New Zealand to suspend Maori lawmakers for protest haka

SYDNEY: Indigenous Maori lawmakers have rejected a push to temporarily expel them from New Zealand’s parliament after they disrupted the reading of a controversial race relations bill with a protest haka.

Maori Party MP Hana-Rawhiti Mapi-Clark, 22, derailed parliament in November when she tore a copy of the proposed laws in half while chanting a passionate traditional chant.

She was joined by party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngariwa Packer, who marched to the floor of the chamber chanting the ka mate haka made famous by the country’s All Blacks rugby team.

A parliamentary committee on Wednesday evening recommended suspending Waititi and Ngariwa Packer for three weeks and Mapi-Clark for seven days.

The Maori Party said it was one of the harshest punishments ever handed down in New Zealand’s parliament.

“When the Tānta resist, colonial powers reach for maximum punishment,” the party said in a statement, using a phrase for the Maori people.

“This is a warning shot for us all to fall in line.”

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters described the three as “out-of-control MPs who flout the rules and intimidate others with provocative chants.”

Parliament will vote on the suspension next week, although it is widely expected to pass.

The “Treaty Principles Bill” sought to reinterpret New Zealand’s founding document, which was signed between Maori chiefs and British representatives in 1840.

Many critics saw the bill as an attempt to roll back special rights granted to the country’s 900,000-strong Maori population.

The bill was rejected by parliament last month.