Latest news with #NZParliament
Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
New Zealand parliament suspends Maori MPs who performed protest haka
New Zealand legislators have voted to suspend three MPs who performed a Maori haka in the House to protest against a controversial bill. The MPs from Te Pati Maori – the Maori Party – were handed the toughest sanctions ever imposed on legislators by New Zealand's parliament on Thursday. Te Pati Maori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer were both suspended from parliament for 21 days. Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, New Zealand's youngest legislator, 22, was suspended for seven days. The length of the bans was recommended by parliament's privileges committee, which advised the trio should be suspended for acting in 'a manner that could have the effect of intimidating a member of the House'. It recommended Maipi-Clarke be given a shorter sanction because she had written a letter of 'contrition' to the parliament. Previously, the longest suspension imposed on an MP had been a three-day ban. Prior to Thursday's vote, Maipi-Clarke told legislators that the suspension was an effort to stop Maori from making themselves heard in parliament. 'Are our voices too loud for this house? Is that the reason why we are being silenced?' she said. 'We will never be silenced and we will never be lost.' The legislators had performed the haka in parliament in November. Their protest interrupted voting during the first reading of a proposed bill to legally define the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, the 1840 pact between the British Crown and Indigenous Maori leaders signed during New Zealand's colonisation. The proposed law prompted widespread protests amid concerns it would erode Maori rights. It was later scrapped. Maipi-Clarke had begun the protest by ripping a copy of the legislation, before she and fellow MPs approached the leader of the right-wing party that had backed the proposed law. Their actions prompted complaints from fellow MPs to the parliament's speaker that their protest was disorderly, and the matter was sent to parliament's privileges committee, prompting months of debate. A report from the privileges committee said that while both haka and Maori ceremonial dance and song are not uncommon in parliament, members were aware that permission was needed from the speaker beforehand.
RNZ News
28-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
What did the House get up to during Budget urgency?
A number of bills were debated in urgency over the weekend. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox Parliament sat for two extra days last week for an especially long and jam-packed edition of Budget urgency. It's pretty much routine for governments to adjourn the Budget debate and move to urgency once all the parties have given at least one speech. The purpose of Budget urgency is to progress legislation directly related to the Budget, but unrelated bills usually get thrown into the mix as well. On Thursday afternoon the House heard from Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Leader of the Opposition Chris Hipkins, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick, Act leader David Seymour, New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones, and Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris. After that, Leader of the House Chris Bishop adjourned the Budget debate with just under six hours remaining and asked the House to accord urgency, so that 12 bills could progress through 30 stages of debate. By the time urgency was lifted and MPs finally got to go home at midnight on Saturday evening, there had been nine first readings, five second readings, two completed committee stages, and two third readings. For more on why the government's urgency plan was so unsuccessful read The House's story Government urgency plans slow to a crawl . Exactly which bills did MPs spend most of their weekend debating? David Seymour's contentious Regulatory Standards Bill is one of the government's flagship 'cutting red tape' bills. Seymour and his party have long been proponents of reforming New Zealand's regulatory system in the name of lifting productivity and reducing regulatory burden. Specifically, this bill would create principles of responsible regulation that future lawmakers would have to adhere to, as well as a Regulatory Standards Board, which would be in charge of examining current and future legislation against those principles. During the bill's first reading on Friday afternoon, Seymour told the House: "If you want to tax someone, take their property, and restrict their livelihood, you can, but you'll actually have to show why it's in the public interest. The bill demands you show your working." Labour's Duncan Webb called the bill "a cherry-picked right wing neoliberal agenda" that, ironically, lacked a regulatory impact statement. The Regulatory Standards Bill was referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and is open for public submissions until 23 June. You may have heard the Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill being referred to as the Granny Flat Bill. The proposed legislation is another deregulation-oriented bill. If passed, Chris Penk's bill would allow stand-alone dwellings (up to 70m2) to be built without requiring building consents, as long as they adhere to certain requirements. The bill is now with the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and is also open for public submissions until 23 June. The Public Finance Amendment Bill is, while not explicitly a budget bill, it is certainly budget-adjacent. Broadly speaking, it aims to promote increased transparency of government in its management of public finances, and also seeks to improve the practical functionality of the Public Finance Act. It was referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee after its first reading late on Saturday night and is open for submissions until 7 July. The last bill to be sent to select committee during budget urgency was the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill. The bill's purpose is to increase the efficiency of the courts and by extension the police and corrections systems. Being an omnibus bill, it does this by amending several justice-related laws and making technical changes to the running of court proceedings. All parties except Te Pāti Māori supported the bill at first reading before it was sent to the Justice Committee, which will report back to the House by 23 September. The Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 2) was agreed by the House and, pending Royal Assent, gives legal effect to budget announcements. Specifically, it changes KiwiSaver (increasing employer and employee contribution rates but reducing government contribution from 50 to 25 cents per dollar earned, capped at $260.72), increases the Working for Families abatement threshold, and brings in income testing for the initial year of the Best Start scheme. The other bill that is all but law is Louise Upstons' Social Assistance Legislation (Accommodation Supplement and Income-related Rent) Amendment Bill. The bill aims to ensure households are treated more equitably when calculating housing subsidies, and perhaps more notably, it seeks to mitigate the double subsidisation of housing subsidies, which in the context of accommodation, is a term for when a boarder and the person receiving board payments are both claiming accommodation subsidies for the same accommodation costs. When the House adjourned at midnight on Saturday evening, MPs were halfway through the debate on the first reading of the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill, which they will likely resume when they come back for the next sitting block, which commences on 3 June. *RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk.
