Ministers have described yesterday’s chaotic debate on Te Pāti Māori’s suspension for controversial haka as disturbing and contemptuous. 

The hours-long debate on Thursday evening included almost constant heckling and name-calling. 

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have been suspended from Parliament for 21 days, and MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke for seven days, effective immediately. 

Labour MP Deborah Russell described it as a “pretty horrible day in the house”. 

“There was a lot of yelling back and forth across the house,” she said on Herald NOW this morning. 

She thought it was “disturbing” that Waititi held up a noose during the discussion and that Winston Peters called Waititi’s traditional facial tattoos “scribbles”. 

Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipa-Clarke has been suspended from Parliament for seven days over a haka performed after the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill in November. Photo / RNZ 

“We need to get back things that actually matter to New Zealanders,” Russell said. 

Russell said she was disappointed that National MPs didn’t speak to why they supported the “extraordinary ban”. 

National MP Erica Stanford said the party’s position was already clear. 

“The Māori Party treat that place with contempt, they always have and they did again yesterday,” she told Herald NOW this morning. 

“They didn’t say sorry, they didn’t turn up.” 

Stanford said Te Pāti Māori treats Parliament “like it’s a stage for their social media videos to spread their division”. 

She said Labour should have criticised Te Pāti Māori’s Parliament haka earlier, and Russell retorted that the party was respecting the parliamentary process. 

Parliament’s Privileges Committee chair Judith Collins said the committee was “pretty much almost universally appalled” after the Te Pāti Māori haka in the House last year. 

Speaking with Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB, Collins said the committee stuck to its principles. 

Privileges Committee chair Judith Collins begins the debate to a full chamber and empty public gallery. Photo / Mark Mitchell 

“The six months of hearings, including the three attempts to get the three MPs to turn up and to answer questions ... it was actually worth it. 

“It’s about time that Parliament realised the public of New Zealand are appalled by some of the antics they have seen in Parliament, including interrupting the vote, seeming to threaten other MPs or certainly to try and influence them.” 

Collins said Te Pāti Māori did not attend the discussions. 

“It’s not about the haka, it’s about interrupting the vote, finger-pointing in terms of a gun movement at three Act MPs, and none of the protocols were respected in parliament.” 

Hosking said: “They’re not serious people”, and Collins agreed. 

“Hana, she is only in her first term and very young, and we felt she was very heavily influenced by the co-leaders, who are now five years into Parliament.” 

Collins said Te Pāti Māori “threw” the job to tear up the paper in Parliament at Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke at the last minute. 

Constant heckling, name-calling 

Te Pāti Māori is fiercely condemning what they called an “ugly and sad” debate that led to three of its MPs receiving the harshest penalties in Parliament’s history. 

The chaotic hours-long debate on Thursday evening included almost constant heckling and name-calling, with Waititi brandishing a noose and Winston Peters making “disparaging” remarks about Waititi’s moko, for which he apologised. 

Speaking directly after receiving the penalties, Te Pāti Māori acknowledged it was a “heavy day” but remained defiant in their refusal to apologise for the haka that brought Parliament to a standstill during the first reading of the controversial Treaty Principles Bill. 

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi have each been suspended from Parliament for 21 days. Photo / Mark Mitchell 

“We’ve heard the kōrero and now we’ve got to go home and show that we stood our ground,” Ngarewa-Packer said. 

Waititi highlighted NZ First leader Peters’ criticism of tā moko, saying his description of their Māori face tattoos as scribbles was “ugly and sad”. 

“What makes it even sadder is that it comes from somebody who has whakapapa,” he said of Peters. 

“I feel sorry for him that his internalised racism and internalised colonisation can take him to that type of rhetoric.” 

In a message to supporters, Waititi said: “We must continue to hold on to the taonga of our ancestors – whether it be haka, whether it be moko, whether it be our reo, and not to allow old colonialist views that we are anything or anybody less than anybody else.”