Swearing oaths of State in foreign languages

The purpose of the oath is to publicly announce and record one's loyalty to the established order. That is fatally undermined if the oath itself is not in the language of the established order.

Sio - a newish MP - has a problem with taking an oath in anything other than Samoan from the press reports. It's a big day for him and he wants special treatment. Well there are 121 others who aren't demanding special consideration because they are foreigners. He wants to publicly announce and record his loyalty to Samoa? to Samoans? That is effectively what he is doing.

It is discourteous to wish to change the procedures and the tradition - and indeed the law - just because he's an electorate MP now - on that basis alone he has no mandate, but to demand to swear his oath of office in a foreign language is beyond that, it's insulting.

I recall that newbies in the Greens, like Nandor, have tried to change the oath when they were taking it - possibly Meteria Turei also. I think they added "and Te Tiriti o Waitangi" to their oaths and were made to repeat it without it by the Clerk. I think that was in his first term. I applaud them for that actually - they made their point on that occasion. But what Sio is suggesting is entirely another matter.

He boasts that Samoan is the second most spoken language in Mangere. Well, I dare say Afrikaans is in East Coast bays, and Chinese is in Mt Albert. What of it? The Labour MP Harry Dynhoven renewed his Dutch citizenship (and should have been kicked out of parliament for having done so but was saved by Jonathan Hunt and Labour). Did he demand to be sworn in - in Dutch? No. Ashraf Chaudray? Rajeen Prasad? Pansy Wong? No.

Sio must understand that he is joining a tradition of New Zealand. His oath is that he is joining the tradition - not changing it unilaterally - and certainly not altering it to include elements of a foreign nation.

Many things need to change about parliament, like the opening prayer, but I can't see a Samoan voting to dump institutional Christianity. I have said it often enough - if you want to be an MP you have to renounce your citizenship of other nations. This sort of thing happens when you don't have this rule. It's nefarious.

ZB reporting:
Labour's Sua William Sio has received a letter from Parliamentary Services rejecting his request to be sworn in in Samoan because of limited time. He says he is going to Parliament not just as an MP for Mangere, but for all Samoans and it is the second most spoken language in his electorate.

Idiot/Savant:
This is needlessly shitty. As a tolerant, diverse, and multicultural nation, New Zealand should not be engaging in this sort of puerile linguistic imperialism. Something as simple as an oath or declaration should be able to be made in any language, not just English or Maori.

Please. Puerile is apt all right - of Sio and I/S. What a preposterous precedent that would set. Would a person who came from NZ demand to swear an oath in Maori in the Samoan parliament? Does the Premier of South Australia (a New Zealander) demand to swear his oath in Maori? Please. Imperialism!? The only colonisation going on here is by Samoans. He is swearing an oath to New Zealand and New Zealanders - not Samoa and Samoans. I think he forgets that. It is in times of multiculturalism and diversity that common bonds are needed more than ever.

Sio can't stomp around in the wharenui in his gumboots. Even if that's what they do in Samoa. It is not intolerant or "needlessly shitty" to inform new members that there is a set procedure. If the procedure in Samoa lasts all day and is conducted in Samoan then it would be discourteous of any new Samoan MPs to demand that because they come from New Zealand that three of them want to cluster around the clerk and make their sacred incantations NZ-style in English or Maori very quickly and then shuffle off without observing the same tikanga as everyone else. That would be unacceptable.

Indulgences are taken elsewhere - especially in valedictory speeches - where the normally strict protocols are loosened, but swearing the oath of office isn't one of those moments, it is an important constitutional issue.