English is already an official language

NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell has a bill to make English an official language in New Zealand.

This bill seems to be even worse than the luggage recovery bill of a couple of years ago, and that takes some beating.

English is an official language of New Zealand. We know this because Mr Mitchell’s bill is in English – something not possible if it was not already an official language. You can be an official language without having a law declaring a language to be official. It is called being the de facto official language of New Zealand.

Does the UK have a law declaring English to be an official language? Does France have a law declaring French to be an official language?

Maori and Sign Language have laws declaring them to be official languages, because they were not already the de facto official language of New Zealand. We don’t need a law that will achieve absolutely nothing.