'Please Mr Frodo, is this New Zealand? Or Australia?'... 'No Sam, it's Middle-earth.'

The exploitation of JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth by Tourism New Zealand following the success of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and the release of the first part of The Hobbit has been met with accusations of cultural racism by Maori, misrepresentation by Pakeha and re-appropriation by independent British filmmakers, writes Michael Organ.