The New Zealand Parliament has voted to impose record suspensions on three lawmakers who did a Maori haka as a protest. The incident took place last November during a debate on a law on Indigenous rights.
New Zealand’s parliament on Thursday agreed to lengthy suspensions for three lawmakers who disrupted the reading of a controversial bill last year by performing a haka, a traditional Maori dance.
Two parliamentarians — Te Pati Maori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi — were suspended for 21 days and one — Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, from the same party — for seven days.
Before now, the longest suspension of a parliamentarian in New Zealand was three days.
“Are our voices too loud for this house? Is that the reason why we are being silenced? Are our voices shaking the core foundation of this house? The house we had no voice in building …We will never be silenced and we will never be lost,” she said.
Fucking powerful.
Despite the signing of the treaty in 1840, there were many bloody conflicts between the colonial government and Maori tribes in ensuing years, resulting in the confiscation of large amounts of Maori land. Tensions remain to this day between New Zealand’s Indigenous people and the descendants of the Europeans who colonized their country.
Hey nice, journalism with a backbone!
It feels so weird, and a little scary, to see people praising brave journalism when they’re basically just staying historical facts… It’s that not normal journalism? 😅
journalism has been weak for years, basically just a bullhorn for whoever is being interviewed in that moment
Normal journalism requires backbone.
Hey nice, journalism with a backbone!
If only more news orgs in America could import that.
But then, it would probably be blocked by TACO tariffs.
“a manner that could have the effect of intimidating a member of the house.”
Oh go fuck yourself. Can the haka be intimidating as hell? Oh god yes. But you should also be able to recognize the difference between active intimidation and a powerful protest. Especially when YOUR COUNTRY IS KNOWN FOR IT.
Weirdly their ancestors weren’t intimidated when it came to colonizing and stealing their land.
They saw it as a threat because they’re threatening the natives way of life and they’re scared of being in the shoes of the oppressed
I can probably count a million little “traditions” that parliament follows that are based on Christianity and western colonial culture. But a haka is unacceptable
Racist fucks
fragile ass white men
It is still a British colony. They need to ditch the British king Charles as fast as possible.
Yeah, because that’s it…
What else would it be at this point?
Same as always, power.
I get chills every time I’ve watched this haka being performed. It is such a poweerful statement and this reaction is complete garbage. When the people of your country speak, surely government should be open to listening?
It made them uncomfortable, and whatever the law actually says, nothing is more illegal than making rich white people uncomfortable.
Just made it cooler. Didn’t even think that was possible
What about this? https://youtu.be/JddEXEJ8_S0
I love this guy! This is amazing! He should be there for when they return, make an entrance.
‘If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.’
Shame. Wtf is wrong with your shitty shitty politics New Zealand?!!?! (Not an American, so I can call out anti-Indigenous politics)
Not an American, so I can call out anti-Indigenous politics
Any decent human being can and should call out anti-Indigenous politics, no matter their nationality.
Yes, but I just don’t see anything resembling reconciliation happening in the US vis-a-vis Indigenous peoples there. Like, in the US there doesn’t appear to be any reconciliation, not even symbolic gestures like land acknowledgements at events, or meaningful involvement of Indigenous people in settler politics. Are any elected officials in the US also Indigenous, like - at all?
Your logic doesn’t make sense to me, you’re saying people in the US cannot spot and criticize injustices happening in other places because those same injustices are happening in their home country? What about the people who do criticize them locally? Or the natives who are affected by them locally?
Where are you from bud?
From the profile, Canadian. Oh the irony wanting to talk about the anti-indigenous practices
How is that relevant to who can and can’t discuss Indigenous rights though? Surely the more people in the world who care about Indigenous rights, the better.
To answer your question the US has about 5 out of 435 members, Canada has about 12 out of 343 members. New Zealand has about 33 out of 123 members which is obviously a much larger proportion of their total.
I will never understand why so many Canadians and Americans seem so unaware of one anothers’ Indigenous rights movements. You are neighbouring countries and some of your Indigenous nations are cross-border.
I don’t know anything about New Zealand, or Maori culture, or history, or parliamentary procedure, or the Treaty Principles Bill, or the hearings that led to this decision, or the Haka, or sociology, or anthropology, or race relations, or indigenous issues, but I think…
why don’t they just have everyone do their hakas at the start, like in the rugby?
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As someone who is half-Maori this just embarrasses me. I don’t have a problem with people celebrating their heritage and culture just do it in a more appropriate time and place. I wouldn’t have a problem with Irish people celebrating the Saint Patrick’s Day just as long as they don’t do it during a meeting at parliament.
Seems like as valid a way to protest vile revisionism and cowardly pandering to a foreign monarch.
No it isn’t. If this was on the street then it would be fine but this was a place of law and order where if you don’t like something you talk about it like an adult. It was totally unprofessional and performative.
this was a place of law and order
Clearly not, given what was being proposed. This was a legislative attempt to reneg on existing agreements between the Maori People and the British State. It was wildly illegal and provoked an appropriately outraged response.
What the legislators were protesting was the legislative equivalent of a mugging. The exact opposite of law and order. ACT New Zealand’s delegates are lucky they got out of there with a bit of dancing. In other countries, that kind of blatant criminality is a hanging offense.
Governments change agreements all the time. There is nothing illegal or unlawful about that. Whether you agree with it or not isn’t the point. Just because somebody does something you disagree with doesn’t give you the right to throw a fit about it.
I’m eager to see how this community will support the conservatives when they loudly disrupt the debate chamber and silence the Maori members of parliament, now the precedent has been set that this is acceptable behavior.
This comment is unrelated to my position. (Which, for what it’s worth, is in favor of the Maori.)
Where i want congress to pick up the old tradition of thowimg raw chicken at each other
I’m missing out on a lot of context here.
At keast once lawmakers started throwing raw chicken meat at each otger during a session to protest sone tarrif.
Unpopular opinion but interruption is interruption no matter the form. I do agree with the native protest here but I wouldn’t read into this ruling too much as any governing body would take this position. Weak governing rule set creates these loopholes like the American filibuster which imo is a bug not a feature.
I mean, personally I don’t really agree with people here saying this punishment is racism.
For me this falls into the same category as walking up to other members of parliament and yelling loudly at them, or breakdancing, or doing anything that disrupts the parliamentary process. I don’t think making exceptions for a Haka is reasonable. Parliament has these rules to ensure the room stays calm, collected and can do its work. The Labour party too believes some punishment is appropriate, though they suggested a censure instead.
Most articles refer to a previous suspension of 3 days, but I can’t find what that was for. I can’t judge if the severity of the punishment is therefore in line with precedent.
It should be mentioned, the bill they protested ultimately did not end up passing.
This comment right here is the essence of liberal thought
B…but much process! B…b…but muh decorum!!! Please abide the laws we set while we fuck you in the ass!!!
No honey, fuck you and your procedure. Instead of hiding behind a veneer of professionalism fuck off and fix the issue.
Liberals WILL always silence the downtrodden when they no longer play by their rules.
But that same procedure ended up defeating the bill? I’m not sure the protest really achieved much.
You can fight a bill like this in a 100 ways within parliamentary procedure. If they had announced the protest it would be allowed too I believe.
Protest is for when the procedure fails. But it worked just fine here.
Also, arguments about the protest aside, my main point was that it’s not racist to punish an unannounced disruptive protest, just because that protest happened to be a Haka.
disrupts the parliamentary process
That’s the entire point of a PROTEST though…
Yeah but why bother? That same parliamentary process defeated the bill?
Would it have defeated it if they hadn’t performed their protest and maybe made a few other legislators rethink how unpopular of a bill it was? If they hadn’t protested, would legislative complacency just allowed the bill to pass unremarked on.
The purpose of a protest is to draw attention to something so that other that have the power to do something about it might do something about it.
I’m not saying the bill failed specifically because of the protest, but to think the bill was guaranteed to have failed anyway even without it is naive thinking.
That’s all conjecture. I’m not sure lawmakers would be particularly swayed by the Haka, particularly not the proponents of the bill (who probably care even less about it).
Even then, an impassioned speech tends to be far more effective in parliament than disruptive protests (historically speaking).
The bill was already fairly controversial, so it probably wouldn’t have passed through legislative apathy.
The world doesn’t run on “probably”. Nothing ever gets accomplished by assuming “it’ll probably happen anyway.”
