April 26, 2016
Scholarship board to guard 28 Battalion legacy
The chair of the Ngarimu VC and 28th (Maori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Board says the board is honoured to take over responsibility for protecting the brand of the legendary fighting unit.
Hekia Parata says since the 28 Maori Battalion Association was wound up in 2012, its law firm has been going through the process needed to assign the trade mark and find a successor responsible for protecting the name, references and use of the battalion emblem under the Flags, Emblems and Names Protection Act 1981.
She says it's not just at Anzac Day commemorations that people reference those who forged an outstanding reputation on the battlefields of Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy between 1941 and 1945.
"Around the country all year long there are often references to the battalion and to the companies and the importance of them as part of our living history and so the emblem and the name, we have to protect it. It's important people realise how serious this is because if it starts just turning up on any coloured T-shirts or head bands or caps or mugs or tea towels and all of those sorts of things, we have a real problem keeping the authenticity of what the batttalion stood for and stands for," Ms Parata says.
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