A snag with cultural differences is working out if you are being welcomed or victimised

"No, I haven't forgotten my manaakitanga - I'm not Maori and this is a stick-up."

It’s heartening to see one bit of Maoridom trying to compensate for some mischief and harm that’s been done by another bit.

According to the NZPA, Maori tourism operators have pitched in to help British tourists who lost cash and passports in a robbery in Whangarei. Good on them.

The thieves grabbed a bag containing “a large sum of cash” and passports at Whangarei Falls, just north of Whangarei on February 3.

Oops. Let’s stick the word “allegedly” into the previous sentence, because so far as is Alf is aware, whoever did what to whom has yet to be sorted out in the courts.

But here’s something we might muse on: the TVNZ report of the robbery said the visitors had been in the country only a week when they were robbed.

So how long should they have been here, to become eligible for an encounter with our indigenous robbers?