So, who is behind this?
A small statutory entity housed within Land Information New Zealand, formed in 1924, called the New Zealand Geographic Board. Operating on a budget of roughly $670,000, including $70,000 for board members and staffing of three fulltime employees.
Making up its unelected membership are four officials, plus one nominee each from the Geographical Society, Ngāi Tahu, Federated Mountain Clubs and Local Government NZ, and two members recommended by the Minister of Māori Affairs.
Since 2019 it has processed 440 proposals and generated 52 ministerial briefings, of which only 20 have been proactively released.
The core problem is simple. Local voices do not count more than distant ones. The board rarely analyses where submitters come from and makes its decisions in meetings the public cannot attend.
If anyone can submit, including from overseas, but local views don’t carry greater weight, why collect them at all?
Waimarino shows how this works in practice. Briefing material shows there was a high level of local engagement on the proposal to change National Park to Waimarino. Roughly 83% of village residents submitted with 119 objecting and 31 supporting.
However, the proposal amassed more support than opposition overall, and the minister ultimately decided the village would be renamed. This was despite another Waimarino already existing about 40 minutes down the road.
The board’s first point for dismissing those objections was that their function is to “encourage the use of original Māori names” and “recognising the traditional narratives and cultural values associated with the name”.
The problem here is not with Māori place names. The problem is that people can speak their mind, only to be treated as just a number in Wellington’s centralised process.
Reactions to the Maxwell to Pākaraka name change show communities do not like being overridden, with the changed town signs not even lasting 24 hours before being smashed up.
It does not have to be this way.
When locals want to change, let them. But keep that decision in local hands, not with a bureaucracy pushing the views of the day.
If localism means anything to the current Government, communities must have the final say over the names of the places they call home. Existing names shouldn’t be changed without clear local support via a referendum.
Clearly technical work with the Gazetteer, naming standards, undersea features, and Antarctic features should remain under ministerial oversight. But ordinary place naming should be taken away from this out-of-touch quango and returned to the communities.
There is a serious counter-argument, that many original Māori place names were replaced or altered over time. Both a majority-referendum model and centralised decision-making in Wellington risk entrenching these tensions.
Even the board’s own minutes show this isn’t simply te reo Māori versus English. Officials note “a lot of contention”, including disagreements between iwi. When creating a te reo Māori map, Ngāi Tahu preferred Arapaoa for Cook Strait, yet Te Moana-o-Raukawa was chosen as the more widely used name.
This doesn’t mean Māori names should not be restored. Many already have been through Treaty settlements and could be changed tomorrow alongside existing names.
But why does it have to be one or the other? Dual naming has worked before and doesn’t need to be just a step toward full change.
These are hard discussions. Communities need a process that is more transparent, more democratic, and more focused on the wishes of local communities, not just the occasional ad in a Sunday newspaper.
Minister Mike Butterick currently holds the Land Information portfolio. If his Government is serious about localism, this is where it should prove it.
It’s long past time to retire the 101-year-old Geographic Board as an unelected naming authority. A body that can change what whole communities are called should not need an entire opinion piece to explain what it is and does.
The people who live in these communities must decide their futures, not Wellington.
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