A respected Christchurch mental health youth worker has condemned the Bay of Plenty District Health Board for using Māori imagery in a Covid19 booklet describing it as racist.

The booklet includes cartoons of a Covid19 virus displaying Mataora, a facial moko, reserved only for Māori men.

The worker, who didn’t want to be named, said “I saw myself in these posters. Normally, I wouldn’t mind. Normally I’d feel angry. But these posters have cut a lot deeper.”

One page shows a cartoon image of balding man kicking the virus with the title “let’s give Covid-19 the boot.”

Another poster displays three cartoon characters of a virus all displaying Mataora.

MP Tamati Coffey posted the cartoons on his public Facebook page.

He told Chris Lynch “Mataora is a tapu practice that honours our ancestors. It is 100% inappropriate for Mataora to appear on a cartoonists image of a COVID virus.”

“Secondly, that off the back of the farmers tractor protest where there were some racist billboards featured, it shows a farmer putting the boot into the Māori COVID-19 virus is bizarre. The whole thing needs to be questioned including the process and the people that got it to the final stage.”

In a Facebook comment, made on Coffey’s page last night, DHB CEO Peter Bonneville wrote “as CEO of the DHB I am absolutely appalled by the imagery and I can assure you there is no way this should have passed DHB approval.”

“We are investigating and do need to confirm the facts but for now I can confirm that this leaflet has been fully withdrawn from circulation and I will personally be approving all communications releases hereon.”

“I apologise on behalf of the DHB for the significant offence and hurt that this will have caused it is totally unacceptable to us. Nga mihinui, Pete.”