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.
Except they didn’t interrupt voting. Go and watch the video, Maipi-Clarke clearly gives TPMs vote before the haka started. The fact that the report claims they interrupted voting clearly shows how bullshit the process was.
I think it’s you who are on your high horse. Claiming there needs to be some kind of “decorum” over a bill designed to strip rights from Maori is utter bullshit and frankly racist.