Pakuranga-based ACT Party List MP Dr Parmjeet Parmar is calling out the “disrespectful” behaviour of Te Pāti Māori MPs in Parliament yesterday that included them performing a haka in front of ACT leader David Seymour.
The wild scenes led to Speaker Gerry Brownlee asking Labour MP Willie Jackson to leave the House after calling Seymour a liar and then refusing to withdraw and apologise for the comment.
The tension stemmed from the first reading in Parliament yesterday of the ACT Party’s bill on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.
As first-term Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke rose to cast her party’s votes against the bill, she tore up several pieces of paper and began a haka, which was joined by her co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngawera-Packer.
The three of them moved from the seats and performed their haka in front of Seymour and his fellow ACT MPs. Brownlee stood up and eventually suspended Parliament.
He later “named” Maipi-Clarke for her actions, which he labelled “appalling disrespectful conduct” and “grossly disorderly”.
The House then voted on Brownlee’s naming and suspension of Maipi-Clarke.
National, ACT and New Zealand First voted in favour, with Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori voting against.
Parmar told the Times the actions of Te Pāti Māori MPs in Parliament yesterday were “disrespectful and intimidating to say the least”.
“It also showed that those members have no respect for the House rules and toward the authority of the Speaker.
“I really would like to urge everyone to watch the clip of what happened, as that behaviour has reinforced why the Treaty Principles Bill must pass into law.
“We have race-based divisions proliferating in our systems and if this can happen in the House, it can happen at anybody’s workplace.
“These members are meant to be role models for the communities they represent, but what they displayed sends a very wrong message to young people who look up to them.
“Such behaviour showed that it is okay to not bother about procedures and protocols, okay to ignore the rights of others, and okay to intimidate anyone who disagrees with you.”
Prime Minister and Botany MP Christopher Luxon was not in Parliament today as he’s travelling to Peru to attend an APEC summit.
He has said the National Party will not support the Treaty principles bill beyond its first reading.
During the bill’s first reading debate yesterday, Waititi compared the ACT Party to the notorious US-based white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan.
“Te Tiriti o Waitangi is superior to any person and any law ever created in this House,” he said.
“It is the constitutional document by which this House and democracy is established here in Aotearoa.
“This Parliament means nothing in Aotearoa without Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
“The only reason this Parliament exists in Aotearoa is because our tīpuna consented to it.
“The only people who can make changes in an agreement are the parties who signed it.
“Now, tell me, David Seymour, which one of those are you? ACT are seen to be pulling the strings and running the country, like the KKK with a swipe card to the Beehive.
“And Luxon doesn’t even care. There’s a ghost in his chair.
“Everybody, every single one of the members sitting on that side of the House, have enabled this bill to be introduced to the House.
“You are complicit in the harm and the division that this presents and are complicit in the euthanising of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
“You have no right to touch something you have no mana over. Te Tiriti o Waitangi sits above you.
“You have no right to make VIP decisions from the cheap seats. How dare you threaten our mokopuna.
“Te Tiriti was an arrangement to unify. This bill serves to divide. Te iwi Māori don’t expect this House to liberate us.
“We must be our own liberation. We’ve been talking about Pākehā honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, expecting solutions to come from the very House that attacks us every single day.”
Regarding the actions of Te Pāti Māori yesterday, Pakuranga MP Simeon Brown says: “As MPs we are all expected to uphold certain standards of behaviour in the House.
“It’s a shame those standards weren’t met this week but those are matters for the Speaker.”
