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Speaker 1: Now Winster Peters, as you know, has introduced a bill

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Speaker 1: to Parliament to make English and official language, and the

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Speaker 1: debate in Parliament got weirdly fiery, with Chloe Swarbrick in

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Speaker 1: particular quite scathing. Auckland University of Technology Associate Professor of

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Speaker 1: Linguistic Sharon Harvey is with us on this high Sharon.

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Speaker 2: Cura here, thanks for having me on the program.

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Speaker 1: Good to talk to you. Is this actually really that contentious?

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Speaker 2: I think it's quite contentious. We have language legislation in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand for very particular reasons and English doesn't fall

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Speaker 2: into that category.

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Speaker 1: What are those reasons?

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Speaker 2: We have legislation around language for protection reasons and for

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Speaker 2: vulnerable communities, particular communities that weren't previously didn't have their

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Speaker 2: languages previously recognized, for example in justice settings or in

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Speaker 2: educational settings. So for example the case of the deaf community,

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Speaker 2: they wouldn't regularly be able to get access to deaf

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Speaker 2: interpreters or Deaf English interpreters.

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Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so we've made sign language and Thril Maari

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Speaker 1: official languages to protect them. Is there any reason though,

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Speaker 1: why we wouldn't make English an official language?

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Speaker 2: Well, I guess we don't have any reason to protect English.

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Speaker 1: English is sorry, But is that the only reason you

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Speaker 1: ever make something an official language?

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Speaker 2: Well, I guess if we look at like jurisdictions like Australia,

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Speaker 2: federal level of the US and the UK, those jurisdictions

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Speaker 2: don't have English as an official language and don't see

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Speaker 2: any need to, I guess this feels like a big

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Speaker 2: waste of time really and money. There's just no reason

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Speaker 2: for it.

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Speaker 1: All right, Hey, thank you very much, Sharon, appreciate your time.

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Speaker 1: That Sharon Harvey, aut Associate Professor of Linguistics.

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Speaker 2: For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive, listen lived and

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