The Labour Party is campaigning on making Matariki a public holiday from 2022.
Matariki signals the Māori New Year. It's a star cluster that appears in mid-winter.
Labour said it would get experts to help determine an exact date for the holiday, but expected it would always fall on a Monday or a Friday within Matariki.
Here's a press release from the party:
The Labour Party is backing New Zealanders’ calls for Matariki to become New Zealand’s 12th public holiday.
Matariki heralds the start of the Māori New Year and has now become a time of celebration not just for Māori but for many New Zealanders across Aotearoa.
“As I’ve travelled around New Zealand I’ve heard the calls for Matariki to become a public holiday – it’s time has come. It will also be a confidence boost that many sectors need right now,” Labour Party Leader Jacinda Ardern said.
“Matariki will be a distinctly New Zealand holiday and a time for reflection, celebration and to look to the future as we take increasing pride in our unique national identity.
“We don’t have many statutory holidays compared to other OECD countries and it would be good to break up the long run through winter,” Jacinda Ardern said.
Deputy Labour Leader Kelvin Davis said he was proud of the Government’s track record this term of elevating the status of our history and Māori culture.
“Making New Zealand history compulsory in schools, support for land wars commemoration and unveiling a statue to acknowledge Dame Whina Cooper have all helped to give a voice to a history, people and culture,” Kelvin Davis said.
“A new holiday will help out our domestic tourism and hospitality sector as New Zealanders plan mid-winter getaways and will also allow the tourism industry to market Matariki globally to international travellers as a uniquely New Zealand winter experience in years to come.
“Celebrating Matariki every year will give Māori a chance to share our unique traditions, our history and our stories with the rest of New Zealand. Matariki means many things to many people – but for me it will always be a day where I will reflect on how far we have come as a country and be proud.
“None of our current public holidays recognise Māori culture and tradition. Making Matariki a public holiday is another step forward in our partnership as a people and a further recognition of te ao Māori in our public life.
“It is important to acknowledge that Covid-19 has had a significant impact on businesses and public holidays can create additional costs, which is why it wouldn’t come into force until 2022.
“We will work with Matariki experts to design and determine the appropriate dates for the public holiday, but we expect it will always fall on a Monday or a Friday,” Kelvin Davis said.
New Zealand has 11 public holidays, counting regional anniversaries as one. Of the OECD countries, we are in the low-to-middle range for public holidays – with 18 countries having more than us, and 12 fewer.
The last public holiday introduced was Waitangi Day nearly 50 years ago.
The Employers and Manufacturers Association responded:
The EMA says the Government’s announcement today of an extra public holiday for Matariki from 2022 is unlikely to find favour with its business members.
Chief Executive Brett O’Riley says it will be seen as another cost to business and is unlikely to support increased tourism, which was the original argument for an extra public holiday during COVID-19 Alert Levels 1 and 2.
Mr O’Riley says the Government priority should be focused on fixing the dysfunctional Holidays Act.
"We need to see a simplified and streamlined process for calculating entitlements and creating efficiencies for business."
"We understand the cultural argument about Matariki being considered important enough for a public holiday, but it could have been exchanged with one of the other public holidays," he says.
113 Comments
CourtJester
"Just look at how many landlords have sold their rentals due to the healthy homes standards..."
Where did you get this information or is just conspiracy theory?
You need to give reference to your source or it is just seemingly baseless comments - you risk lacking credibility.
And . . . oh yeah; who bought these rentals - other landlords??
I'm for this too - although not sure it'd make me vote Labour. However I think we should then remove Queen's Birthday, Christmas, New Year, Easter, Labour Day, Provincial Days (leave Waitangi and ANZAC only). Replace those public holidays with another week of annual leave and give employers/employees freedom to choose to work or holiday when it suits them. Would spread local tourism demand and lower the road toll too.
The only thing wrong with that is there are few days that you can pretty much guarantee all of your extended family have the day off for a larger gathering. Having them scattered all over the place would make for a pretty crappy celebration time imho. It is quite nice having a few days that you know you can all get together
I don't know about that, people genuinely care about holidays, work life balance, etc. Surely an economy that is progressing and getting bigger should be able to afford more holiday time. If were up to National and the business community we would still only have 3 weeks leave per year. And I doubt anyone would be any better off, maybe a handful at the top.
Yeah, tourism and hospitality industry spokesperson have been calling on the government for an extra public holiday since May.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/tourism-industry-pushes-one…
Labour launched its campaign before Auckland went into Level 3, with a $311m commitment to expand an existing subsidy paid to businesses that employ people at risk of long-term unemployment.
We can expect more policy announcements this week.
There has been a great deal of comment on site here concerning the tax implications, over the next few years, due to CV19 and its repercussions on the economy. There has been mooted, land tax, CGT, wealth tax, death duties, asset taxes and on.This cannot but be unsettling to the electorate given the uncertain present and future for everyone. National has declared the status quo will remain, so assumedly, that explains their policy. However as the incumbent, and favoured to remain in government, Labour has given the electorate no indication of their forthcoming tax policy. It would be an abuse of power and the height of arrogance, for Labour to straddle an electorate already nervous about their individual circumstances, with tax amendments and/or introductions, only six weeks out from an election. Last election, Labour had to undergo an abrupt eleventh hour back down when the electorate got wind of their tax intentions. This time looks like they intend to leave it until after the election because they think they can.
This would make sense if this expense results in net saving (or offsets jobseeker payments to a great extent) to the taxpayer by getting those at-risk people off unemployment.
I see this being the biggest difference of this policy vs National's 10k for each person employed.
First they thought of themselves - maybe, the other above is magpie policy, taken from others.
Magpie behaviour, is PM & Labour's thing.
It’s no coincidence that Ardern’s opening speech at the United Nations climate summit in September, closely echoed his views. The world faces a “stark” situation she said, urging those listening that with the necessary changes, progress was “within our grasp.”
“I wrote a lot of it,” Shaw says.<\b>
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/08/we-are-a-role-model-how-j…
Isn't the star cluster on the Subaru badge?
Matariki is a star cluster which appears in the early morning sky in New Zealand during the mid-winter months.
The star cluster is well known throughout the world and at different times of the year can be seen around the globe. It is one of the brightest clusters in the sky, containing hundreds of member stars.
Matariki has different names around the world. In English, it is called by its ancient Greek name, Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. In Hawaiian it is Makali’i, ‘eyes of royalty’, and in Japan it is Subaru, meaning ‘gathered together’.
Historically, these stars were closely tied to planting, harvesting and hunting. If the stars appeared clear and bright, it signified an abundant season ahead.
https://www.newzealand.com/int/matariki/
Answer yes.
https://thenewswheel.com/behind-badge-what-do-six-stars-subarus-logo-si…
The term “Subaru” is also the Japanese name for a cluster of stars in the Taurus constellation, known to many by the name “Pleiades.” These stars are also known as Messier 45 or “The Seven Sisters,” because according to Greek mythology, they were once Atlas’ daughters: Alcyone, Asterope, Merope, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Electra.
Surely you’re already wondering, why are there only six stars in Subaru’s logo if it’s named after a constellation of seven daughters? The reason is to the naked eye, the cluster of stars appears to only have six stars–two are so close together, they appear as one big star. Thus, the Pleiades constellation is known for being a “unification of the stars.”
Sanskrit is one of the very ancient languages, right ?
But because it is related to astronomy, many civilisations might have noticed and named it at the same time period.
If you follow the path of the Sun and Moon and Stars then, the first group would have been the Pacific Islanders, if there were any inhabitants there.
If you go by the origin of humans on this earth, the first would have been the people in Africa, then Europe and the Middle East equally.
If you have go by who recorded it first, then it is a toss up.
Take your pick.
i dont see labour bringing out much policy as national have no big game changing policy to roll out. all they are rolling out is same old same old, build some roads bring in heaps of people, sell all our assets to offshore investors.
i did the compass survey today turns out i am most aligned with top policies but why would i vote for them as they will never make parliament with 5%
Exactly. Labour only has potential to go backwards by announcing bold policy. It's always the same for incumbents who are way out in front.
There is much more Onus on National to:
- prosecute the government on why doing nothing is not sustainable
- provide bold policy alternatives
There is no proof of that though, just because you dont have someone sitting a computer, station, driving a truck or whatever for an extra 8 hours a year doest mean they will be more productive come years end and doesnt mean that a business will be more profitable at the end of the year.
Research has overwhelmingly shown that rested, happy employees are way more productive. The whole mantra of more hours = more productively is long debunked and very outdated thinking. If that was the case why not just make everyone work 50 hour weeks.
How many businesses actually pay overtime these days though? I dont get it, i dont know anyone that does asides from a mate of mine that works for a utility company. Time in Lieu is not overtime.
If you take a look at the research that was undertaken by Perpetual Guardian who gave their staff the option to go to 32 hour weeks, both productivity and profitability went up.
But hey - please show me research to support your point of working more hours out of people.
AWERSOME!! And if you are parsimonious about it, we can ditch Queen's Birthday weekend, it's not even her birthday and they don't even have one in England.
This is the time for the fireworks, public display only, get rid of Guy Fawkes and private sales of them, November is the time that birds nest, why the hell are we happy to blast them out of the trees at that time?
Not going to have one for a hell of a lot longer, can wait till then, then ditch it. It won't be the new King's birthday either. And as I said, they don't even have one in England, even they don't see it as necessary and she bloody lives there.
Labour Day, if we bothered to see why it exists is far more important, than the non birthday of the Queen, even we are forgetting why it is there. It won't be long before the importance of it becomes relevant again.
It usually rains on QB, Labour introduces summer, if you don't to acknowledge the meaning of Labour Day.
Why ditch it? We'd forsake our sovereign and all the history of the Crown in NZ that comes with them as 'irrelevant' but have a public holiday that celebrates a working arrangement that effectively no longer exists anymore? But you want to look through to the history of that, right - just not acknowledge the history of the Crown? Madness.
The madness is that it is not even her birthday, for crying down the drain. It is utterly pointless, especially seeing the country she lives in sees no reason for such a weekend.
And that is coming from someone who actually supports a constitutional monarchy, as it happens, for the stability offered. I just do not think a random non existent birthday is any kind of acknowledgment or demonstrates any respect for it.
Leave the summer introductory one, it is generally far more appreciated than QB. I know which weekend was busier in the accommodation and hospo industry is/was from personal experience.
I guess given our problems with working long hours for low wages, celebrating Labour weekend is equally irrelevant in this day and age. Frankly I'd argue the increase to four weeks of annual leave is a more significant and relevant event, except the Holidays Act itself has proven to be an absolute dog so it would never fly.
And year 13 students often can't vote!
What they should've done instead is made a 6% matching student loan contribution for incomes up to the average wage, similar to the employer matching for kiwisaver.
That acts like a 6% tax cut for earnings between $20k and ~$51k for anyone with a student loan, which is a huge slice of the population.
Poor old Cindy. Is this the best she can do? A new public holiday to cheer us all up. What P.R. pillock thought this one up? What about some Economic policy? Some Foreign Affairs policy? Some Social policy? This is right up there with bread and circuses for the masses. Auntie Judith will have a field day with this....... except that we all suspect that her advisorial clowns are no better.
This is a great idea and wont put us out of step with our main international trading countries.
I think the notion that you have to be at work 40+ hours a week - more hours = more productivity has been widely debunked.
Overwhelmingly it has been proven that well rested and happy employees will be more productive. Not only this but the benefits will mean additional spending in the form of domestic tourism, entertainment, events, retail and hospitality. The exact businesses that are doing it most tough right now.
I expect the costs for this will be minimal and will really only fall on those businesses that have to remain open and for them they have two years to factor this in to their planning. Everyone else will benefit from their employees being rested, having time to spend with their family and friends and coming back to work refreshed in an otherwise time of many months when there are no holidays.
Even National have not come out squarely against it.
I support Matariki becoming a public holiday, but it's incredibly stupid how they propose it. Not in effect until 2022 to help businesses, who will then be under the increased strain in 2022, so that's an empty gesture. Yet we have unnecessary public holidays like "The Day After New Years Day", or even boxing day. We don't need a new public holiday, just get rid of one of them, that way we could start the Matariki public holiday next year. We already have 10 public holidays, many of them redundant.
The Labour party dont even recognise when theyre using inappropriate 'White Privilege' in an election as part of their bs campaign, to (miss)appropriate Taonga. Matariki!
"Hey you Maori's! Vote for us and we'll give you lazy buggas a day from having a day off! ffs!" So, if they(Labour) throw Ihumātao into the deal and have that returned to iwi then ka pai. Otherwise no deal. No Ihumātao, No Matariki. Thats a better deal.
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