English Language Bill

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wanted to ask a question on this particular part of the bill, because this is actually an area that I think could’ve been improved through the select committee process. The improvement that might’ve actually added something to the current status—which we’ve already stated is that English is an official language—is if we had New Zealand English in the bill. That was suggested by a number of submitters, and it was something that I think would’ve added something to this bill, because we do have a distinct dialect here. We do speak in a way that is unique—

Hon Member: Yeah, nah!

CAMILLA BELICH: —to this country—exactly. There are so many aspects of New Zealand English which are unique, and although, as I’ve said, we don’t support the idea of bringing this bill to the House, having New Zealand English in there would’ve perhaps celebrated our Kiwi culture a bit more than just having English. It would’ve acknowledged that we have a history, that we have—I hope—moved on from being a colony into being an independent country with our own language.

We did ask about this at select committee. The advice we received, which is included in our published report, was that it would be quite a big process to go through and actually put New Zealand English as an official language. I was disappointed in that, because I think—first of all, I think this bill is a waste of time because—

Steve Abel: You should still vote against it, Labour! You can do it!

CAMILLA BELICH: —English is already an official language. Well, yeah, we could vote against it, but that would provide more legal uncertainty than the current situation. It’s not a desirable position to be in at all. If the Government and if the Minister truly wanted to go through a good-faith process and they’re thinking that there’s actual value in it, why not look at actually putting some resource behind it and thinking about whether we could make New Zealand English the official language. That is my point, Steve Abel. It was disappointing that the officials were not willing to go through that process, presumably as directed by the Minister. I don’t see why they couldn’t have done that. They said that it might create risk. I don’t see what that risk is.

As we already discussed, English is an official language. Additionally, we speak New Zealand English. These are fundamental truths of our life, and I just think codifying it accurately would be a little bit better than codifying it inaccurately. I was disappointed about that. I think it’s relevant to clause 5. It would be good to have a response from the Minister on that. It’s kind of a missed opportunity to celebrate what is unique about our country. Unfortunately, the debate hasn’t been that way. I think it’s a genuine issue that could have brought a genuine benefit to what is otherwise kind of a quite meaningless bill.

Committee of the whole House

I thank the member for the question, because that was a discussion point that I know came up a lot. The advice, really, was more in terms of—if you use New Zealand English as the title, it did pose substantive risk because, throughout our statutes, English is referenced hundreds of times, and that’s including in international law. We would create a disconnect between New Zealand English and English, creating some legal uncertainty in that space.

It’s also that there would be difficulty in quantifying or sufficiently defining what New Zealand English is without kind of hampering the natural evolution of the language over time. It was really to do with not creating inconsistency within existing legislation that uses the term “English” repeatedly, and the ability to allow the language to continue to evolve.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair, and I do thank the Minister for her response. Just from my colleague Camilla Belich’s contribution, I think it’s important to note that the whole point here is that we wanted to have some sort of national pride when it comes to the use of specifically New Zealand English, not any English, but also noting that when we’re looking at NZSL—New Zealand Sign Language—it’s not American Sign Language and it’s not British Sign Language. It’s specifically New Zealand Sign Language, and we have no issue specifying it as New Zealand Sign Language in that particular instance.

I also do think, when we’re looking more broadly, what we then don’t want to see is, for example, to have—I do want to acknowledge the Minister’s response in terms of the natural evolution of language. I think that is incredibly important, but I think, if we really want to preserve a sense of national identity, we also must not go down the Australian track where Australia is being more and more influenced by American spelling as opposed to going with the British spelling, noting that when we’re looking at the specificity of American versus British spelling, the American spelling has evolved on the basis of their printing press, as a way of reducing their characters used in the printing press, which is why you see the “u” being omitted from “colour”, and why you see the “me” being dropped off “programme”. We are seeing some of those adaptations already in Aotearoa New Zealand, and I think it’s important that, if we really want to do that, we want to retain some of those national characteristics, not only in terms of the words that we use but also in terms of the spelling of those words, noting that the etymological nature of our language and of words is important.

I do want to ask, looking more broadly, in that case, what is “English”? Because English itself is assumed; it’s not defined. English itself borrows other languages and grammar from other languages. In fact, most of the language we’re using, most of the words we’re using in English, has no roots in English in the Anglo-Saxon sense. Many of our words, if you’re looking at British legislation, and particularly if you’re looking at English legislation, still use Normandy French because of the Norman Conquest. A lot of the words that we do see nowadays in English—anything ending with “-tion”—originated with a French root, which originated, ultimately, with some of the Romantic linguistic roots that we are seeing traditionally in Latin.

At the same time, we’re also seeing that English as a language—particularly when it comes to the use of medical terminologies and certain academic terminologies—heavily borrows from Greek. Does that mean that Latin, in some ways, could also be considered an official language, because so much of English is rooted from Latin? Does that also mean from Greek as well? Also, to give the examples I mentioned previously in terms of other languages as well that English would borrow from—I gave the example of the terminology “gung-ho” as a word that we tend to use, but it has Chinese roots in its nature. Does that mean that, technically, it’s not English and should not be used as part of our official language?

Another excellent example—[Interruption] The question is, to the Minister, what is English? I want to provide some context around that.

Andy Foster: Thank God we’re a party of common sense, unlike the Greens.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Another, I think, really good example of that—and I think this would be common sense. Honestly, if any of you are a linguistics nerd like I am, this is the kind of thing that you do find exciting and interesting, and is generally, for many academics in this field, very much common sense—particularly when we’re looking at other methodological approaches like linguistic relativity.

I think another good example in this case of what we consider English is even the word “ketchup”. The word “ketchup” originated from Hokkien—originated from the early Chinese migrants going to the US—and then was adopted later on by Heinz, which is why you have, originally, tomato ketchup, because ketchup in itself simply means “sauce”. Before you have tomato ketchup, you have mushroom ketchup—you have all sorts of different ketchup—but now it has been adopted as part of the English language and incorporated into this. I do want to check with the Minister, along with the question I asked following on from my colleague Camilla Belich, what then is English? How do we define English?

Lastly, the Minister mentioned updating legislation. We have seen numerous pieces of legislation going through this House that can update hundreds of pieces of legislation. It can be done fast to add New Zealand English into this word.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 5 be agreed to.

Ayes 101

New Zealand National 48; New Zealand Labour 34; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 20

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

Crimes Amendment Bill

English Language Bill

Report of Committee of the whole House

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Crimes Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. The committee has also considered the English Language Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement