Will Parliament uphold standards?

Kiwiblog

19-05-2025

Radio NZ had a terrible article on the Privileges Committee report.
The Office of the Clerk provides ~$200k of taxpayer funding each year for RNZ's 'The House' to deliver regular insights into Parliament. After the PIJF controversies, you'd think a basic funding condition would be to avoid overt political commentary. This doesn't look like that. pic.twitter.com/5dx3RLIWdC — Charted Daily (@Charteddaily) May 18, 2025
As you can see above, an incredibly biased emotive article – and one funded by taxpayers!
Richard Harman also gets it wrong saying:
Peters also will have voted for the 21-day suspension at the Privileges Committee, where voting was clearly along party lines and the coalition votes as one.
It is quite wrong to imply it was a coalition decision. National MPs on the Privileges Committee do not go to their caucus and get approval or instructions on how they vote. They decide for themselves.
A good take on this is from Liam Hehir who makes the point:
The use of tikanga to justify interference with parliamentary democracy is not a defence of culture. It is the exploitation of it. It is an attempt to elevate a partisan stunt into an untouchable act, shielded from criticism by the sacred.
Here is what it really is: the use of cultural identity as a weapon against the functioning of representative government.
It is the deliberate dragging of that very culture into disrepute by setting it up in opposition to rights that belong to everyone. It does not honour a culture to frame it as incompatible with the principles of democratic participation. And this is not the first time it has happened.
Democracy is not some Western construct. Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that 'the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government' including when 'expressed through elected representatives.' A Parliament's voting process is the very heart of that expression. It is not decorative. It is not optional. It cannot be paused or polluted for performance.
To attempt to disrupt it—and then justify that disruption on the basis that cultural identity overrides the rules of Parliament—is to suggest that culture and democracy are mutually exclusive. That is an insult both to democracy and culture.
Ngarewa-Packer's 'finger gun' gesture cannot be dismissed as cultural expression. Performed during a vote and directed at political opponents. It goes without saying that, had an ACT MP performed a similar gesture towards Te Pāti Māori MPs, the condemnation would have been swift and unequivocal. Standards must be applied consistently.
Two former Speakers have unusually come out and said the recommended punishments don't actually go far enough. NewstalkZB reported:
A former Speaker believes suggested punishments for three Te Pāti Māori MPs falls short.
Parliament's Privileges Committee has recommended suspensions for the three – for their protest haka during voting on the Treaty Principles Bill.
Parliament will vote next Tuesday on whether to suspend the co-leaders for 21 days, and MP Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke for seven.
David Carter says the haka was 'intimidating' and 'unacceptable'.
'And then to refuse to appear before the Privileges Committee – again, it's yet another contempt of the rules of Parliament.'
And also Lockwood Smith:
A former Speaker of the House is reminding MPs the rules of the House must be followed.
The Privileges Committee have suggested three Te Pati Māori MPs be temporarily suspended from Parliament, ranging up to 21 days, for their role in a haka over the Treaty Principles Bill.
Te Pati Māori says these suspensions are the longest in Parliament's history.
Sir Lockwood Smith told Ryan Bridge members need to think before they ignore the rules.
He says the three-week suspension and missing part of the budget debate will hopefully make people take notice.
Lockwood is generally regarded as the best and fairest speaker under MMP. You have two former Speakers saying enough is enough.
Also Thomas Coughlan points out:
The attendance of Te Pāti Māori MPs is an embarrassment to Parliament and an offence to the taxpayer (Peters quite fairly pointed out that it was rich for the opposition to care so much about the three MPs' attendance during the Budget debate next week, when they skipped it last year). The Speaker and the Greens have quietly offered to help Te Pāti Māori with basic House procedure, including getting MPs' questions into order. Those offers have been rebuffed. As a result, in their fifth year as MPs, Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi still struggle at question time, Waititi particularly so.
The party's voters deserve better – and frankly, so do taxpayers. There are few jobs paying $168,000 a year that would let you get away with refusing to learn the basics and would tolerate that level of regular rulebreaking.
So the co-leaders have been there five years, and they still can't competently ask questions in the House.
This is reflected is their favourability ratings with the public. When we polled on the co-leaders in February 2025, their net favourability or approval for Waititi: All voters: -28%
National voters: -39%
Labour voters: -16%
Undecided voters: -63%
Women: -19%
Men: -39%
Under 40s: -12%
40 to 59: -31%
Over 60s: -44%
If Labour want to spend the two sitting days before the Budget arguing in the House that Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer should just be getting a wet bus ticket slap for their behaviour, instead of talking about the economy, then all power to them.