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 don’t know anything about New Zealand, or Maori culture, or history, or parliamentary procedure, or the Treaty Principles Bill, or the hearings that led to this decision, or the Haka, or sociology, or anthropology, or race relations, or indigenous issues, but I think…
why don’t they just have everyone do their hakas at the start, like in the rugby?
fragile ass white men
It is still a British colony. They need to ditch the British king Charles as fast as possible.
Yeah, because that’s it…
“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!
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? 😅
Normal journalism requires backbone.
For anyone used to American news especially, no.
journalism has been weak for years, basically just a bullhorn for whoever is being interviewed in that moment
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.
That woman is amazing. What a response.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.”
‘If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.’
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.
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.
not appropriate to do in parliament.
Seems like it functioned exactly as intended. Power to the People.
Burning down the houses of parliament would also suspend voting on the bill. Do the ends justify the means?
The bill is now suspended; is the strategy to keep performing hakas to continuously silence members of parliament? The risk is that the next time, when the opposition wants to influence a bill, they also create a circus in the debate chamber. That is not a democratic process.
I acknowledge the downvotes without any discourse. If you’d like to see how this actually unfolded, here’s some context.
I’m curious to see how proponents of this behaviour would support the other side of the aisle perform similar theatrics.
Racist fucks
I know one person from New Zealand and she’s racist as fuck.
Cool. Thanks for the contribution to the discussion!
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?
Where are you from bud?
From the profile, Canadian. Oh the irony wanting to talk about the anti-indigenous practices
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.
I get chills every time I’ve watched this haka being performed. It is such a poweerful statement and this reaction is complete garbage. When the people of your country speak, surely government should be open to listening?
It made them uncomfortable, and whatever the law actually says, nothing is more illegal than making rich white people uncomfortable.
Just made it cooler. Didn’t even think that was possible
What about this? https://youtu.be/JddEXEJ8_S0
I love this guy! This is amazing! He should be there for when they return, make an entrance.
