Hone Mihaka Photo: Supplied/Hone Mihaka
A tourism operator has hit back at a photo which falsely claimed warriors welcoming government representatives at Waitangi last week were wearing ankle monitors.
The photo was shared to the Facebook page of the unregistered New Nation Party on 5 February - the day government representatives were welcomed to Waitangi - it circulated on X the same day.
Hone Mihaka, the founder and owner of Taiamai Tours Heritage Journeys - which takes tourists around Waitangi on Waka Taua (canoes) - said the photo was clearly not from that day.
"I know that photo was taken last year because I'm in that photo too, that was during a pōwhiri or welcome for our tourists who come off the cruise ships and we actually are situated only about a two minute walk away from the cruise ships on the Waitangi National Trust reserve," he said.
The original post, Hone Mihaka is in the centre of the image. Photo: Facebook
The men in the photo were part of a rehabilitation programme Whakaoranga Whānau recovery hub in Kaikohe, who worked with Mihaka as an opportunity to reconnect to their whakapapa, he said.
Through the impacts of colonisation many of whānau Māori had become disconnected from their culture, Mihaka said.
"So I work with these whānau and provide them with a safe environment and an opportunity to try and reconnect back to their roots, you can't go nowhere if you don't know where you've come from, so I found that it worked for me.
"I like to work with these guys because I've been there and done that and no one was there to help me up, I wish that there were organisations like ours that were around back in the 1970s and the 1960s."
Mihaka said having the image taken out of context was harmful and denigrates the mana of those men. He said there were not many businesses willing to work with them.
"Hōhā kē au, because all they're doing is using something that is positive to incite racism and prejudism and to incite hate towards Māoridom."
New Zealanders should call these organisations out when they see images taken out of context or containing harmful imagery, he said.
"This group, this political party horekau he mana tāna, have no integrity, have no mana, they should have done their research before they took a photo like that and claimed it to be something that it isn't."
In a statement the New Nation Party apologised for the post and said they would delete it completely.
"The article was submitted to our discussion forum group page by one of our followers. Yesterday we noted a comment stating that the image was from last year. We have requested confirmation of this from the person who submitted the story to us but so far have had no reply."
The photo also appeared on several other Facebook pages prior to appearing on the New Nation page, the statement noted.
But Mihaka said he was not ready to accept the apology until they reached out to Taiamai Tours or Whakaoranga Whānau recovery hub.
Members of parliament are welcomed on to the Waitangi Treaty grounds, Wednesday 5 February, 2025. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
What options do you have to remove harmful images?
Netsafe chief online safety officer Sean Lyons said there were a couple of options people could take to remove harmful images from the internet - the first laid with the platforms themselves.
"Those platforms have terms and conditions that protect individuals from use of images that might in some way cause them harm, taking out of context, factually incorrect statements about the images... might well breach the terms and conditions of those platforms and generally the action as a result of that will be for the platform to take it down."
The Harmful Digital Communications Act 2016 gave all people the ability to seek action and redress where an individual thinks they have been harmed by a digital communication, Lyons said.
Under the act courts had the power to unmask individuals using the anonymity of the internet, he said.
"The internet can provide people with that ability to try and hide behind a username or profile but there are people behind these things and there are ways and means potentially that you can get through that opacity and find out who the people are behind those particular posts."
Lyons said Netsafe had seen an increase in harmful behaviour year on year for a number of years. But it could be hard to pinpoint which particular groups were being most heavily affected.
"It's very hard to get specific data around who is being harmed, not everybody is happy to share information about their background or their ethnicity, but we have seen over time that there are increases in certain groups, we know that young people are often targeted more.
"Lots of people are targeted across lots of different groups so it is really important, critical really that individuals that experience that harm can make those reports... and take action rather than just suffering in silence."
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