Claims standards of parliamentary behaviour have fallen are nonsense. Except for Te Pāti Māori, this is a well-behaved House.
The Speaker’s referral of the floor protest to the Privileges Committee was not discretionary. It was required by Standing Orders.
The Speaker was lenient. He could have ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to end the Māori Party haka. Any MP who resisted is automatically suspended for the rest of this Parliament.
No Parliament can tolerate its proceedings being disrupted by protest.
In 1981, British Speaker George Thomas suspended Labour MP Ron Brown for 20 days for nothing more than placing a protest flag on the Commons table.
In 2023, the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two Democratic lawmakers for leading a protest on the House floor.
Yes, there have been incidents of disorder in the House before, but all admitted their actions were wrong. No MP has ever refused a summons to the Privileges Committee.
This is spot on. There is no general problem. Just a problem with one party. And indeed a three week suspension is lenient for the nature of what they did.
Across Europe, there are MMP parliaments with extremist parties that reject parliamentary norms. Europeans know it is a mistake to appease democracy’s enemies.
The democratic parties establish a “cordon sanitaire”. They refuse to form coalitions or alliances with parties that oppose democracy.
Here’s what is also unprecedented: the New Zealand Labour Party, long a champion of parliamentary democracy, has not set a cordon sanitaire and ruled out working with Te Pāti Māori.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins told Parliament that Labour wants no penalty on the MP who instigated the protest and just 24 hours for the party leaders – no real sanction in my view.
Parliamentary democracy is not safe with Labour.
TPM are proudly an anti-democracy party. They do not believe in one person, one vote. They want one person, six votes.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
5 comments:
Labour gave us He Puapua and hence have zero regard for real democracy. Anyone who votes Labour clearly agrees with throwing their democratic rights into the dustbin.
Parliament should take urgency in the House and within the Te Partly Maori Party- Privileges Committee sanctions debate, abolish the Maori seats, as is possible by a simple majority because the maori seats are NOT entrenched .
The reasons for retention of the Maori seats is no longer convincing since the time when the Maori seats "stumbled into being" and have survived through indifference and neglect.
The Royal Commission in the MMP debate recomended the seats be abolished . The 1992 Electoral Reform Bill would also have abolished the seats .The National Party stated in previous Electoral law policy that they would see all NZers on the same roll which eliminates the maori electoral roll.
A common roll for electors would improve representation to all Maori as is surely shown by normal Maori MP's in Parliament . The crucial and most significant debate is whether the Te Pati Maori representation is actually effective or compromised .
The indigenous argument is gone , history shows maori arrived by canoe to NZ shores , Matariki day celebrating navigtion by stars to NZ and passed into law by Parliament is all the proof needed.
Other minority ethnicities and groups could claim a benefit from dedicated representation but are seamlessly integrated into a multi cultural Parliament .
It would be ludicrous for Europeean whalers to claim the Sub Antarctic, Auckland and Cambell islands as indigenously theirs because they were there first . Therefore the Maori seats must show an objective justifiction to retain the seats which is legally out of time now , the diminution of maori blood in the NZ population favours a combined electoral roll.
Parliament should remove the Maori Seats and "strike while the iron is hot" as there is NO serious grounds for distrusting the wisdom of the NZ electorates or their support of the scuttled Treaty Principles Bill and the abject failure of stopping a continunce of a racial march to Apartheid in New Zealand .
I say Remove the Maori Seats forthwith under urgency within the existing laws of New Zealand.
Fully agree with everything Basil says. All we have to do now is find the politicians with the backbone to carry it through
Some chance of that ...
Basil is correct.
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