Re: ‘NZ must become a nation of one people’, (Letters page 25, The Weekend Sun September 26, 2025 edition).

Kia ora Colin Stitt. Welcome home! After 20 years in the US you must’ve noticed one big difference: here in Aotearoa, Māori didn’t just “make inroads into the culture” – we are the culture! The haka before the All Blacks kick off? Māori. The place names you’ve been driving past? Māori. Even ‘Katikati’ the town under your signature, is a Māori name. Imagine if we insisted on renaming it ‘Smithville’ to avoid the horror of split cultures?

You ask what would happen if we had ‘Pākehā wards’. Colin, we already do: they’re called the rest of the wards. Māori wards simply give Māori communities a fair shot at representation in systems designed without us in mind since they were imposed by colonial governments in the 19th Century that assumed the right to do so.

As for every school child learning te reo Māori: lucky them. Being bilingual improves brain function, cultural empathy, and economic opportunity. Far from a waste of time, it’s an upgrade from monolingualism.

The Treaty of Waitangi didn’t promise sameness – it promised partnership. Harmony doesn’t mean one voice drowning out another, it means different notes working together. That’s what makes the music.

So relax, Colin. The waka has more than one paddle, and it moves forward best when everyone rows.

Ngā mihi,

Manu Caddie, Tauranga City