My three year old daughter can’t tell the difference between Scotland and Auckland. It’s hard for her to understand that her grandparents live in a place on the other side of the world when it sounds just like the city we call home.
Maybe it started making more sense when we picked up my in-laws from Auckland Airport. My daughter and I took a square piece of packing cardboard and made a sign – Welcome Grandma + Grandad! She’d painted most of it blue, her favourite colour.
As we waited for the grandparents to emerge from the automatic doors, the airport displayed its own sign. A welcome message to all arrivals to kindly respect Aotearoa New Zealand, our home.
Using a four-lined symbol representing Ranginui, Tāne Mahuta, Papatūānuku and Tangaroa, the sign displayed four themes. Alongside this is bilingual text and beautiful images of New Zealand wilderness, wildlife, people and Māori language, art and culture. The purpose: to communicate our nation’s expectations to our welcome visitors.
Even before entering New Zealand airspace, tourists are encouraged to embrace Aotearoa’s natural heritage and Māori culture, through the koru emblazoned on Air New Zealand jets, or the ferns and birds on flight crew uniforms. In-flight safety videos showcase Aotearoa’s beautiful beaches, forests and Māori carvings in the uniquely luminescent colours of this land with its unshielded UV rays. New Zealand tourism relies almost entirely on the natural environment.
“It seems hypocritical that they charge you an environment tax when you enter New Zealand,” my father-in-law said shortly after arriving. Knowing he is susceptible to a bit of stereotypical Scottish stinginess, I was defensive at first. But when I asked him “why” he surprised me.
“How can the Government be taxing tourists for the environment at the same time as wrecking it?”
It is as alarming to the tourists who come here as it is to New Zealanders ourselves that our Government has launched an all-out war on nature; a relentless attack on something that is so core to our identity and sense of home. Just as shocking is this Government’s assault on Māori rights and the Māori language.
Just before Parliament re-opened for the year, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon set the scene with his State of the Nation speech. He proclaimed that the nation needed more mining on land and at sea. Pushing through coal mines in a climate crisis. Digging up the seabed in the habitat of rare and endangered blue whales, dolphins and penguins. The former Air New Zealand CEO offered a vision more akin to Trump’s “drill baby drill” than the in-flight safety videos he once made millions from in the New Zealand tourism industry.
All this is set against a backdrop of parliamentary hearings into the incredibly divisive Treaty Principles Bill. This Bill broke the internet when it attracted more public submissions than any other Bill in history as it attempts to unilaterally rewrite the terms of an agreement between two parties.
In his speech, Luxon tried to assure the public that our current recession could be undone. He spoke of encouraging more tourists, students and digital nomads to New Zealand. But Luxon has failed to grasp that you cannot have it all.
Why do tourists travel thousands of kilometres to visit Aotearoa New Zealand? Why do people from overseas, like myself, choose to live, study and work so far from their families? It is not to marvel at opencast coal mines and pastures covered in cow effluent.
It’s to become immersed in the unique and stunning natural environment. To experience the proud and welcoming culture of the Māori people. To swim with dolphins or go whale watching. New Zealand tourism is about watching penguins waddle back up the beach after a day out fishing. It’s about swimming in glacial rivers and lakes or surf the clear, turquoise ocean.
The first thing most New Zealanders experience when coming home is being greeted by the birdsong at Auckland Airport. The beautiful images of native species and landscapes lining the walls. The intricately carved gateway welcoming us all back to Aotearoa, gifted by the Māori King, the late Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII. Nature is our home. The coming together of Māori and pākehā cultures is our home.
Luxon’s Government has launched an all-out attack on the very things that make this far flung land such a wonderful place to be, especially for those whose people are connected to the land itself and also for those who have been given a place in this land through the generosity of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
I read recently that there is something unique about celebrating our national day on Waitangi Day. Every year we mark the occasion when two peoples signed a Treaty to live side-by-side. It stands apart from Australia Day, for example, which commemorates the arrival of the first settler ships from Europe. Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the ongoing effort of the last decades to begin to honour it in policy and law, is a uniquely New Zealand solution to the problem of how to reconcile a past built on colonial violence.
Luxon’s assault on nature and on Māori cannot last long. Visitors and overseas trading partners are already questioning New Zealand tourism’s clean-green brand. They are asking whether New Zealand deserves its reputation for making progress on colonial reconciliation. Luxon appears willing to throw our unique identity onto the bonfire in exchange for a random grab bag of extractive projects plucked from the wishlists of corporate lobbyists.
Luxon’s vision for New Zealand is enough to make anyone feel ripped off. It reminds me of something that popped up on social media way back when, during the 2023 election: “You know how just because you can play air guitar doesn’t mean you can play a guitar? Well it’s the same thing with running air New Zealand”.
