Just a brief comment on this: The kaupapas of both festival and exhibition were developed in close consultation with Maori and Pacific Island communities both from New Zealand and the UK.
There are probably as many different opinions on this form of ‘repatriation’ as there are Maori, but you’ll find that few would disagree on the importance of performative and spiritual uses of taonga, as opposed to their mere display as ‘artefacts’ in a European sense.
The idea of a ‘spiritual revitalisation’ was not developed in isolation by us as the project organisers, but emerged directly from our conversations with artists and community leaders.

The issue is of course far more complex than a newspaper article allows for, so: don’t believe everything you read in the papers – particularly not if it’s a direct quotation, as above ;-)