Ele Ludemann: Broke rules, broke oath

The Privileges Committee recommendation of a week’s suspension for Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke and three for Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has been agreed to by parliament.

When MPs take the oath at the start of their parliamentary careers they swear to uphold the rules.

Those rules allow haka with the Speaker’s permission beforehand.

They don’t allow haka without the speaker’s permission, away from their seats and in the faces of other MPs.

They don’t allow haka while a vote is in progress.

They don’t allow gun gestures.

This was explained by Act MP Parmjeet Parmar in the debate:

Displaying reckless behaviour and then playing the race card is concerning. Displaying disorderly behaviour and then taking pride in that is hugely concerning. The members there should look around and see that this House is made up of members who come from so many different cultural backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds. We don’t all look the same. That doesn’t mean we start using our cultural beliefs, our ethnicity to justify misconduct in this House.

Finally, I want to say this: this was not about haka, per se. I want to repeat this: this was not about haka, per se. This was about the timing. This was about the manner. This was about the disorderly behaviour. This was about those hand gestures simulating a firing motion.

The three MPs broke all those rules, refused to go before the Privileges Committee and only one, Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, apologised which is why her suspension is shorter.

Karen Chhour also explained the reasoning behind the unprecedented suspensions:

I actually don’t stand here with pride today to talk on this issue, and I actually thought long and hard today about whether I should. I’ve listened to the speeches across this House, and the hate and the anger that’s been chucked from both sides of this House, and it actually really saddens me—it really saddens me. Somebody can say that I don’t have the right to stand here and speak, but that’s what this place is about. You can have the interjection from that side of the House and say, “I’m not going to stay here.” and “I’m not going to listen to this.”, but four and a half years ago, when I had the privilege of being elected into this place, I felt that burden of what was expected of me when I came to this place, to represent the people that I wanted to come here to make a better life for.

I’ve fought my whole life. I’ve fought my whole life to be respected. I’ve fought my whole life to know my worth. I’ve never felt less than since I’ve been in this place. I have spent three years in this place having my identity ripped apart, having my whakapapa questioned, having my right to have an opinion questioned, but I don’t get up, out of my seat, and stand in front of those who disagree with me, and try to use stand-over tactics to get what I want. What I do is I go away and I work really hard to make sure that I know the decisions that I’m making are the right ones for the people who I promised I would stand for when I put my hand up to be elected.

Now, for the other side of the House to make accusations that people on this side of the House do not understand what it’s like to be oppressed; I tell you, Mr Speaker, I do. I’ve spent my whole life being oppressed. Even when I put my hand up to stand in this place, in Parliament, I was told by loved ones of mine that people like me do not get into a place like this.

So when I came to this place and I took the oath, I promised to abide by the rules of this House. I may not agree with all the rules of this House, but I agreed to that when I stood here four and a half years ago and took that oath.

There are ways that we can make changes in this place, but using stand-over tactics and bullying behaviour is not the way to do so. The debate here is about breaking the rules of this place. I think people, often when they watch speeches on the TV or listen on the radio to Parliament, often forget that this is our workplace. This is a place we come every day to do our work. At every workplace, people have the right to feel safe; people have the right to walk the corridors in their job and feel safe. In any other workplace, if a staff member breaches the code of conduct, there are repercussions for breaching that code of conduct. In this place, it’s kind of a special place where there is no ability for a boss to sack you or fire you for breaching the code of conduct. We are put here by the people of New Zealand. So the only way that we can maintain order and decorum in this place is by having the rules that have been put in place.

This is what the Privileges Committee is there for—sort of like our HR, where we sit down and we discuss what the issue was and, hopefully, can come to a medium ground where there is a little bit of contrition shown from those who have had the accusations brought to them, and then a simple apology could be enough. We’ve seen this in the past, where behaviours in this House have happened, everybody’s taken part in the process, and we’ve been able to stand in this House respectfully, speaking towards each other, showing a bit of contrition, and apologising when we’re wrong. Now, we haven’t seen that from the members that we’re talking about today. There is no contrition. They’re refusing to show any sign of remorse whatsoever for the behaviour that we’re discussing today.

Now, all the other discussions around tikanga, around te ao Māori, around all those other issues—yes, they may be an issue that needs to be addressed in the future. But right now, what we’re addressing is conduct within the House. The haka was conducted while a vote was being conducted. That is all we’re discussing today. The anger and the hatred being chucked across this House is heartbreaking. I have never seen this place so low since the moment I started.

Now, we talk about cruelty. We talk about accusations of cruelty. I listened to the speeches, I felt the pain, I felt the tears, and I understood that pain and those tears. What would be cruel is if one of us took that video, put it up on Facebook, and rolled our eyes and said, “Fragility is real.” That is cruelty. So we can talk about one side of the House bullying another side of the House, but two wrongs don’t make a right. We need to address the actual issue that is happening here.

Quite frankly, when I came here, I wanted to be able to set an example. We don’t understand how powerful our voices actually are in this place, how people listen to what we’re saying in this place, and how it reflects that behaviour back in society. We need to show leadership in the way of having proper, meaningful debate; not using aggression and stand-over tactics to get what we want. We want to teach our next generation that you can sit around a table, you can have a debate, and you can disagree, and walking away, agreeing to disagree, without slinging insults at each other and without using bullying tactics to try and get our own way.

I would really rather not be standing here, but I did think it was important that we brought the tone of this debate down and made sure we were actually debating the issue that’s on the table. I would rather be doing what I was elected to do when I came to this House, and that is deal with the issues that are out in society, not talking about other parties within this House. We have issues in our communities where families are losing their babies, where there our people are becoming victims of crime, where our people are suffering, and we’re debating this. Quite frankly, I’m embarrassed. I’m really embarrassed for everybody today, because the previous speaker was right, nobody wins here.

If the party that we’re discussing today had shown a little bit of compassion, had shown a little bit of a sign of “Yeap, we did something wrong. We apologise.”, then we may not still be standing here debating this. But the fact of the matter is that Te Pāti Māori has made it very clear that this is just the beginning, that they don’t think that they’ve done anything wrong, and that they would do it again. So that is why we’re still standing here debating this. It’s an absolute shame, because we should actually be discussing the real issues in this country, and, especially, in my portfolio space, where we have children dying in our communities. We should be coming up with solutions on how to protect our children and our communities, not standing here debating another party. So I’m going to leave it at that. But because there’s been no sign of remorse and no sign of contrition, I will actually commend the recommendations.

The suspensions aren’t for doing the haka, it’s for when and where they did it and the subsequent lack of contrition and remorse.

The MPs have the right to question the rules and to work within them to change them. They don’t have the right to break them..

These three broke the rules, and their oaths, and that is why they are being suspended for so long.

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