March 15, 2024
Reo battle echoes on
Dame Naida Glavish says she’d like to meet Te Whatu Ora employer who sounded the alarm in a social media post about being ordered by a manager to stop using te reo Māori greetings in letters to patients.
Forty years ago the then-Post Office toll operator was threatened with the sack for greeting callers with a cheery kia ora – until then prime minister Rob Muldoon endorsed her stand.
Dame Naida, who has held bicultural advisory positions in the Auckland and Waitemata health boards, says it’s the manager who is in the wrong.
“This is 2024 is it not? It’s a salutation that is indigenous to this country. If there is anyone who wants to complain abut our reo then they’re in the wrong country – haere mai haere,” she says.