NZ set to suspend Maori lawmakers over protest haka
WELLINGTON
This frame grab taken from a New Zealand Parliament TV feed dated November 14, 2024 and released via AFPTV on November 15 shows Maori lawmakers performing the Haka, a traditional ceremonial dance, disrupting parliament in a protest against a bill that aims to reinterpret a centuries-old document seen as New Zealand's founding treaty with its Indigenous people.
Indigenous Maori lawmakers have decried a push to temporarily banish them from New Zealand's parliament, after disrupting the reading of a contentious race relations bill with a protest haka.
Maori Party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, 22, derailed parliament in November when she ripped a copy of the proposed laws in half while performing a spirited traditional chant.
She was joined by party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who strode on to the chamber floor chanting the Ka Mate haka famously performed by the country's All Blacks rugby team.
A parliamentary committee yesterday recommended suspending Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer for three weeks, and Maipi-Clarke for seven days.
The Maori Party said it was one of the harshest punishments ever doled out in New Zealand's parliament.
"When tangata whenua resist, colonial powers reach for the maximum penalty," the party said in a statement, using a phrase for Maori people.
"This is a warning shot to all of us to fall in line."
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters described the trio as "out-of-control MPs who flout the rules and intimidate others with outrageous hakas."
Parliament will vote on the suspension next week, although it is widely expected to pass.
