Speaker 'names' Swarbrick for refusing to leave House

Otago Daily Times

2 days ago

Chlöe Swarbrick's comments in the House on Tuesday:
By Craig McCulloch of RNZ
The Speaker has 'named' Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick for refusing to leave the House.
Swarbrick was ejected from Parliament yesterday after refusing to withdraw and apologise for comments suggesting coalition MPs grow a spine and sanction Israel over the war in Gaza.
At the time, Speaker Gerry Brownlee barred Swarbrick for the rest of the week, unless she apologised when the House sat this afternoon.
Swarbrick refused to do so and refused to leave.
Brownlee then named her - a punishment handed down by the Speaker for a MP whose conduct is disorderly.
Swarbrick had previously said she had already received her punishment and that worse things had been said by other MPs without the Speaker's intervention.
Speaking to his ruling, Brownlee said the difference was previous comments had been interjections, while Swarbrick's comment was made inside a speech.
"If you think about the comment that was made, 68 members of this House were accused of being spineless. There has never been a time where personal insults like delivered inside a speech were accepted by this House - and I'm not going to start accepting it."
He asked MPs what standard they expected of themselves.
"We have so many threats and other stuff being directed at Members of Parliament. If we don't change the behaviour in here, nothing will change outside."
Labour leader Chris Hipkins questioned the precedent of the ruling.
"There's not a single instance where a member has been asked to withdraw and apologise the following sitting day, and then named for not doing that."
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters also questioned the ruling.
"My personal view is I don't agree with a thing Chlöe Swarbrick said at all, but this is a robust House where people have a right to express their views as passionate as they may, within certain rules, but I do not think that eviction was warranted."
Peters said there had been many instances of language in the House he had disagreed with, including the use of the c-word earlier in the year.
Te Pati Maori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer referred to that in her contribution.
"There were many of us that were offended by the c-word, but I do want to be able to assure is that spineless is a word, and it looks like the ruling is a political suppression," she said.
Ngarewa-Packer repeated the c-word outright.
Speaking to RNZ this morning, Swarbrick said the party had received correspondence from legal experts and the public pointing out "far worse" things had been said by other MPs, where the Speaker had chosen not to intervene.
"It just doesn't really wash."
Swarbrick said she would prefer Parliament's attention was focused on the "real issues of the day" and re-iterated her call for more action against Israel.
"New Zealanders want action, and if our House can come together on the point of sanctioning Israel for its war crimes, then that finally would bring us in line with our legacy of standing for human rights and justice."
University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis told RNZ it was unusual for Swarbrick to be asked to withdraw and apologise, given many MPs had made similar comments in Parliament before without consequence.
He said the standard penalty for challenging the Speaker's authority was to be ordered out of the House for one day.
A week-long punishment, Geddis said, was inconsistent with other rulings made by Speakers in recent times.
"If the Speaker is starting to almost make up the rules as he goes along, he puts at risk the preparedness of other MPs to accord him his authority.
"MPs might start asking, 'well, if the Speaker is just going to do their own thing with no regard to precedence, do we really trust them to have that sort of power?'"