Three indigenous Māori MPs were suspended from New Zealand’s parliament for performing Māori haka in protest against a proposed law in 2024.
22-year-old Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke was banned for 7 days, while her party’s co-leaders, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, were barred for 21 days.
This is the longest ban for a lawmaker from New Zealand’s Parliament.
The indigenous MPs were protesting against the Treaty Principles Bill, which sought to redefine the principles of New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi.
The bill was widely criticised for potentially undermining Māori rights, and was eventually voted down 112 to 11 in April.
Maipi-Clarke called suspension an attempt to silence the Māori people, stating that they would not succumb to this silence.
She also clarified that an apology was issued for any disruptions caused in parliamentary proceedings at the time of the vote.
During this suspension, the MPs will neither receive salaries nor possess the right to vote in parliament.
New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister Winston Peters earlier mocked Waititi for his traditional full-face Maori tattoo. “The Maori Party are a bunch of extremists, and middle New Zealand and the Maori world has had enough of them,” said Peters, who is also Maori.
Inside and outside parliament, the haka has increasingly been welcomed as an important part of New Zealand life.
The sacred chant can be a challenge to the viewer but is not violent.
In footage widely shared around the world, she rose to her feet, ripped up the bill and started belting out the strains of a protest haka.
She was joined by Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer, who strode on to the chamber floor chanting the Ka Mate haka famously performed by the country's All Blacks rugby team.
Ngarewa-Packer was also accused of pointing her fingers in the shape of a gun at the leader of the right-wing ACT Party, David Seymour, who had proposed the bill.
The trio were hauled before parliament's powerful Privileges Committee, but refused to take part in the hearing.
Supported by New Zealand's three governing coalition parties, the bans were voted on and accepted Thursday.
The Treaty Principles Bill sought to reinterpret New Zealand's founding document, signed between Maori chiefs and British representatives in 1840.
Many critics saw the bill as an attempt to wind back the special rights given to the country's 900,000-strong Maori population.
(With inputs from AFP)
