A group of New Zealand MPs broke into a spirited haka in the country’s parliament this week, interrupting a vote on a controversial bill in spectacular fashion.
The Treaty Principles Bill, brought by ACT leader David Seymour, seeks to impose a new interpretation of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (also known as Te Tiriti), a treaty between Māori chiefs and the British crown that is considered one of the founding documents of New Zealand.
Advocates for the new bill claim it offers equality to all New Zealand citizens and will remove “privileged” treatment for Māori, while opponents say the bill is either too simplistic, or that it further entrenches social barriers and prejudice that Māori face.
The debate over the bill in parliament erupted yesterday afternoon when Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke ripped up a copy of the Treaty Principles Bill, and MPs and the public stood to perform the haka Ka Mate.
She was joined by opposition MPs and members of the public gallery, bringing parliament to a halt.
It was “grossly disorderly”, the Speaker of Parliament, Gerry Brownlee later said. He took the very rare step of “naming” Maipi-Clarke and calling for the House to judge her conduct.
The coalition parties – National, ACT and NZ First – voted with the Speaker to suspend Maipi-Clarke. That meant she was unable to vote against the bill.
Brownlee ordered security clear the public gallery, and he briefly suspended parliament as a result of the haka.
Alongside Maipi-Clarke, Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi went face-to-face with David Seymour, whose bill it is, as they performed the Ngāti Toa haka.
When it came time for the Treaty Principles Bill to be voted on, the same parties voted in favour. Their support would send the bill to a select committee, which was expected to take six months to consider it.
Labour Māori development spokesperson Willie Jackson called that “a six month hate tour”.
Jackson was then kicked out of the House himself, after refusing to apologise to Seymour for calling the associate justice minister a “liar”.
Jackson said he had a “message” for Seymour, given to him by people who were at the hīkoi mō te Tiriti in Auckland.
“To you, David Seymour: you fuel hatred and misinformation in this country, you bring out the worst in New Zealanders, you should be ashamed of yourself, and you are a liar,” Jackson said in Parliament.
He then refused to withdraw his comment. “I can’t do that,” he told Brownlee, adding: “That’s a message from the hīkoi.” He was then booted from the House.
Seymour was under pressure through the debate and was the only MP to speak in favour of the bill. Coalition partners from National and NZ First said they did not like the bill, but would keep to the coalition agreement and support it at first reading.
He argued the bill would give “tino rangatiratanga” (broadly, sovereignty or self-determination) to everyone.
He rejected criticism that he was stirring racial division.
“That is not true. My mission is to empower every person,” Seymour replied.
Speaking after the debate, he said the Opposition and coalition MPs had not raised any strong argument against the bill.
“I heard all sorts of name-calling, I heard hysteria, I saw haka, but I didn’t hear any arguments,” he said.
He said he had never before seen a Speaker eject the entire public gallery, during his decade as an MP.
Long-serving MPs, who have been in Parliament for decades, couldn’t recall a moment like this. They called it an “unprecedented” day for the House.
“We respect their right to have debate according to the rules of Parliament. They have to reciprocate. Otherwise it doesn’t work,” Seymour said.
“The idea that some people have a greater right to obstruct other people’s right to be represented. That’s a lot about what this bill is about, the idea that we should each have equal rights.”
Tensions between ACT and Te Pāti Māori were at boiling point.
During the debate, Ngarewa-Packer and ACT’s Nicole McKee were shouting at each other across the aisle. At one point, Seymour pulled McKee back – urging her to step away from the argument.
During Waititi’s speech, he compared the ACT Party to the Ku Klux Klan.
He said Parliament had no right to redefine the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, arguing that it derived its power from Te Tiriti.
“This Parliament means nothing in Aotearoa without Te Tiriti o Waitangi,” he said.
He said only the signatories of the Treaty, being the monarch and the rangatira of hapū of Aotearoa, had the power to change Te Tiriti.
So he asked, “Tell me David Seymour, which one of those are you?”
He told coalition MPs they were “complicit in harm” which he said would be caused by the Treaty Principles Bill. That bill, he said, was “euthanising Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
Given National said it did not support the bill, Waititi said: “ACT are seen to be pulling the strings and running the country like the KKK.”
Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick said the bill was designed to oppress Māori.
“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. That is what is behind this bill,” she said.
Earlier on Thursday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon spoke against the bill. Holding a press conference with reporters before departing New Zealand, he called the bill “divisive” and said it was a distraction.
He said the bill over-simplified a complex issue.
“You do not go negate, with a single stroke of a pen, 184 years of debate and discussion, with a bill that I think is very simplistic,” he said.
The Treaty Principles Bill was expected to return to the debating chamber in the first half of next year.