Wellington Maori are fuming that a proposal which they say could have led to their ancestors being posthumously baptised into the Mormon church was ever considered.
Wellington Tenths Trust managing trustee Peter Love condemned both the proposed fee increases for birth and marriage certificates and a ditched plan to preserve them.
The Internal Affairs Department has revealed that it had considered handing over 4 million births and deaths records to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the United States as one option for preserving the old documents.
The church would have preserved the records on microfilm at a cost of $500,000.
The department abandoned the plan in favour of a $3.8 million commercial contract to digitise the certificates.
Mr Love said that while the church option had been discarded "we are alarmed that this proposal even saw the light of day".
It would have been abhorrent to most Maori who were not consulted over options to preserve the documents, he said.
"Whakapapa begins with the record of the birth of an individual Maori, and this record is a closely held taonga which is generally not given out beyond the immediate family.
"Least of all is it given out to a specific religion."
He said the Mormons used birth and death information to baptise the dead into the church.
A Mormon church representative could not be contacted last night.
But articles posted on the internet say a unique aspect of Mormonism is the practice of baptising on behalf of the dead - a baptism of a living person on behalf of a dead relative.
Mr Love said Maori would also be disproportionately affected by proposed fee increases for identity documents from about $9 a certificate to about $30.
"It is a passionate cultural necessity for most Maori to seek and find out about their own whakapapa. The Crown is damaging Maori ability to secure this most important information by lifting their charges for it."
An Internal Affairs spokeswoman said a hui was held at the early stages of the project.
- NZPA
Mormon proposal upsets Maori spokesman
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