The Haka Party Incident

New Zealand documentary exploring an incident centred on Pākehā students at the University of Auckland who performed a mock haka every capping week. In 1979, Māori and Pasifika activists looked to put a stop to this parody—and were severely punished for it.

"It covers the day when a group of young Māori and Pasifika activists, later named He Taua, sought to stop Pākehā engineering students at the University of Auckland performing a parody of haka each capping week. By then the “Haka Party” had annually evolved into  mayhem as these students, many of them drunk and dressed in grass skirts staged ‘hit and run’ performances of their ‘haka’ throughout central Auckland.   

"Written complaints in previous years had been consistently ignored when He Taua decided to take more direct action in 1979. Headlines at the time described it as a “gang rampage” with “students bashed”, and several of the activists were convicted of crimes. But the Haka Party has not been held since. 

"The Haka Party Incident was rescued from historical oblivion by writer and filmmaker Katie Wolfe – originally as a play commissioned by Auckland Theatre Company and first staged in 2021." (Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival)

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