A day after a nationwide hīkoi ended with tens of thousands marching to Parliament, it’s protest inside the debating chamber that’s prompting complaints.
The pictures of yesterday’s Hīkoi mō te Tiriti are now etched in the minds of the masses as a police-estimated crowd of 42,000 converged at Parliament. The hīkoi forced politicians to take note amidst a contentious debate over the proposed Treaty Principles Bill.
Now, all three Government coalition partners have written to Speaker Gerry Brownlee calling for tougher rules and penalties at Parliament after Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke ripped up a copy of the bill in the House last week.
A haka was then performed by Te Pāti Māori MPs, with other opposition parties joining in.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said the hīkoi was hugely significant for those who turned out.
“We are all now coming to the maturity of how our power is and how we can make influential changes in this house,” Waititi said.
But change may come sooner than expected as National, ACT, and NZ First look to support having tougher rules in Parliament and harsher penalties for those who break them.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it was important that standing orders in the House were maintained.
“What we saw on Thursday was unacceptable and we need to make sure that we can have debate on difficult subjects without people threatening other members inside a parliament,” Luxon said.
ACT leader and proponent of the bill David Seymour said he believed Te Pāti Māori members were “proud to undermine the mana of Parliament”.
“Getting out of your seat, obstructing people, preventing a vote from taking place – all of that is completely outside the orderly rules of Parliament,” Seymour said.
Waititi said it was the ACT leader who had crossed a line.
“David Seymour is a sooky baba and we’re seeing a lot of sooky baba behaviour in this house by David Seymour and the ACT Party and so they complain they play victim to a lot of things but in actual fact, they have inflicted a lot of harm,” Waititi said.
NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones said it was important to deter parliamentarians from bringing the House into disrepute.
“I don’t think it’s fair to say the House hates haka but when haka overwhelms voting and haka overwhelms the traditions and conventions of how you ought to be a parliamentarian during voting then I think haka should play second fiddle,” Jones said.
However, Te Pāti Māori leaders said the standing orders needed to reflect Māori culture, including haka as a means of debate. That view was echoed by Labour MP Peeni Henare.
“In the 11 years I’ve been in Parliament, this place has changed and I think that the rules need to consider just that changing face of our country,” Henare said.
Māori unity sparks call for a new national body
Meanwhile, a new national forum for Māori has been proposed from the calls of kotahitanga (unity). It is not a Parliament as such, but rather a collective of iwi and other Māori organisations that would respond to significant issues that may arise.
Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira chief executive Helmut Modlik spoke about the forum while addressing the crowd at the hīkoi this week.
“In that forum, the agreed scope of discussion, the kaupapa in question, would be deliberated on, a decision for action would be taken, and that would have the power of all those constituents behind it,” Modlik said.
Waititi said he supported the idea.
“We are not outnumbered, we are out-organised, and yesterday was about organising ourselves to come up with a kāwanatanga [governance] strategy,” Waititi said.
