A nationwide engagement process is underway to provide greater legal protection for Māori cultural and intellectual property.
It follows backlash from the Dutch and Spanish women's football teams after they appeared to mock the haka during a training session in Auckland, just days before the 2023 FIFA World Cup.
While there are some protections for cultural practices, there are no laws preventing its use in derogatory ways or without permission.
"At the moment, there’s not one piece of legislation that protects specifically Māori intellectual or cultural property and that’s incredible that is the case," Wai 262 spokesperson Haami Piripi said.
Māori words like mānuka are also not protected from commercial use overseas.
"We were trying desperately to protect the term mānuka as a cultural, iconic term and the government had no legislation at all that could help us do that," he said.
Nationwide consultations are now underway to seek feedback from Māori on what the legal protection could look like – a movement known as Tiaki Taonga.
"There is actually no concerted, holistic governmental response to what was guaranteed in Article 2 of the Treaty, which was protection of our taonga," Auckland University business professor Ella Henry said.
Māori first took their fight for legal protection to the Waitangi Tribunal 30 years ago. The Wai 262 claim also included native flora and fauna, but progress has been slow.
Justice Hetaraka, a spokesperson for Tai 262 – Wai 262’s youth branch – said the claim "represents what it means to be Māori".
"It’s the protection of our taonga and mātauranga tuku iho for the next generations, really," she said.
The claim impacts more than 20 government departments and agencies, and could require amendments to multiple pieces of legislation, including the Copyright Act.
"What happens when you misappropriate the culture, intellectual knowledge, is you disempower the people of the land," Piripi said.
The engagement hui will continue for the remainder of the year before a plan is put to the government.
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