10 Feb 2014

Te reo consultation period 'too short'

7:33 am on 10 February 2014

The consultation time on proposals for a new te reo strategy is being criticised as too short.

Seven hui are being held throughout the country, the first on Monday.

A new strategy would focus on supporting language learning in the home and outline new governance for language organisations, such as the Maori broadcasting funding agency.

But a Maori language advocate and founder of the national kapa haka competition, Te Matatini, says the consultation period isn't long enough.

Te Napi Tutewehiwehi Waaka of Ngati Pikiao says seven days is too short to talk about such an important taonga, or treasure.

He says the seven days the Minister of Maori Affairs is recommending is not enough to look at the Maori language, and the organisations protecting it.

Mr Waaka fears the information from the hui will be used to outline a framework, and it will then take another two years to discover nothing has come of it.