Christopher Luxon has defended his response to questions about the use of te reo Māori road signs and entity names at a public meeting in Nelson.
He was asked during his Get NZ Back on Track event whether he would commit to changing the names of Government departments that have had them changed to ones "a lot of us don't understand".
"We all understand school but I've seen signs changed to kura, we just don't understand all this, we're all equal," a man said.
After a brief interruption from the crowd, Luxon responded to the question saying: "Well the first thing you've got to do buddy is you've got to vote October 14th to get me in there to Government".
The audience clapped, before Luxon went on to say he's "very comfortable" with the use of both languages in New Zealand but Kiwis should be able to "have a choice".
He told Breakfast this morning the video, which surfaced on Twitter, has been taken out of context.
"I did answer the question and what I said very clearly was - in that case I had someone ask me a question, I have a heckler at the back, I was trying to say 'hang on, I'll get to the answer'. I'm not actually in government, they think I'm in government and I answered the question to say very clearly that actually that I believe that bilingual is fine but actually what we need is to have a choice where New Zealanders if they haven't been raised learning some te reo.
"Just remember the average age of a Kiwi is 38, most of us have grown up learning the te reo version of the national anthem, I'm trying to learn te reo because I like the language and love the language, but for many others, they don't understand, so we've got to give them choice."
National's Chris Bishop later released more vision from Luxon's answer, and said there had been some "carefully selected editing" in the first video.
Luxon said people need to be able to read signs and understand what services are.
"When people literally do not understand Whatu Ora, Te Pūkenga, or Waka Kotahi and they feel embarrassed they embarrassed they don't know what those services are, we should be able to make sure they're available in English so they can navigate those public services."
Asked if his voters are on board with dual language names and signage, Luxon said: "They may well decide not to vote for the National Party as a consequence of my answers and that's perfectly reasonable, they're free to vote forever they wish to".
Earlier this year Waka Kotahi - the transport agency - launched consultation on bilingual road signs.
Several politicians weighed in on the issue, with National MP Simeon Brown saying his party did not support having road signs in both te reo Māori and English.
He labelled it as "confusing" for drivers.
However Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has said he's got "no issue" with it.
"It's not uncommon for signs around the world to be bilingual, the safety signs will all continue to be the same, so stop signs and give way signs for example won't be affected, but in terms of using Māori place names and so on I have got no issue on it," Hipkins said at the time.
SHARE ME