Shane Jones calls out tutors teaching Māori youth anti-government haka

NZ First MP Shane Jones.

New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones is taking aim at kapa haka tutors who he says are filling impressionable minds with anti-government rhetoric.

Politically charged kapa haka at last week’s national secondary schools’ competition in Nelson has Jones fired up.

Jones, who had whānau competing in Christchurch told the Herald he was troubled by some of the kapa haka compositions.

“It probably reflects more the prejudices or the anger of the tutors, as opposed to the young people. Let them live a life, let them grow to learn and love and stumble through their teenage years without trying to fill them with a diet of ideology,” Jones said.

Te Kete Matariki, Te Puke Primary School's kapa haka group.

The Kapa Haka Kura Tuarua o Aotearoa was won by a coalition of Rotorua schools, Ngā Kura Kaupapa o Te Puku o te Ika, followed by Auckland’s Ngā Puna o Waiōrea and Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Hoani Waititi.

Jones says kapa haka tutors and composers are feeding impressionable youth their own anti-government rhetoric and misrepresenting how politics and Māori MPs in government work.

Kapa haka has always been an important avenue for Māori to express and showcase their heritage and cultural Polynesian identity through song and dance.

But Jones said too many kapa haka composers are twisting waiata into ideological rants.

“They seem to be on a diet of karaka berries thus their rorirori (funny),” Jones told the Herald.

“They are projecting their political dislikes on to impressionable young minds.”

In March, David Seymour received a less than warm haka from students at Freyberg High School in Palmerston North, with one student spitting on the ground in front of him, as the Act leader faced off to a haka, as he was leaving.

Jones said Māori politics is now enveloped in a new type of woke-based mania.

“The faddish Māori term ‘moumou to toto Māori’ (waste your Māori blood) is screamed across Parliament. It translates our Māori blood is wasted on you,” Jones said.

“Such histrionics are based on the racist doctrine that blood defines character.

“This is precisely what Winston and I have fought against over many years.

“If this is indicative of kapa haka standards, taxpayers might be better off getting AI to create content!”

Additional reporting Atereano Mateariki, WaateaNews.Com

Joseph Los’e is an award winning journalist and joined NZME in 2022 as Kaupapa Māori Editor. Los’e was a chief reporter, news director at the Sunday News newspaper covering crime, justice and sport. He was also editor of the NZ Truth and prior to joining NZME worked for Urban Māori organisation Whānau Waipareira.