Story: Māori radio – reo irirangi

Page 3. First iwi radio station

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Agitating for Māori on air

In the 1970s, despite improvements on earlier decades, weekly Māori-language and Māori-interest programming by state broadcasters totalled less than 90 minutes. In this decade the state of the Māori language reached crisis point, as the number of fluent Māori speakers declined while relatively few younger people acquired competence in the language. Members of Victoria University of Wellington’s Te Reo Māori Society and their mentor, senior lecturer Te Kapunga (Koro) Dewes, began agitating for Māori to be spoken and heard more widely in New Zealand society, including on radio and television.

Proposed Polynesian radio station

The Te Reo Māori Society and other Māori organisations made a submission to the government’s Committee on Broadcasting, calling for a Māori radio station. In its 1973 report the committee recommended that a multicultural Polynesian (including Māori) radio station be set up in Auckland. The proposal to establish Radio Polynesia was scrapped in 1975 by the incoming National government.

Te Reo o Aotearoa

Instead of a separate radio station, Māori and other Pacific peoples were given a voice on air through a new unit of Radio New Zealand. Te Reo o Aotearoa, which produced Pacific Island and Māori news and magazine programmes, began broadcasting in 1978. Its programmes, broadcast in Māori and several Pacific Island languages, were the major feature on the Pacific and Māori language landscape for a decade. Te Reo o Aotearoa was initially managed by Haare Williams and employed other Māori broadcasters, including Whai Ngata (Ngāti Porou) and Henare te Ua.

Te Reo o Pōneke

In 1981 Īhakara Puketapu and Iritana Tawhiwhirangi of the Māori Affairs Department set up regional language boards. The Wellington Māori Language Board adopted the name Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo (those who make the language secure). It set up an experimental FM radio station, Te Reo o Pōneke (the voice of Wellington) for one week in August 1983. The station had no government support, but language experts such as Maaka Jones, Ruka Broughton and Wiremu Parker came in to help with programming that included group storytelling sessions, current-affairs discussions and Māori music. It broadcast for 12 hours a day. A similar station operated for several days during Māori Language Week in 1984.

First permanent Māori radio station

In 1987 Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo established Te Reo Irirangi o Te Upoko o Te Ika, which broadcast through May and June. Positive community and listener feedback encouraged the board to make the station permanent. It went to air in April 1988 as the first permanent Māori radio station.

Legal action over access to airwaves

In the late 1980s and 1990s Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo and the New Zealand Māori Council jointly took a number of major legal cases concerning Māori broadcasting to the Waitangi Tribunal, the High Court and the Court of Appeal, with one going as far as the Privy Council in London.

How to cite this page:

Piripi Walker, 'Māori radio – reo irirangi - First iwi radio station', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/maori-radio-reo-irirangi/page-3 (accessed 29 March 2024)

Story by Piripi Walker, published 22 Oct 2014