Thus we have Joanna Kidman, professor of Maori Education at Victoria University of Wellington, a prolific author with a PhD in sociology from Australian National University. Her photograph in ‘stuff’ for 15 May 2022 accompanies an article which identifies her as “Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa”! There is no mention of the other most clearly obvious and evidently European components of her heritage. Well, why should this be? Can we really be expected to take seriously the personal identification of anybody so glaringly out of kilter with the whole truth, no matter what academic distinctions she happens to have?
