Support strong for separate Maori flag

The Tino Rangatiratanga flag has been chosen to fly from public places including the Harbour Bridge, Government House and the Prime Minister's official residence on Waitangi Day. Photo / Dean Purcell

A poll of Maori has found more than half believe tangata whenua should have a separate flag.

In TVNZ's Te Karere-DigiPoll survey of about 1000 Maori voters, 53 per cent said yes when asked if Maori should have a separate flag.

The Tino Rangatiratanga flag has been chosen to fly from public places including the Harbour Bridge, Government House and the Prime Minister's official residence, Premier House in Wellington, on Waitangi Day.

Support for that flag was fairly high - 58 per cent said they recognised it as "the Maori flag".

However, a significant number (38 per cent) said they did not and the level of support was far weaker than the 80 per cent expressed in consultation to choose the flag last year.

That consultation was led by Maori Party MP Hone Harawira, prompting rival Labour MP Shane Jones to dub it "Hone's flag" and accuse Mr Harawira of pushing that flag because it was his own preference.

One News reported last night that Mr Harawira had been planning to copyright the flag with his wife Hilda and the sole surviving designer, Linda Munn, to secure revenue from its sale.

The families of the other designers - Hiraina Marsden and Jan Dobson - had objected and Mr Harawira backed out of the proposal after One News questioned him on it. He said he now recognised it would be a conflict of interest and "not a good look". Instead, a lawyer would take his role in copyrighting it and the benefits would be for the designers' families.

The Te Karere-DigiPoll survey was of 1002 Maori from the Maori and general rolls and was taken from January 6 to 27. The margin of error is 3.1 per cent.