Cheeky car advt withdrawn

Press, 27 July 1988, Page 2

Cheeky car advt withdrawn

By DAVID JONES NZPA London Vauxhall Motors yesterday apologised and agreed to discontinue running a car advertisement in British national newspapers after complaints that it was an insult to New Zealanders. The offending advertisement showed a photograph of the back of a Vauxhall Astra GTE 20 which recently won the New Zealand World Rally championship. The headline above the advertisement said: “In true Maori fashion we showed everyone in New Zealand our rear end.” Although the advertisement did not say so, this was an obvious reference to incidents when the Maori activist, Mr Dun Mihaka, bared his backside to the Prince and Princess of Wales during their visit in 1983 and when Mr Henare Kani did the same to the Queen and Prince Philip near Hastings in February, 1986.

The full-page advertisement appeared in several

big daily newspapers in Britain, including the “Daily Mirror” and the “Independent” last weekend. Mr Derek Leask, a counsellor at the New Zealand High Commission in London, said the commission received a number of protest calls from New Zealanders in Britain.

After consultation with Wellington, the High Commission made representa-

tions to Vauxhall Motors, Ltd, expressing the Government’s concern. The commission received a letter from the company chairman yesterday apologising for the advertisement and assuring the High Commissioner, Mr Bryce Harland, that no offence was meant. The company agreed to discontinue the advertise-' ment immediately. Mr Mihaka said in Wellington yesterday his action was a serious political statement and was not meant to be belittled in an advertising campaign. “I consider that to be an insult, a cheapening of the seriousness and the cultural significance of the act of exposing the naked posterior as a form of rebuttal or an act of defiance,” he said on Radio New Zealand’s “Morning Report.” “I see it as a classic example of cultural imperialism if you like to call it that." Mr Mihaka said he was considering legal action over the advertisement.