A New Zealand government committee has recommended that three Indigenous legislators be temporarily suspended from parliament for performing a protest haka last year.
The Privileges Committee recommended on Wednesday evening that Te Pati Maori party co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi be suspended for 21 days.
It was also recommended that representative Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, 22, New Zealand’s youngest legislator, be suspended for seven days for acting “in a manner that could have the effect of intimidating a member of the House”.
But, according to the committee report, Maipi-Clarke was given a shorter sanction because she had written a letter of “contrition” to the parliament.
While both haka and Maori ceremonial dance and song are not uncommon in parliament, members were aware that permission was needed from the speaker beforehand, the report said.
In November, Maipi-Clarke derailed parliament when she ripped a copy of a contentious race relations bill with a protest haka. Party co-leaders Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer joined her and strode to the chamber floor.
The Maori party were protesting against the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, which sought to redefine New Zealand’s founding document, the 1840 pact between the British Crown and Indigenous Maori leaders signed during New Zealand’s colonisation.
Critics of the bill saw it as an attempt to reverse the special rights given to the country’s Maori population.
Last month, the bill was resoundingly voted down.
But the Maori party has called the recommendation the harshest penalty handed out in the country’s parliament, with three days being the longest that a legislator has been banned from the House.
“When tangata whenua [Indigenous people] resist, colonial powers reach for the maximum penalty,” the party said, adding, “This is a warning shot to all of us to fall in line.”
However, Judith Collins, a ruling legislator who heads the Privileges Committee and serves as attorney general, said it was highly disorderly for members to interrupt a vote while it was being conducted.
“The right to cast one’s vote without impediment goes to the heart of being a member of parliament. It is not acceptable to physically approach another member on the floor of the debating chamber,” Collins told a news conference on Wednesday.
Parliament is set to vote on the suspension on Tuesday, and it is expected to pass with the support of the ruling conservative coalition.
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