Ele Ludemann: Responsibility for rule breaking lies with rule breakers

In arguing against the Treaty Principles Bill, Dame Anne Salmond writes:

. . .In democracies, it is commonplace for citizens to have different rights. Ratepayers, for instance, have a right to vote for representatives that is not shared with non-ratepayers or those who live in other places. . .

Is it commonplace for citizens in democracies to have different rights?

Earlier she cites the examples of the House of Lords and hereditary monarchies which do give different people different rights.

But the Dame is wrong about local body voting.

Residents who aren’t ratepayers, have the right to vote for councils and those who live in other places also have the right to vote where they own property, although only one of the owners get that right, multiple owners don’t.

She is also wrong about responsibility for breaking parliament’s rules:

The vote on the Treaty Principles Bill provoked a haka in the House, and two Māori MPs were expelled from the chamber.

If a small party with only 8 percent of the vote is allowed to introduce a crude, misleading bill on a key constitutional issue, those who did the deal should accept responsibility for the disorder. . .

Absolutely not. The responsibility for breaking the rules lies solely with those who broke them.


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Much less egregious rule breaking by Julie Anne Genter resulted in her being sent to the Privileges Committee. The MP who started the haka has been names, which results in suspension from the house for 24 hours and docking of pay.

Will she, and those who joined her, also have to face the Privileges Committee?

Would those who think this is acceptable find it just as acceptable for another party on another issue, for example as David Farrar asks, a Christian Party on abortion?

As Simon O’Connor writes if you want to be respected you must show respect:

Imagine going onto a marae and as the karanga begins, someone starts screaming and throwing white camellias – the symbol of the women’s suffrage movement – to protest most iwi’s rules that women are not to sit in front, or speak, on marae. There would be an uproar, and rightly so.

While there will be divided opinions on whether such rules are appropriate or not, most would agree that breaking protocol/tikanga in such a way, and at such a time, would be wildly ‘out of order’.

Of course, we hear a lot about the importance of tikanga from the Maori Party. But as we have seen repeatedly they don’t really believe in protocols and respect. They only believe in themselves and it is well past time that New Zealand saw and understood them for who they are – zealots and Marxist revolutionaries.

The behaviour in Parliament by the Maori Party MPs, and ably assisted by the lunatics in the Green Party, was appalling. . .

It’s a debating chamber where MPs make their points with words, not actions and if they can’t do that civilly, cogently and coherently, one might be forgiven for asking, do they actually have any grounds for their disagreement?

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.