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.
Settler colonial government doing what settler colonial governments do.
I support the suspensions. If all the other members abide by the same rules except for these ones then it makes sense reprimand them for disrupting the duties of parliament. These lawmakers were elected to be the voice of the people they represent. If they’re not using their voice to explain why they oppose the bill or what their proposed alternatives are then they’re not doing their job. Screaming and tearing up papers is just annoying and wasting everyone’s time.
You are being downvoted because, whether you realize it or not, what you wrote is extremely racist.
These are Maori. It’s their land and their traditions, and they are being attacked for both by white, authoritarian colonists. It’s unacceptable.
These lawmakers were elected to be the voice of the people they represent.
https://www.dw.com/en/new-zealand-42000-demonstrate-support-for-maori-rights/a-70816454
New Zealand: 42,000 demonstrate support for Maori rights
Thousands turned out despite the bill having little chance of becoming law, saying it was important to show the extent of dissent
but feel free to keep jerkin it to ‘norms and civility’, i suppose
fragile ass white men
It is still a British colony. They need to ditch the British king Charles as fast as possible.
‘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?
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.
Where are you from bud?
Tell us you’re racist without saying that you’re racist.
I dunno. This looks like signing a legal document that confirms they’re racist.
What!? But that haka was awesome! How can you not enjoy that?
There are many enjoyable things that are not appropriate to do in parliament.
While I personally don’t see how performing haka is constructive to include in a debate about the bill, I think it’s unrelated to the discussion about what is or is not appropriate in the debating chamber.
Here is a metal version of her really impressive protest. How is this not awesome?
Momentarily I thought maybe that’s why my old boss thought I was mellow. But just remembered, the guy was Australian! Its a different musical system over there.
OMG that was powerful. I literally am crying right now. How awesome. And often awesome is overused. But, that was awesome.
Awesome!
Made my day.
As an enjoyer of metal, top song! Good on Hana-Rawhiti for protesting.
Brits oppressing natives
A tale as old as tea
“The only reason God created the natives was for us to have a bit of sport, old chap”
“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!
That woman is amazing. What a response.
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? 😅
Speaking truth when it could get your life ruined or sometimes even taken by the wicked and powerful will always be an act of bravery.
But I agree with you as well. It’s terrifying to be surprised when journalists speak the truth, and to see the suppression of truth become “normal” before our very eyes.
It’s normal for DW or any other global news service, since the added historical context is very important for their worldwide audience.
For anyone used to American news especially, no.
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.
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
The ones that try the “it was a declaration of war!!” angle crack me tf up. What do they think buttfucking a treaty is?
I mean, a surprise pray-in also would have gone over poorly.
Doubt
New Zealand is over 50% atheist. “Pray ins” are not a thing there. It would be political suicide.
Its Parliament is Westminster system.
IIRC, people get in trouble for that in the US. This is New Zealand, where the standards of decorum are much higher and evangelical nonsense is much weaker.
I’d love to see that be the case
Lol, it appears protests happen during American proceedings so much that there’s no actual list. Pray-ins are an established tactic, though, and the penalties are given out on a pretty much production-line basis, so I doubt any exception is made. But, I can’t find a concrete example, sorry.
They’ve recently established in the Supreme Court that pray ins are kosher
Interesting! Do you have a link? My search is returning a bunch of stuff about praying for the supreme court or the supreme court on prayer in local council meeting openings.
And, in 2025, the Pākehā keep deciding what happens to indigenous land and indigenous resources, without letting Maori have any voice in it. Toitū te Tiriti!
You expected more? She knew it was going to happen, she did it specifically so it would happen and history won’t look fondly in their bullshit suspension.
Well that sounds like some quality racism over there.
God people are stupid and one sided on this
They were suspended for disrupting the democratic vote process.
It’s not about the haka. Its about a time and a place for democratic voting policy. Democracy is paramount it’s not about any one person, people or groups of people trying to intimate the vote. That happens outside. No one is complaining about doing the haka for or against anything at any other time.
But when it cones to voting you got to behave.
It is highly disorderly for members to interrupt a vote while it is being conducted. The right to cast one’s vote without impediment goes to the heart of being a member of Parliament. The threshold at which an interjection during a vote may be considered a contempt is where the interruption could be considered intimidatory
Thats the wording of the report. But Lemmy is already on their wokey high horse. Minorities can do no wrong.
The fact of the matter is intimidating voting process is not okay. You are stopping democracy. If a white people acted that way there would be no outcry. The outcry is only about people not being given special treatment for being Maori, if I white person done it the result would have been fine and everyone here would say it’s justified. It sounds like everyone here is racist but NZ actually made a decision not based on race.
Did you miss the part about how disproportional the punishment was compared to any other given in the past?
Yeah. This is the contentious part. Before Thursday, the longest suspension was for three days.
Perhaps consider watching the recording or reading what actually happened before typing a massive rant claiming others are wrong?
Except they didn’t interrupt voting. Go and watch the video, Maipi-Clarke clearly gives TPMs vote before the haka started. The fact that the report claims they interrupted voting clearly shows how bullshit the process was.
I think it’s you who are on your high horse. Claiming there needs to be some kind of “decorum” over a bill designed to strip rights from Maori is utter bullshit and frankly racist.
If a white people… Dog-the article is literally that this is a greater than normal punishment.
there’s a difference between being technically right and doing the right thing
Are you aware they went into this knowing the consequences? This is why we even know what happened, because it was a protest with real world consequences.
This is what makes what they did so powerful.
Any other “race” would face similar consequences.
Racism isn’t dictating every decision. So tired of that take.
Yeah, knowing how the bigots will react makes them jot bigots.
Like how sundown towns arent racist.
I don’t see why people dont understand this.
Do you realize that half the rules and traditions of parliament are based on Christianity and western colonial culture? How come they’re not all being punished for following their cultural traditions? Why are only the indigenous cultural traditions “disruptive”? Why aren’t you allowed to be disruptive when you’ve been colonized, your people murdered and raped, your race subjugated and your traditions silenced? Sounds like you’re on the side of the status quo, even if the status quo is a bunch of colonial racists
Im indigenous from Central America, you’re a fool if you don’t realize that every interaction the governments have with indigenous communities are painted with a racist brush. All deal begin from a position where the indigenous are looked down on as the lesser. Every time.
Do you believe that every party in every parliament in the world should be able to just stop parliament from working instead of trying to actually vote for laws/bills the way they think is right because they are sure that they are right and their voice aren’t being heard (even if they are minority in the said parliament or don’t have quorum)?
It was a performance point of which was disruption of parliament session, which was achieved. (I have 0 stakes in this, NZ might as well be in another universe)
But fillerbusters are appropriate process of disturbing voting that are not a treats to democracy, right?
There is more to voting than casting a vote.
These people are underrepresented and standing up for their constituents, suspend them so they can stop doing that!
What percentage of parliament should they hold?
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Protest MUST disrupt something or it will be ignored. That’s why riots and boycotts get shit done while normal protests fizzle out.
Every major social policy change I’m aware of was accompanied by riots.
Disrupting parliament is far less violent than a riot yet still makes the point effectively.
Thats okay, but disruption has consequences, so being banned or fined or whatever just happens
Before Thursday, the longest suspension was for three days.
“Animal noises“… Damn that’s some racist shit
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I don’t understand; how is that relevant in any way to this discussion about the haka? Please explain specifically.
…animal noises?
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How disgustingly pitiful a position, to be so categorically incapable of understanding cultures other than your own, that you can only imagine comparing them to animals. How outdated you must feel. I suppose we should expect nothing less from someone with such a cringe-inducing self-concept that they literally call themselves a ‘warrior of kek’. I gag in sorrow at your impotence and turpitude. Perhaps it would be better if you stopped your own ‘mooing’, you sad, lost child.
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Sorry bud, comparing the haka to animal noises is not “tone”, so fuck off with the disingenuous bullshit.
What does protest mean to you?
Found the racist
edit: shame on the mods for removing the above comment. Don’t hide things like this, or nothing will change.
I see no one has ever rold you the anecdote about how a bar turns into a nazi bar.
If they are underrepresented, why other Maori don’t vote for their party? Is there some kind of voter suppression scheme going on? If there is that’s probably was a right move that can move this problem out of unspoken/shadow consensus, if there isn’t then it’s just one party disrupting parliament because they can’t get what they want.
Even if all Maori voted for them, they only would have 19%. That means they would still not be able to have political power.
The system is rigged, giving the huge number of colonizers an advantage over the native population. Australia has a similar problem.
As far as I can see 26% of New Zealand’s politicians identify as Maori, including the man who was Deputy Prime Minister during this haka.
Indigenous people are not monolithic.
New Zealand also has a carve out of Maori seats which is meaningful because it has proportional representation. This is what Australia could have eventually done with Indigenous Voice but there is no political appetite for it in Australia, plus the Aboriginal and Torres Straits people make up a far smaller percentage.
Regretfully, democracy can be viewed as a dictature of majority over minority. I don’t think that there can be any clear cut answer to it. As for colonizers vs colonized, how far back do you consider this should go? As in any person of european descent forever in the future will be considered colonizer instead of people born on this land?
A good democracy has checks and balances to protect minorities from mob rule /tyrrany of the majority.
That is actually what this protest is about - the ruling party wants to remove some of those legal safeguards.
New Zealand’s political system has proportional representation. Maori will most likely be in partial control after their next election.
I think as long as the colonizers maintain an economically superior position, and keep the political power, there can be no real integration.
democracy can be viewed as a dictatorship of the majority
No. If you had even the most basic theoretical background on the subject you’d know how wrong this statement is. Yet people like you dangerously believe this surface level third grade understanding of democratic systems somehow makes them an expert.
This is an extremely vague statement that focuses on me instead of showing me and people like me where exactly we are wrong. Majority rule absolutely is common denominator in most democratic systems, so show me how it isn’t.
Thats not true at all. 19% is plenty of political power. You dont need 50% of the votes to get political power in our system. If you have 1 seat you have political power.
If you have 1 seat you have political power.
Well, until you conveniently get the longest suspension in history right as parliament is about to decide the budget, anyway.
Maori people arent only a single party. This is 3 MPs from a single party being temp suspended. Maori are 27% of parliament and have MPs in all majority parties. They will still be represented.
I think the issue is more that they went from a 3 day suspension being the record high for disruptive behavior to suddenly 21 for these minority members.
A lawmaker during the arguments said that they had previously given zero suspension to a fistfight, someone driving their truck onto the buildings steps in protest, another member crossing the floor to bump another members desk. But this dance is 21 days.
This does look like they are specifically singled out, true.
Do you believe that every party in every parliament in the world should be able to just stop parliament from working instead of trying to actually vote for laws/bills
Plenty of parliamentarians getting kicked out of western parliaments for wearing t-shirts with slogans, holding up signs, suchlike. Suspensions generally are extraordinarily short and little more than “ok we’ll give you some time to change into respectable attire”. Also make a scene? Add a day. Make them watch from the visitor’s benches. Pay attention they don’t miss (relevant) votes.
That would have been the proper reaction: The proper way to handle ritual stunts (and they’re a ritual, also the t-shirt thing) is with ritual slaps on the wrist.
The NZ reaction? They’re suspending parliamentarians for unprecedented amounts of time, and on top of that while the budget is being passed. That is, they’re fucking with the distribution of votes, which is fucking with the foundations of democracy. That is, for a parliament, nothing less than a declaration of bankruptcy.
Do you believe that every party in every parliament in the world should be able to just stop parliament from working instead of trying to actually vote for laws/bills the way they think is right because they are sure that they are right and their voice aren’t being heard (even if they are minority in the said parliament or don’t have quorum)?
My legislative body has the filibuster and I think it has a useful function, so yes!
BTW, there’s no good reason whatsoever the NZ parliament couldn’t have resumed business after the haka. None at all.
The only reason they didn’t was because the leadership decided to feign performative fear and end the session in order to manufacture an excuse to punish the native legislators and exclude them from influencing the budget.
So don’t comment with ignorant babble then.
Please, educate me what did I get wrong from reading the article? Or was your comment just for public shaming?
Either you’re a shill, a turfer, or a moron, or maybe you have legit said something stupid and dont understand why.
I dont know where you are from, or what culture you are but, what would you propose to do to indicate that something is unacceptable, after having stated that many many times, and the people who have traditionally murdered your people for being "savages"opt to ignore you many times, and are the people that hold power? Just say “this is unacceptable” and take the loss, while just allowing your constituents to get fucked?
I do not disagree with their action, in contrary it’s refreshing to see politician with consciense that try to actually do what they are hired to do. Question is - what now? If other parties would do the same and just stop session without any reprecussion (because they hold majority, or due to other reasons).
Tap for spoiler
Please stop with personal attacks.
You sound like Hillary Clinton talking about being pragmatic (while completely missing the point.) Like people who complain about protesters blocking roads because it inconveniences their commute. Maybe that’s your intent or maybe you don’t understand that civility can be a form of oppression?
What’s a filibuster?
Thank you, I’ve learned a new english word today. 😺
Conceptually it looks like a flaw in the system and in my opinion is undesirable, do you disagree?
Did that really go right over your head? Unbelievable!
A tactic used when the person speaking has been recognized to speak according to the rules of the legislature. I don’t really see why that’s relevant here though?
It was rhetorical but go on queen.
Good lord dot world is filled with the most pathetic fucking losers imaginable
Hey! He’s from .cafe, not .world.
At least your instance is shutting down.
Ohhh nooo not “my instance” lol you dork
My comment has more bite than yours about .world, nerd.
K
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Elaborate, what exactly do you think is wrong with my post?
No, see, it should be allowed when we agree with the people making the disruption. Otherwise absolutely not!
“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.
It’s scary now that doing a racism is considered a little more uncouth
Doing a racism is the well-known cultural tradition of the white people and our ancestors.
Weird thing for people to downvote. Acknowledging a painful truth ≠ endorsing it.
I think it is still pretty painful to acknowledge for a lot of people, honestly, so it’s not surprising. At least they’re only downvoting and not jumping into the usual rounds of whataboutism. The goal is to learn from history, not to justify anything that is done or make anyone feel bad, but I’m also not going to apologize for it if it does make people feel bad. To those downvoters: If it makes you feel bad, you know what will make you feel better about it? Do something to make things better. I’m not saying you have to, I’m just saying it might make you feel better about acknowledging the history. Your call.
I bet they were, right up until they killed everyone.
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
Something something “when you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
Racist fucks
