Maori language ‘tests’ to start in August

Press, 30 July 1986, Page 50

Maori language ‘tests’ to start in August

PA Wellington Maori language campaigners can expect a generally sensitive reaction from public servants when they test their language rights next month, according to the director of the social services branch of the State Services Commission, Mr Mike Fitzgerald. He was commenting on the plan by the Maori Language Board — Nga

Kaiwhakapumau I Te Reo — to conduct a programme of testing the rights of Maori people to speak their language in preparation for High Court cases over the next 18 months. Officially starting on August 10, campaign supporters will write official letters, forms, cheques, applications and tax returns in Maori. The testing programme

will continue to March 31 next year, three months after the proposed effect date of the Maori Language Bill. The organisers said,

however, they had decided that as the successful claimants to the Waitangi Tribunal on equal language rights to English speakers, they will regard Maori as an equal offical language in perpetuity. They said they have "an inalienable right to speak our own language.” The tribunal had reaffirmed it as essential to their well-being as well as to the survival of the language. They have also emphasised people should not use the exercise to “put down” English speakers they deal with. “They must be treated with the dignity we expect ourselves. Our real difficulty is the legislative neglect of our language, and its lack of equality with English, under the current act and the proposed Maori Language Bill.”

The campaign will be carried to a wide range of organisations, including Government departments and head offices of public bodies, all large Post Offices, local authorities and hospitals, courts, schools and educational institutions, Wellington railway station bookings officers, Air New Zealand counters, the Bank of New Zealand and newspapers. The organisers say it is not inconceivable some public bodies will want to shift Maori-speaking staff to front-line telephone or counter duties from August 10. “Advanced skills in the other official language are the equivalent of a degree, and you should not agree to use them without a significant grading improvement” Mr Fitzgerald said he couldinot give a “neat, allembracing answer” to the

question of how the initiative would be dealt with and what initiatives the commission might take. Mr Fitzgerald said contemporary practices varied within the three dozen Government departments and responses were likely to be just as varied.

“There is a good deal of sensitivity towards the issue,” he said. However, while initiatives had been taken to equip staff with skills “the number of people who speak Maori spontaneously are not in the majority.” Mr Fitzgerald said while sensitivity and skills within the public service were growing, the focus had to be on the Waitangi Tribunal report. Mr Fitzgerald said there may well be some problems on August 10 when people could be confronted by Maori speakers. He said there was explicit encouragement for the Public Service to be multi-cultural but one just -

cannot just switch on several thousand people who cannot speak Maori.”

If a Maori-speaker approached him in his office, he would be friendly, without antipathy, and sensitive — but could not reply in Maori as he did not speak the language.