Guyon Espiner with co-host Susie Ferguson present Morning Reporter on RNZ. They start the show in te reo Māori.

A Radio New Zealand listener has been told his multiple complaints about "over Māori-fication [sic]" on the station were "offensive, derogatory and dismissive".

The Broadcasting Standards Authority have roundly dismissed the complaints, with BSA chair Peter Radich writing: "His complaint disregards te reo Māori, which is an official language in New Zealand, and he has persisted in wasting Authority time and resources".

A BSA decision reported that the complainant, named only as HM, sent six emails outlining his concern that a female newsreader said a word sounding like "ho [sic]" because of "over Māorification" on RNZ National.

The listener informed RNZ that "ho" was an abbreviation of the word "whore", and therefore the newsreader was "a laughing stock". She (and other reporters, male too) would sign off saying "ahau", which in Māori means I or me.

The complainant was aware the newsreader was speaking Māori and he took offence to that as well.

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"[She] reads the news in English, not Mardi [sic]," he said. The use of te reo on-air amounted to "over Māorification [sic] of language", the complainant argued.

The BSA said it attempted to educate the complainant, by directing him to an RNZ webpage that explained the Māori greetings used on-air. Its attempt evidently proved fruitless as the complainant continued to demand reprimand of RNZ.

RNZ declined to acknowledge the emails as an official complaint, which the BSA said was within its rights. It did respond to the complainant. He also contacted the BSA directly, which the authority said was time wasting and "vexatious".

George Bignell, the complaints manager at RNZ, said the listener had taken issue with the station's style of signing off in Māori – which clearly breached no broadcasting codes.

In his many emails, the complainant was said to have directed personal attacks on members of RNZ staff and posed a nonsensical argument against te reo.

But Bignell said he was forced to respond because it was lodged as a formal complaint.

"He just doesn't like te reo being used on air," Bignell said. There were listeners who didn't like hearing te reo, but Bignell was not aware of anyone else trying to silence the language through formal complaints.

He said resistance to te reo was shrinking.

In an interview earlier this week about the use of te reo Māori in broadcast media, the co-host of RNZ's Morning Report, Guyon Espiner, told Stuff that feedback of this nature was not unusual.

"There's a bit of this, they're usually getting in touch via text or email (as opposed to social media) and complaining that they've got no interest in the language and they don't want it forced on them and it's just gibberish."

Espiner admitted he enjoyed infuriating such listeners and confirmed RNZ would not give into such complaints.

Radio New Zealand's governing legislation, he said, required the station to represent New Zealand's diversity and Māori culture. Espiner added that he and other broadcasters at RNZ put their own efforts in to speaking more te reo on-air.

The BSA is an independent government agency that regulates all broadcasting and operates under the Broadcasting Act 1989.

The authority did not name the complainant.

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