Te Pāti Māori's Haka Punishment Labelled Extreme, But Labour Unlikely To Filibuster

Tuesday, 20 May 2025, 2:26 pm
Article: RNZ

Morning Report

Labour is unlikely to engage in filibustering to slow the progress of the debate into whether three Te Pāti Māori MPs should be suspended from Parliament after performing a haka during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill.

While the president of Te Pāti Māori says Parliament needs to recognise that society is evolving and tikanga Māori should be incorporated increasingly more into the House.

It has been recommended to the speaker of the House by the Privileges Committee that party Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngārewa-Packer, and MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, receive stand-downs of 21 and seven sitting days respectively. The debate is set to begin on Tuesday afternoon, and could go on well into the night - or even for weeks.

Unusually for New Zealand's Parliament, it will be a debate primed for filibuster.

Parliament's Speaker Gerry Brownlee set out the parameters last week, including that all 123 MPs will be allowed to speak - and if any amendment is put forward, they would then be allowed to speak again.

Should the debate continue long enough, the Budget would take precedence over it and Te Pāti Māori MPs would be able to participate - including having their votes against the Budget recorded.

Green Party musterer Ricardo Menéndez March said the proposed ban was unprecedented and of concern to all the party's MPs, so it was likely they would want to speak during the debate.

"It raises really really serious concerns about whether this new standard only applies when haka, waiata or tikanga Māori is used in the House."

The Greens were hoping to be able to speak with government MPs and ultimately be able to reduce the penalty that had been given, he said - but elected Te Pāti Māori MPs should be able to vote during the Budget procedures.

"We will be using the tools available to us to ensure that we can challenge this decision however we can."

Menéndez March said he would not accept "performative outrage" on the issue of filibustering from government MPs.

"They're the ones who have chosen to deal an unprecedented punishment and are unable to reflect on the issue that many have been raising about how tikanga can be better incorporated in the House."

Labour leader Chris Hipkins agreed the proposed punishment was disproportionate. Hipkins told Morning Report there should be some kind of sanction, but the penalty on the table was too extreme.

"Two other MPs have been sanctioned in this term of Parliament for bullying and intimidating behaviour - one National MP and one Green MP. Neither of them was suspended from the service of the House at all."

Te Pāti Māori had a right to protest against the Treaty Principles Bill, he said.

"Frankly if they'd done the haka 90 seconds later I would've supported it because the vote would've been declared, they would've been doing the haka after the vote as a form of protest to the law that Parliament had just passed."

Will MPs filibuster?

Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere told Morning Report although he anticipated that all Te Pāti Māori's MPs would speak during the debate, the party would not have the capacity to filibuster until Thursday's Budget because it only had six MPs.

"This is all dependent on others. So what we've got to do is just run the game as we see it and how we can deploy our resources as best as we can."

Hipkins said there was a difference between debate and filibuster.

"Filibuster means you're basically trying to use every technicality possible to drag something out, that's not something that I'm interested in doing. But I do think the fact that this very severe penalty is being imposed, despite the fact that the committee was advised against it, I think is something that Parliament will debate properly."

It was "pretty unlikely" that Labour MPs would engage in filibustering, he said.

"I have once again, this morning, reiterated to the government that if they are willing to compromise, they bring this back to something that is sensible and in line with Parliament's own rules and practices and our own recent history - then we will support this being a quick debate."

Tamihere said the proposed punishment was out of all proportion to what occurred, and the precedents were set in Westminster - not New Zealand.

"We are shaping our own destinies and in doing that we have to take into account the indigenous people's reo and tikanga."

Te Reo Māori was an official language in the House, he said.

"You can't apply our reo and pretend that you can take away our cultural entitlements that that brings and imports into the use of it."

The haka was not just something to be done for tourists, but was deeply embedded in Māori culture, he said, and it was time for parliamentary rules to evolve.

"In 1984 we used to lock people up for engaging in same-sex relationships, for goodness sakes - that was wrong. What we are doing today is wrong, it just needs to be changed and we have to evolve as a country.

"We are endeavouring to use the sources of law to evolve law to understand our rights and entitlements."

Parliament's public gallery was closed on Tuesday, but a protest was planned on the forecourt that afternoon.

Tamihere said Te Pāti Māori would have to deploy their resources as well as they could.

"I'm just hoping that we can keep order and discipline and not turn into civil disobedience, but I tell you what - you keep prodding the bear, something's going to happen."

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