Green Party MP Dr Elizabeth Kerekere lent support to the campaign, leading to a petition which gained more than 3700 signatures.
Kerekere (Whānau a Kai, Ngāti Oneone, Te Aitanga ā Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngāi Tāmanuhiri) said restoring the river’s name would signal to others that its whakapapa mattered. “If you restore the name, you restore everything else. It gives more mana to the people to say ‘this is our awa, we need to be part of the decision-making’.”