Forty years after He Taua, the University of Auckland’s engineering school has got the haka right.
The school opened its new $280 million building this morning with a haka written by Tapeta Wehi and performed by staff and students.
One of the invited guests was former MP Hone Harawira, who was a member of the group that attacked engineering students preparing to perform a mock haka.
School kaiarahi Cathy Dunphy says most of the 50 people who did today’s haka had never done one before, and they had been practicing it for eight weeks.
"It talks about our values. It talks about the vision we have of bringing everybody together, celebrating our diversity and our uniqueness and also acknowledging our creativity, our desire for perfection and our desire also that we take all the pukenga and everything we have and contributing it to the faculty," she says.
The new building also features a pouwhenua carved by Delaney Brown.
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