rather than the council’s - that is the Trusts submitting to the Geographic Board regarding a name change. The Hutt City Council website notice states in its support of the name change: “This is also in line with our Naming Policy, and we are required to suppor...
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  Israel/Hamas War Where to start in commenting on the Israel/Hamas war? A lifetime could be taken up in reading everything that has been written on the Israel question. A disclosure: We don’t do anti-Semitism in our house. On my wife’s family tree there is, a couple of generations back, a very strong Polish-Jewish connection. We don’t forget those connections. For how much longer must Israel live with the threat of Hamas, Hezbollah and radical Islam? By radical Islam I mean Iran. From what I have read here and there Iran and its radical supporters will not rest until Israel is done away with, or put it another way, until a second Holocaust is complete. This time around Jewish people (i.e. Israel) have the means of defending themselves supported by an uncompromising ally in the form of the United States. Americans have long memories – see paragraph further on. A few comments about New Zealand’s official position on the conflict. The best words I have are that New Zealand’s ...
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  Post Election Thoughts My vote went to NZ First in the expectation National would require NZ First’s support. My take is now that National will probably, even need to, take NZ First into the tent in order to consolidate a majority. Could we then look forward to an ongoing media feeding frenzy focussed totally on NZ First? A brake of some kind is needed on National and ACT’s more extreme policy proposals – more so on ACT. Many of National’s 100 days targets could run counter to some of ACT’s or NZ First’s proposals. National’s targets are obviously designed to fund its tax cuts. For example extending the retirement/superannuation age to 67 would on a very, very rough reckoning “save” $2.5 Billion per annum in today’s dollars. What to make of a National/ACT/NZ First coalition? The worst troublemaker will likely be ACT who will put a lot of effort into interfering with NZ First. To the matter of Maori culture. In posts below here, and on other blog sites comments, I have exp...
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  More Election Thoughts – Jack Tame in particular Some headlines described the Jack Tame/Winston Peters interview as a train wreck – suggesting it was a train wreck for Winston Peters. I disagree. From my perspective it was a train wreck for Tame. His interviews are time and again riddled with gotcha questions and constant interruptions. Tame pursues the age old interviewer’s trick of not asking a question without knowing the answer in advance - then accusing the interviewee of being ignorant or ill-prepared. All in order to make Tame look good. Tame’s goal was to go all out in goading Peters to react badly. Certainly Peters is well known for his combative style and he can be relied on to provide a tetchy reply if provoked. The interview was basically a hit job and ambush of Peters, and Peters described it as such in a later news item. During the interview Peters accused Tame of conducting a vindictive interview. Peters might have been caught out somewhat in accusing Tame of b...
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  Election Thoughts This is the week before voting opens. I decided quite a while back that my vote would not go to Labour. As I don’t have many votes left in the tank the vote has in a sense become more valuable. I had said to myself many times over the years that it would be a cold day in hell before I voted National. Well the cold day is almost here and the metaphorical temperature is falling. The choices are limited and many of us are not far out from having to front up with a decision. My thoughts have been moving more in the direction of NZ First. National will almost certainly not reach the level required to govern alone and must take one or more partners. National and ACT have some unpalatable policies and may be harking back to the slash and burn policies of the early nineties along with doses of beneficiary and super annuitant bashing. Here we go again. National? It has always been the party of hidden agendas and has like most governments often relied on voter apath...
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  Wrapping Up the Posie Parker case, We hope I’m a regular watcher of Sky News Australia. Not that I watch umpteen hours a day. There is a Sunday morning panel show, named Outsiders, three presenters. Their title is a backhanded compliment to the opposition ABC Australia programme named Insiders. Outsiders covered the issue from both Australian and New Zealand perspectives. They were as appalled as could be over the Auckland nonsense. There was a point raised which some of us might not have fully considered. It was that some sections of the Australian lesbian community at least did not wish to be associated in any way with the trans-activists. Just in passing, I came across a Daily Mail UK article about an employment dispute involving an arts officer who was hounded out of her job after advocating for both freedom of speech and for the rights of an LGB group. Rather a complicated story. The LGB group in the UK does not want to associate with trans-activists. The LGB group was...
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  Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull – Auck rally Update In the post previous to this I addressed some remarks to Michael Wood (Minister of Immigration). One of those points was that the language in his press statement would likely encourage more of the type of action seen in Melbourne. That proved to be the case and the Auckland action was worse than ever anticipated. It is out there now for all the world to witness. The very worst of the radical trans-gays was on display as the ugly side of New Zealand, encouraged by many of our politicians. Does New Zealand want to be defined by a group, or groups, which have a serious intellect problem? The public discourse, to use a technical title, is no longer a discourse but a slime covered playground for a rabble of thugs and sex-crazed buffoons. Get that part of the name calling out of the way first. Some of our politicians and others have not covered themselves in glory. In terms of glory though some are positively drooling over the outcome ...
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