In an unprecedented move, Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi were suspended from Parliament for 21 days, marking the harshest punishment ever imposed on MPs in New Zealand’s legislative history. Fellow MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke received a seven-day suspension.
The suspensions were approved by the House on Thursday, following recommendations from the Privileges Committee over the MPs’ performance of a haka during a November vote on the Treaty Principles Bill – a gesture deemed potentially “intimidating” to other lawmakers.
“No MP has ever been suspended for more than three days,” said House Speaker Gerry Brownlee, acknowledging the severity of the penalties and encouraging MPs to find a consensus before the vote.
Despite the suspensions, the co-leaders remain defiant. “You can bench my body from this House for 21 days, but you can never bench this movement,” Waititi said.
Ngarewa-Packer criticised the Privileges Committee’s process, calling it biased and citing the lack of opportunity to reduce the penalty through an apology – something the MPs say was never offered despite five appeals. Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP at 22, had previously apologised to the Speaker but was still sanctioned. “Is that the real intimidation here?” she asked during the debate. “Are our voices shaking the core foundation of this House?”
The sanctions followed a fiery parliamentary debate that lasted over three hours. Opposition parties attempted to vote down the suspensions but lacked the numbers. Labour MP Willie Jackson urged the trio to apologise, while Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters called them “a bunch of extremists,” later retracting a remark about referring to Waititi’s moko as “scribbles.”
The suspended MPs will now return to their electorates and continue to campaign against the coalition’s Regulatory Standards Bill.
“We must continue to hold on to the taonga of our ancestors – haka, moko, our reo – and not allow colonialist views to define us,” – said Waititi.
The outcome sets a new precedent for parliamentary discipline and raises questions about the limits of protest within the House.