It is bizarre that, in a society where the prime minister refuses to allow grace to be said at a state banquet because, she says, we are an increasingly secular society, we fly Maori elders around the world to lift tapu and expel evil spirits from New Zealand embassies; we allow courts to become entangled in hearings about the risks to taniwha of a new road or building; we refuse to undertake potentially life-saving earthworks on Mt Ruapehu lest we interfere with the spirit of the mountain, and we allow our environment law to be turned into an opportunistic farce by allowing metaphysical and spitiual considerations to be taken into account in the decision process. [Quote The Dominion Post 28 Jan 2004 p.1]