New Zealand leader’s cannibal joke shocks Maoris

WELLINGTON - New Zealand Prime Minister John Key shocked Maoris Thursday with a joke suggesting that a tribe he is in dispute with over a compensation settlement were cannibals.

In a speech to a tourism audience, Key said: “The good news is that I was having dinner with Ngati Porou as opposed to their neighbouring iwi (tribe), which is Tuhoe, in which case I would have been dinner, which wouldn’t have been quite so attractive.”

It is commonly accepted that before Europeans arrived in New Zealand, Maori tribes practiced cannibalism as a final humiliation on defeated rivals in battle.

Key has been at loggerheads with the North Island Tuhoe tribe this week after ruling out giving it ownership of the 212,672-hectare Urewera National Park as part of a compensation package for past wrongs committed by successive European governments.

Tuhoe chief negotiator Tamati Kruger claimed that Key withdrew an agreement in principle that was to go before the Cabinet Monday after the plan was criticised by backbenchers and grassroots members of his conservative National Party.

The Maori Party, which co-operates with the Nationals in government, accused Key of acting in bad faith.

Key told reporters later that he was sure Tuhoe would get the joke, but Maori Member of Parliament Te Ururoa Flavell said it would add to the tribe’s wounds.

Kruger said the prime minister’s joke was not funny and was in poor taste.

“I’m just astounded that the prime minister can make light of what we regard as a very, very serious situation - regarding really our future relationships with the crown,” Kruger told Radio New Zealand.