A kiwi is a bird.
I am not going to get up and say
"Kia ora everybody, I'm a bird."
Because I'm not a bird.
You know, if you went to Australia
would you be expecting them
to get up and call themselves a kangaroo?
You know, "Hi, I'm a kangaroo."
It just doesn't make sense.
The word Kiwi has been
a national identifier
in Aotearoa New Zealand
since the early 1900s.
'Kura takahi puni'
is the battalion's
motto, meaning 'we are ready'
and these Kiwis certainly are.
But in recent decades,
some Māori have rejected the term
or the need for a national identifier
at all.
Kiwi as an identifier is
mostly used by non-Māori,
from my experience.
We're starting to see
an increasing number of
rangatahi Māori more comfortable
in their cultural identity to use Māori
as an identifier or their own iwi.
I seldom get up and say "I'm a Kiwi"
or "I'm a New Zealander".
I get up and I say "I'm from Rangitāne
I'm from Ngāti Kahungunu.
I'm Māori" and it starts and ends there.
Because, at least
from the Māori experience,
conglomeration has always led
to assimilation and erosion of Māori
identity, erosion of Māori
culture and Māori distinctness.
So we're talking about a word
which exists
in the Māori language first,
which is brought into New Zealand English
and which is reconfigured
to refer to a certain set of people.
Because Kiwi doesn't
just equate to New Zealander.
It equates to a certain type
of New Zealander.
It's the number eight wire,
eats pavlova,
has a black singlet,
walks around in Red Bands.
That's Kiwi identity.
And it's developed all this
time without... without Māori.
You'd be hard pressed
finding any New Zealander
who doesn't call themselves a Kiwi.
But how did this little bird
become a national symbol?
Well, you may not like to hear it,
but apparently it was because
of an Australian.
Early in the 20th century,
Aussie William Ramsey was starting a shoe
polish business
and needed a name for his product.
In 1917
he got a huge order from the British army
and it soon became a household brand.
So when the Anzacs went to war,
a link to the Kiwi was soon
made and the name stuck.
While we think of Kiwi as referring
to all people in Aotearoa,
it has often been weaponised
against Māori.
If we go back to the Seabed and Foreshore
debates in 2004-2005,
we had Don Brash's Orewa speech
which specifically targeted
Māori as the outgroup.
So we should not use the Treaty
as a basis for creating greater civil,
political or democratic rights for Māori
than for any other New Zealander.
So we had billboards everywhere
across New Zealand saying Kiwi versus
Iwi and viewing the rights of tangata
whenua as being in opposition
to what was being referred to as Kiwi.
It's all part of the Kiwiana exhibition
at the Auckland Museum.
Jeez you know,
it really rings a bell in your heart.
For me, kiwiana is what
non-Māori have chosen, the bits
they like of Māori culture.
So, for instance, the Haka,
the heitiki, koru, or kapa haka.
And they've taken that
and they've put it together with
what New Zealanders
traditionally have - be it
rugby, fish and chips,
dinner on the beach, rugby.
And said, "It is now ours.
Everything that is in here
belongs to us."
And I think Kiwi
is just a continuation
of the whole kiwiana idea.
Something we need to ask ourselves
is what do we think Ti Tiriti envisioned?
That we were all
on the 6th of February 1840,
we all decided that
we would all become one
country forevermore?
I don't know.
I don't think so.
And we need to sort out
all of those foundational things
which will determine,
you know, the place of tangata whenua,
the place
of tangata tiriti - of non-Māori.
And then naturally once
we've decided as a country
what our foundations are,
then we can move on to deciding
how we want to name ourselves.
No, no, really.
When you look at all this stuff,
you know, it makes you,
it makes you, sort of, it
makes you proud to be a Kiwi, doesn't it?
Yeah, I guess it could.