.....but she said so before her Maori Party colleagues were ejected from Parliament
While waiting for Hansard’s official record of Meka Whaitiri’s personal statement to Parliament this afternoon, Point of Order found a press statement from New Zealand First.
It was teasingly headed Whaitiri fiasco a multi-party deception.
More teasingly, Winston Peters’ name was absent from the text which kicked off:
‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive’
The statement proceeded to say:
It’s now revealed that Meka Whaitiri consulted with the Speaker before her resignation announcement and sought guidance on the process.
So the Speaker knew before Meka sent the letter to him of her intent to defect to the Maori Party – not to become an independent MP. Then Meka herself went public to announce her defection and her intent to be a Maori Party MP. She also said she told the Party President – but of which Party?
All that being so, why has the Speaker exposed himself to be accused of manipulating an MP’s resignation process that specifically went against the MP’s intent not to be an independent, but to join the Maori Party?
The result was for Labour and Meka to avoid the waka jumping legislation being triggered, avoid a by-election, and to allow parliament and the people to be exposed to a political deception.
The statement contends that some serious offences to our constitutional and electoral arrangements are now being revealed “through this undemocratic debacle”.
The Speaker is meant to be Parliament’s person and independent – not a political manipulator or advisor.
If mana and respect is important then the biggest losers in this farce will be the Maori people.
The statement seems to be the consequence of remarks made by Meka Whaitiri to One News.
Whaitiri told the interviewer she had sought the advice of the speaker before sending the letter about her resignation that triggered controversy about waka-jumping rules in Parliament.
“I wrote to the speaker after seeking his advice,” the now-independent MP said. “His office provided very good advice, and I wrote accordingly.
“For Parliamentary purposes, I wrote to the speaker, he ruled accordingly.
“People will call it messy, it’s quite not.”
However messy things might been (or not been) before Whaitiri made a personal statement to Parliament, the Maori Party which she has joined had become voiceless in the debating chamber at the time she spoke.
Māori Party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer had been evicted from the House after they led something called a “whakawātea” for their new parliamentary ally in spite of opposition from some members of parliament.
Moreover, the Speaker interrupted Whaitiri during her address to urge her to focus on “exactly what it is she is explaining” about her status in the House, rather than launching into “a general debate”.
And so we wait for Hansard to find exactly who said and did what.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
The statement proceeded to say:
It’s now revealed that Meka Whaitiri consulted with the Speaker before her resignation announcement and sought guidance on the process.
So the Speaker knew before Meka sent the letter to him of her intent to defect to the Maori Party – not to become an independent MP. Then Meka herself went public to announce her defection and her intent to be a Maori Party MP. She also said she told the Party President – but of which Party?
All that being so, why has the Speaker exposed himself to be accused of manipulating an MP’s resignation process that specifically went against the MP’s intent not to be an independent, but to join the Maori Party?
The result was for Labour and Meka to avoid the waka jumping legislation being triggered, avoid a by-election, and to allow parliament and the people to be exposed to a political deception.
The statement contends that some serious offences to our constitutional and electoral arrangements are now being revealed “through this undemocratic debacle”.
The Speaker is meant to be Parliament’s person and independent – not a political manipulator or advisor.
If mana and respect is important then the biggest losers in this farce will be the Maori people.
The statement seems to be the consequence of remarks made by Meka Whaitiri to One News.
Whaitiri told the interviewer she had sought the advice of the speaker before sending the letter about her resignation that triggered controversy about waka-jumping rules in Parliament.
“I wrote to the speaker after seeking his advice,” the now-independent MP said. “His office provided very good advice, and I wrote accordingly.
“For Parliamentary purposes, I wrote to the speaker, he ruled accordingly.
“People will call it messy, it’s quite not.”
However messy things might been (or not been) before Whaitiri made a personal statement to Parliament, the Maori Party which she has joined had become voiceless in the debating chamber at the time she spoke.
Māori Party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer had been evicted from the House after they led something called a “whakawātea” for their new parliamentary ally in spite of opposition from some members of parliament.
Moreover, the Speaker interrupted Whaitiri during her address to urge her to focus on “exactly what it is she is explaining” about her status in the House, rather than launching into “a general debate”.
And so we wait for Hansard to find exactly who said and did what.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
5 comments:
Sounds like one very confused person asking the speaker for advice and completely cocking it up. The Speaker now looks like a fool for trying to help her out.
Best he learn from this a keep right out of these matters or his mana is going down the toilet with the Maori party.
Quite how this muddled MP is supposed to do a good job of representing her constituents is beyond me.
After Maori Party performance in Parliament today with Meta, and subsequent propaganda, Parliament has been made into a joke. I feel NZ has been toppled.
Let's be clear, this so called member is not representing her constituents. She is looking entirely after her own interests, alongside maori. To the detriment of all other New Zealanders .
She is a self-centered person, unfit for public office and certainly should not be a constituent representative. A maori mascot for TMP.
Steve Ellis
i think this episode is the textbook definition of 'brown privilege' :)
Anyone get the feeling that the current mob have given up the ghost and it’s everyone for themselves?
Hipkins govt is falling apart in front of our very eyes. Next weeks budget will only confirm bad news ahead for the foreseeable future.
I reckon there may even be an early election.
Why wait for the polls to go against you.
The Greens are a joke, Māori Party are a bunch of radicals who want to split the country in half and have all the countries assets simply handed over to them for no other reason than they think it would be a good idea. And lastly, we have the Labour Party who can’t get anything done.
If they were a sick horse I would shoot them and put them out of their misery.
If you look at it all in totality it’s a cluster and there running the country into the ground.
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