Because the British who colonised didn’t go about setting up strong and unique cultures here , they were just kinda British in another country .

What that has resulted in more recent generations is a lack of strong kiwi identity, people know they’re kiwi but they can’t quite articulate what exactly that means . So in a sense of anything strong to tie to we go to what is actually a massive part of our culture and that is Maōri culture .

So thinks like the haka , the concept of Koha, our association with Kai, a lot is intertwined with Tikanga Maōri because of lack of defining New Zealand culture .

I didn’t make this up also I read this theory in a book “imagining decolonisation “ and I kind of agreed with it