Still from the documentary "The Haka Party Incident" Photo: supplied
It's been nearly 46 years since a capping week stunt turned into a flashpoint for race relations in Aotearoa. Each year Auckland University's engineering students - many of them drunk - dressed up in grass skirts and performed a parody haka around various parts of the campus and wider city.
But in 1979 a group of Māori and Pasifika students - later named He Taua - confronted those in the engineering Haka Party - leading to a number of the activists being arrested by police. It was a little-known piece of history until it became of the subject of a play called The Haka Party Incident by writer and filmmaker Katie Wolfe. She's now directed a documentary of the same name - where former members of both the Haka Party and He Taua discuss what happened that day.
Two of them are with Kathryn to discuss what happened that day - Ben Dalton, now Chief Executive of Waitangi, the operating company of the Waitangi National Trust and Brent Meekan, who was a member of the Haka Party in 1979 and is now business director, civil infrastructure for engineering company Beca.
Ben Dalton (left) and Brent Meekan (right). Photo: Supplied: The Public Good
