Graham Adams says RNZ’s ‘black-armband’ te reo policy follows the He Puapua playbook

Summarised by Centrist

Columnist Graham Adams argues RNZ has “aggressively amplified” its charter obligation to reflect Māori language and culture, adopting an approach that closely resembles the goals set out in He Puapua’s Vision 2040.

Adams says RNZ is so committed to normalising te reo and promoting Māori perspectives that it can appear to “double as a propaganda arm for Māori nationalism”, with its underlying beliefs “reliably presented as articles of faith”.

He argues the broadcaster is “wilfully blind” to the effect its “heavy-handed insertion of Māori words” and “extravagant promotion of Māori wonderfulness” have had on its audience. RNZ’s own performance statement puts public trust in the broadcaster at 56%.

As an example of what he calls “extravagant boosterism”, Adams points to RNZ’s enthusiastic coverage of “kaitiakitanga” being named the world’s most beautiful word by the online language company Babbel.

Adams contrasts that promotion with 2023 Census figures showing roughly 4% of New Zealanders reported being able to hold a conversation in te reo Māori. He also cites historian Paul Moon’s warning that there is “a tendency to overreport fluency”.

According to Adams, overstating the success of language revitalisation risks creating “false hope” and disguising how rarely te reo is used conversationally. He argues RNZ’s boosterism may therefore be “doing more harm than good”.

Adams also takes aim at stories presenting te reo as a pathway to personal or cultural enlightenment. He describes RNZ’s strategy as promoting the language as “the key to unlocking the gates to the magical kingdom of te Ao Māori”, calling that approach “fraudulent” and “counter-productive”.

He says it depends on romanticising Māori history while overlooking slavery, cannibalism, the Musket Wars and the Moriori genocide.

“Māori history and culture is obviously a very important strand in New Zealand society,” Adams says, but the “bowdlerised and black-armband version” offered by RNZ ultimately damages the broadcaster’s credibility.

Read more at Brash and Michell

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