Our cultural competency journey

Netsafe Leadership

Brent Carey, Netsafe’s CEO is a member of Te Ati Awa iwi and has whakapapa links up and down the North Island to several other iwi including Tainui (Ngāti Maniapoto/ Waikato), Ngāti Ruaka (South Waikato), Kahungauru (Hawkes Bay), Nāti Ruanii (Taranaki), Ngāti Tama (North Taranaki), Ngāti Toa (Kawhia) as well as Ngāti Awa on the west and east coasts of the North Island of Aotearoa.

An organisation-wide journey

Since 2022, Netsafe has been building its internal staff cultural competency and continuing its outreach programmes.

Senior leadership

Amokura Panaho joined Netsafe mid 2022 as Poutaki Mātauranga Māori to support Netsafe’s mahi and help us to reflect and connect to Te Ao Māori.

Board leadership

In December 2023 Dr Warren Williams joined the Netsafe Board.

Māori voices

We have moved forward with our engagement and relationships with Māori following our first one-day hui with Māori to discuss online safety issues in July 2022.

This was followed in 2023 with more translated online safety resources and the launch of our first standalone Māori and online safety issues population report (you can read it here(https://cdn.sanity.io/files/8y8wsx0z/production/0f20fbb28da1e12002dcbac1677a7772b6cb3a33.pdf)).

Later in 2023, we hosted the indigenous voices session at our Trans Tasman Online Safety Conference in Christchurch.

In 2024 and 2025 we attended the Waitangi grounds and staffed a stand to take online safety enquires from the various members of the public in attendance.

National Iwi Chairs Forum

Since the beginning of 2024 we have made some significant strides forward in relationship with the National Iwi Chairs Forum. Netsafe staff have been appointed the technical leads to a new Pou Tangata for Online Safety.

Federation of Māori Authorities

We are partnering with the Federation of Māori Authorities to grow and work with Māori members and industry on online safety matters.

Equity in translations

We continue our commitment to investing in accessible harm prevention education materials for our most vulnerable communities. This includes investing in te reo Māori translations.

We’ve released further online safety education resources like Hector’s World online safety programme in English and Te Reo for tamariki aged 6-10 years (visit Hector's World YouTube(www.youtube.com/@HectorsWorld.) to view).

Online safety resources

We have published a six episode digital safety microlearn programme (see below) in Te Reo Māori, working with Tātahi Aho Rau (Core Education) and the Education and Innovation Partnership Trust.

We continue to lay solid foundations for our engagements and look to improve online safety outcomes for Māori.