The English we speak in Aotearoa differs from English in other countries because, in part, our vocabulary contains numerous words sourced from the Māori language. Attempting to remove words sourced from Māori makes as much sense as attempting to remove words sourced from French or Latin.

Education Minister cut Māori words from future junior books, documents reveal:

An Education Ministry report shows [Education Minister Erica ] Stanford decided in October last year to exclude all Māori words except for characters' names from any new books in the Education Ministry's Ready to Read Phonics Plus (RtRPP) series.

The paper showed the decision was driven by concern Māori words were confusing for children learning to read English though evidence of that was mixed.