According to Facebook, John Key is going to ban hangi. Not National, not the government, but John Key personally. John Key is going to ban hangi - at least that’s what my newsfeed says. Of course, in reality, John Key is going to do no such thing, nor is his government for that matter.
The rumour seems to have stemmed from concerns with the Food Bill. However, it's my understanding that the bill only covers food exchanges such as selling and bartering. If this is correct, I think it would be safe to place hangi outside of the ambit of the bill - at least when hangi is being prepared and served on the Marae. It would be a different matter if, say, someone was selling hangi to fund raise.
To repeat: John Key is not going to ban hangi. Tell your friends.
Sounds a lot like how the Labour government's plan to regulate 'alternative medicine' with Australia (by not letting them claim, say, that seaweed pills can cure brain cancer) was going to 'ban rongoa Maori'. Well it would, if it was mass produced and made unscientific claims about what it could do, which isn't how any rongoa works. But that didn't stop the alternative medicine industry from scaremongering so that Maori would help kill the bill for them.
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