• Full Story

Should 'kia ora' be NZ's national greeting?

Email
Print

Kia Ora: NZ's national greeting?

3News NZ

Should ‘kia ora’ be New Zealand’s national greeting?

Maori Tourism executive Butch Bradley thinks so, and is asking councils to push the greeting, which he says denotes the personality of New Zealand and its people.

Bradley told Radio New Zealand that Kiwis will say ‘bula’ in Fiji, but won’t say ‘kia ora’ when they return home – which he thinks is "nuts".

The kia ora brand is spreading and Bradley notes that the New Zealand Olympic team had ‘kia ora’ spread across their shirts.

3 News

Post a Comment

Before commenting, please take the time to read our moderation guide


(Won't be published)



Comments

15/09/2012 9:19:50 a.m.

shadoe wrote:

They're not 'handouts' Cletis, its called compensation, for massive injustices, much the same as you would expect if you were robbed. I bet I know who helped your 'pioneering' ancestors during their struggles.

15/09/2012 8:49:21 a.m.

Sandy wrote:

Kia ora. Sounds kiwi to me. This is a kiwi welcome. Unlike gudday which is often referenced to Australia. If you don't want to say it, don't. If we reference NZ as an English speaking nation, then you must not hear other languages being spoken everyday in this melting pot of cultures. In fact NZ was a Maori speaking nation untill captain Cook spotted land in the Hawkes Bay. Maybe it should be an option to say hello as we were originally a Maori speaking nation.

14/09/2012 6:26:10 p.m.

Otis wrote:

My greeting has and will always be 'hello' and I have no intension of using 'kia ora' when I am loosing respect for the Maori race because of the greed of a few for more handouts. My culture is as a european and my great grandparents were amoung the first pioneers in this land.They helped bring prosperity to this country.

13/09/2012 2:22:11 p.m.

ki ora wrote:

most Kiwis that live overseas use Ki ora as a greeting its only when you come home and there is so much in-fighting between races here that its not so much in use. The reason being overseas we are all Kiwis at home in NZ its all divided by foolishness

13/09/2012 9:41:43 a.m.

Hannah wrote:

Totally, we need to keep our individuality and cultural identity. Besides 'Kia Ora' is very catchy :-)

13/09/2012 1:53:25 a.m.

no wrote:

no

12/09/2012 11:21:56 p.m.

David wrote:

No, it should be "hello", like every other English speaking country.

12/09/2012 10:21:15 p.m.

Luke wrote:

Kia ora! @Katrina I know $170million sounds like a lot but if you had over a Trillion dollars worth of land taken from you and you had to wait 150years to be paid back $170million, would you still consider that to be "greed", I think it is rather generous that Maori are not going after the full loss they incurred. @ALAN - it is interesting because te reo Maori is already one of New Zealands official languages. @Emanuel - Kia kaha

12/09/2012 9:34:21 p.m.

David wrote:

I can't believe some of the racist comments here. Get over yourselves. What's so hard saying Kia Ora. Claiming someone will want to charge you is rubbish! They'll appreciate you trying.

12/09/2012 8:33:36 p.m.

samhop1984@live.com wrote:

Really Alan?? Um, not sure of you are aware but Maori is an official language of NZ. Might be time for you to maybe head offshore somewhere if you are not comfortable with that?? I think in Australia they have pretty much killed off the Indigenous languages so you might be a bit happier with being there. Ka kite :)