The woman who was sacked from the Corrections Department for refusing to move to the back of a powhiri is seeking more than $100,000 in compensation.

Former probation officer Josie Bullock - who forced the department to change its Maori cultural practices policy - has taken her fight to the Human Rights Review Tribunal, where her case will be heard next week.

Ms Bullock, now working as a bus driver, said she had taken the case herself because she could not afford lawyers. She was hopeful her arguments would win out.

"They've got to take my side, because if you can say that a woman can't sit at the front of a government department, and a man can ... then that's plain and simple sexism."

She was asking for $116,344 - comprising two years' salary ($98,344), as well as $10,000 for humiliation and $8000 for missing promotion possibilities.

The powhiri incident was not a case of two world views coming into conflict but rather excessive political correctness, she said.

"What are you going to do? Bring back slavery, utu and cannibalism and say: `Well, these are all cultural things so we've got to go along with it'? It's just stupidity to me, to say that some cultural matter is going to take precedence over a basic human right."

After going to the Human Rights Commission and through mediation with Corrections that was a "total waste of time", she was wary of arbitration bodies.

"I think it's been a ridiculously long-winded process."

The Office of Human Rights Proceedings, which takes cases on behalf of members of the public, had also refused to give her aid.

"I have to say they've taken the most ridiculous, piffling, nutty cases and yet they wouldn't take mine."

The powhiri at the heart of the dispute was held in December 2004, as a farewell to some prisoners.

Ms Bullock refused to sit behind the men, earning her a formal warning.

She was sacked in October 2005 after she spoke out.

She stood for Wellington City Council this year, finishing sixth out of seven places in the Eastern ward.

A Corrections Department spokeswoman refused to comment on the case, saying it would be inappropriate before the tribunal's findings were issued.