{"id":26881,"date":"2026-08-04T04:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T23:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26881"},"modified":"2026-08-04T04:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T23:48:19","slug":"new-zealand-parliament-makes-english-third-official-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26881","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand parliament makes English third official language"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdnph.upi.com\/ph\/st\/th\/1671785777160\/2026\/upi_com\/662d07c54f521f8dfd34e4bb0be5aed7\/v1.5\/New-Zealand-parliament-makes-English-third-official-language.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>New Zealand First, the party led by Foreign Minister Winston Peters (R), pushed for legislation to make English an official language of the country. Opponents of the move called it &#8220;unnecessary,&#8221; as 95% of the population speaks English. Photo by Aaron Favila\/EPA<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><span class=\"story_dl\">Aug. 3 (UPI) &#8212;<\/span> New Zealand&#8217;s parliament has passed legislation making English its third official language.<\/p>\n<p>English is already spoken by 95% of New Zealanders, while 4.3% speak M\u0101ori and .5% use sign language, <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2026\/08\/03\/asia\/new-zealand-official-language-english-intl-scli\" target=\"_blank\">government data shows<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand First party&#8217;s Casey Costello, a supporter of the bill that passed on Thursday, said its purpose was to &#8220;recognize in legislation what has long been assumed in New Zealand.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Namely, that English is an official language of our country,&#8221; Costello <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5Pra-0WNXVU\" target=\"_blank\">told members of parliament<\/a>. &#8220;Despite what has been claimed across this house, this bill is important and far from the claimed waste of time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The move has been derided by opponents as unnecessary given the ubiquity of the language in New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wondered if they might want to legislate for the changing of the seasons?&#8221; Labour MP Camilla Belich said, <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2026\/08\/03\/asia\/new-zealand-official-language-english-intl-scli\" target=\"_blank\">CNN<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>The M\u0101ori language fell into disuse over the years following the British colonization of the islands in 1840.<\/p>\n<p>Green party MP Tamatha Paul said that, unlike English, M\u0101ori had protected status &#8220;because it was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DbaJgZpNEoB\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\">beaten out of M\u0101ori systematically<\/a>.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had to march our asses to parliament demanding that the indigenous first language of this country be recognized and not beaten out of the mouths of its native speakers,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Victoria University of Wellington law professor Dean Knight called the legislation a &#8220;pointless exercise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Folks who got excited by this performative law-making will be disappointed to learn that, despite the dog-whistling and claims from its promoters within parliament, it does not mandate priority to the English language in government communications and elsewhere,&#8221; he told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/aug\/03\/new-zealand-english-an-official-language-bill\" target=\"_blank\">Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Like before, Aotearoa New Zealand will continue to have three official languages.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand First, the party led by Foreign Minister Winston Peters (R), pushed for legislation to make English an official language of the country. Opponents of the move called it &#8220;unnecessary,&#8221; as 95% of the population speaks English. Photo by Aaron Favila\/EPA Aug. 3 (UPI) &#8212; New Zealand&#8217;s parliament has passed legislation making English its&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdnph.upi.com\/sv\/ph\/og\/upi_com\/1671785777160\/2026\/1\/662d07c54f521f8dfd34e4bb0be5aed7\/v1.5\/New-Zealand-parliament-makes-English-third-official-language.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}