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# Change by Stealth
- URL: https://goodoil.news/change-by-stealth/
- Published: 2020-06-17T04:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-06-16T03:45:43.000Z
- Author: Bob Jones
- Tags: NZ, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 03:00

**Sir Bob Jones**  
[nopunchespulled.com](https://nopunchespulled.com/2020/06/16/change-by-stealth/?ref=goodoil.news)

I’m an avid newsreader but I guess it must be the ravages of age for somehow I missed the referendum or Act of Parliament or whatever which formally changed our country’s name.

I say that as Wellington’s dying *Dominion Post* and increasingly in the *Herald,* plus politicians, sports administrators et el, this year all now only refer to the name of our country as **Aotearoa**. No-one told me about this change.

New Zealand is of course a ridiculous name, as I’ve written in the past. Aotearoa sounds much better but is also absurd. Who wants to come from a country called the “Land of the Long White Cloud”?

Given there was no pre-European sense of nation by maoridom, and that they constitute 15% of our population, any change should reflect the reality, specifically that we’re an English-speaking country. But most important of all in a democracy, a name-change should be the choice of the people by referendum. And while I’m on this subject, why in God’s name have we allowed our country’s representative colour be black?