New Zealand's indigenous political Moori party has started collecting signatures in support of the petition that seeks to change the country’s official name to the Polynesian "Aotearoa" and to restore the Moori names for all towns, cities and places by 2026.

Axar.az reports that Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-chairs of the Maori Party, said that the original names of New Zealand and its cities were distorted, rejected and ignored.

According to the party leaders, colonial education and English names given to the country's places at the beginning of the 20th century reduced the ability of the indigenous people to speak their native language from 90% in 1910 to 26% in 1950.