When the National Party’s transport spokesperson, Simeon Brown, questioned the logic of bilingual traffic signs, he seemed to echo his leader Christopher Luxon’s earlier misgivings about the now prevalent use of te reo Māori in government departments.
Genuine concern or political signalling in an election year? After all, Luxon himself has expressed interest in learning te reo, and also encouraged its use when he was CEO of Air New Zealand. He even sought to trademark “Kia Ora” as the title of the airline’s in-flight magazine.
