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NZ Herald
20-05-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Outrage! Te Pāti Māori, pay equity and the rules of Parliament
Their sin: they left their seats in Parliament and performed a haka in front of Act MPs, as the vote on Act leader David Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill was ending. Labour's Peeni Henare joined in the haka but has escaped punishment because he has expressed remorse. It's not because they did a haka, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told RNZ on Monday. 'That actually happens often. It's actually about not following the rules of Parliament.' It so often is. The merits of a complaint against power are sidelined by the powerful, who would prefer not to debate the complaint itself. The sanctity of the rules is far safer ground. For one thing, the rules are a-political, or so we're supposed to think. For another, focusing on the rules appeals to a desire for order and even for fairness: if we don't have rules, how can we know what justice is? But if rules are for regulating behaviour, that also points to a deeper purpose: they reinforce the authority of those who make them. Rules aren't a-political, or neutral. They protect the powerful. We all know this, we learned it when we were little children. What else did we learn when we were young? Naughty people must be taught a lesson. And by 'taught a lesson', we don't mean 'given a special educational opportunity'. We mean punished. We cling to that one, even when our culture is full of warnings of what can go wrong. Everything from the Abuse in Care report to movies like Hunt for the Wilderpeople and We Were Dangerous reminds us that punishment is often meted out not on merit, but to reinforce power. That's what's happening here: a reminder of the hierarchy of power is being visited on some 'uppity' people who won't sit down, won't show contrition, won't shut up. And what of the rules themselves? Both Luxon and Judith Collins, who chaired the committee, have hung their desire to punish on the suggestion the haka prevented Act MPs from voting. But Act had already voted. Given that, why has Collins not apologised and recalled her committee to reconsider its decision? If the committee was a proper court and not a politically motivated circus, the manifest falseness of this 'they were stopped from voting' argument wouldn't survive half a second on appeal. Some have said TPM was doing it for show, that it was all theatre. Excuse me? What goes on in the debating chamber is all for show. Besides, the committee didn't agree it was just performative. Its report says, 'There is no question the behaviour of Ms Maipi-Clarke, Ms Ngarewa-Packer and Mr Waititi could have the effect of intimidating other members.' But there very much is a question. Te Pāti Māori says interpreting its MPs' actions as 'a potential threat of violence reflects personal prejudice and ignorance of tikanga Māori, not reality'. The evidence suggests the Act MPs agree with that. Photos and video of the incident do not show them taking evasive action, defending themselves or even looking worried. They seem to be doing their best to look bored. Members of Te Pati Maori perform a haka in front of Act MPs during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill in Parliament. Photo / Adam Pearse These politicians have been confronted by challenging haka before, at Waitangi and elsewhere. They're well versed in the rituals. We all are. Seymour likes to call haka a 'war dance', but that's demonstrably not the role of haka today. They can be ferocious, confronting, sometimes even fuelled by rage. But in the modern age no one gets hurt. Whatever the occasion, haka provide a ritualised outlet for some very strong emotions. That should be respected. Haka also say: Just because I'm not literally going to attack you with my taiaha doesn't mean you should ignore this. I really am enraged. That should be respected too. Haka are ubiquitous now, and on the whole that's a good thing. But it does tempt us to think their proper role is to entertain or to mark a significant moment. Te Pāti Māori has reminded us that isn't true. The thing about rules is that they don't always correlate with doing the right thing. This has been coming up a lot. The Government undid the provisions of the Equal Pay Amendment Act, a law that established a framework for assessing pay equity claims. Most Government MPs were part of the Parliament that voted unanimously for this law in 2020. The abolition of that framework is retrospective and it was done under 'urgency', so there was no chance for public input or considered lawmaking. The rules allowed all this but that doesn't make it right. It's another blatant example of the way rules can be used against those without power. The Government has tried to claim the act needed changing because it had got 'out of hand'. Social workers, they scoffed, were being compared with detectives! But why not? The most common type of crime in this country is family harm. Juvenile offending is also common. We expect social workers to know who's committing both these types of crime and somehow to manage the households involved so it stops. And we blame and shame them when they get it wrong. Detectives face very little of that. The pay equity provisions of the 2020 law constituted a good bunch of rules, but they threatened the power balance. Can't have that. I've got another comparator: Why don't we compare teachers with MPs? Teachers have to think on their feet every second of the working day. Their base salary range is $61,329 to $103,086 and two-thirds of them are women. MPs, most of whom are men, are told how to vote and get an entry-level salary of $168,000. Abandoning the pay equity rules means scrapping 33 claims already in the system, each of which represented good-faith commitment to research and analysis that was going to be held up to rigorous scrutiny. That's a disgraceful way to treat the rules. That's also true for not allowing select-committee hearings: it undermines the democratic process and invites bad law. As for making the new law retrospective, that's frightening, because it suggests none of us know if we are currently breaking the law. Not the current law, but some law from the future that could be used against our behaviour now. Maybe you think that's a stretch. In my view, anyone who holds to the sanctity of rules should be well exercised about that one. Protesters rally outside Minister Tama Potaka's electorate office in Hamilton opposing the Government's pay equity legislation. Photo / Mike Scott 'I think it's really important that the rules are upheld,' said Luxon about the haka incident. But he doesn't think that about the pay equity rules he voted for in 2020. Worst of all, binning the 2020 act means an estimated 150,000 women and their families have been denied billions in income that was going to be theirs. Why did the Government chose to make women the victims of its Budget cuts? Not because it was the right thing to do. How could they think that, after voting for the 2020 act? They did it because they could. The rules let them get away with it. Rules, eh. No political party has been hauled before the courts for electoral corruption, despite considerable evidence that at the very least deserves close legal examination. The rules allow it. The Government has imposed a funding regime on the health system that puts lives in jeopardy and undermines the well being of tens of thousands of people. The rules allow it. Speed limits are rising, which means, say experts everywhere, that more people will die. The rules allow it. The rules also allow Parliament to take no clear stand over one of the most pressing moral touchstones of our time: what's happening in Gaza. I know opinion is divided, but I agree with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who calls it 'genocide'. And the Government has signed up to an agreed set of rules for lowering climate emissions, even though it is in the process of breaking them. The rules allow that too. It's a trope of this debate that the rules of Parliament have already been bent to let Māori in. Te reo is officially allowed, haka and waiata are heard in the galleries and on the floor, some parts if the Parliamentary complex contain beautiful, richly meaningful whakairo (carving), raranga (weaving) and other expressions of tikanga Māori. We should be proud of all this. But almost none of it has changed the Victorian protocols of our Parliament. An insistence on the archaic behaviours of the English ruling class are everywhere. Worst of all, the rules allow much of the business of Parliament to be conducted with little to distinguish it from a cockfight. Pun intended. I'm not arguing against rules. They are helpful and often necessary, especially when they safeguard freedoms and protect the vulnerable. But rules designed to insulate the powerful are a different matter. And so is keeping a sense of proportion. Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke became a global sensation when she ripped up the Treaty Principles Bill in Parliament. An awful lot of people understand what she did and why. They've heard 'you can't break the rules' before, many of them perhaps all their lives. They know what it means.
The Spinoff
15-05-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
The many inconsistencies in Te Pāti Māori MPs' haka suspensions
Parliament's privileges committee has reminded everyone why it is customary to call it 'powerful' by suspending three Te Pāti Māori MPs for the haka heard around the world. But, what exactly were they punished for again? Listening to Judith Collins on RNZ's Morning Report, it seemed clear why she (and the other governing party MPs making up a majority on the privileges committee) thought it necessary to hand down an 'unprecedented' 21-day suspension to Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. 'To try and stop and interrupt a vote of parliament while members of parliament are trying to cast their votes in a debate is an extremely serious matter. We have not done this lightly,' she said. That's fine, in so far as it goes. But, there's a couple of problems with this explanation for the committee's decision and related sanction. First of all, here's what the privileges committee decided unanimously just two months ago in respect of a fourth MP who participated in the haka, Labour's Peeni Henare: 'Mr Henare's conduct in stepping on to the floor of the chamber to participate in the haka while a vote was being taken did obstruct or impede the business of the House, as the vote was not able to continue. Our view is that this is undoubtedly disorderly behaviour. However, we find that Mr Henare's actions do not amount to a contempt.' So, why were the actions of Te Pāti Māori MPs in delaying the vote on the Treaty Principles Bill such an egregious contempt that they deserve the heaviest sanction ever handed down, while the actions of Peeni Henare weren't even regarded as being a contempt at all? After all, the four combined together to 'try and stop and interrupt a vote of parliament', yet three get heavily punished for doing so while one isn't even found 'guilty' of any contempt at all. Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, the privileges committee majority didn't actually say that they were punishing the MPs just for 'stopping and interrupting a vote of parliament'. Rather, they claimed 'there is no question' that the actions of Te Pāti Māori MPs while conducting the haka 'could have the effect of intimidating other members'. That's because, to get to the floor of the House to perform the haka, Te Pāti Māori MPs walked past and then stood before (or, 'approached') the Act Party's MPs. Saying there is 'no question' that having a haka performed in front of you could be 'intimidatory' seems a bit out of touch with contemporary New Zealand understandings. You might think that some serious engagement with tikanga – the meaning and purpose of haka as a performative mode of communication – is required before reaching such a conclusion. However, this engagement was something that the majority of the privileges committee resolutely turned their faces against: 'It is not for this committee to determine the role of tikanga Māori within the rules and established practices of the House…' As such, the haka was reduced to nothing more than some loud chanting and gestures done in the face of MPs the participants disagreed with, potentially causing those MPs to feel physically intimidated. That unquestioning acceptance of the intimidatory nature of haka also seems out-of-step with the constant claim that the House of Representatives is a place for 'robust debate'. This is the standard defence given every time there is TV coverage of MPs shouting invectives at each other across the floor, often to the point where the words of the person speaking on a matter cannot be heard. Politics is adversarial! Emotions run high!! Being an elected representative means being tough enough to take the licks and still keep on fighting the good fight!!! And so on, and so on. All of which might lead one to ask whether the committee's decision and sanction was not (just) about the haka performed last December. Rather, as the committee majority notes, 'we intend to leave members in no doubt that the behaviour discussed is not acceptable, and that the intimidation of other members of the House is treated with utmost seriousness'. A translation of this might be that the governing majority of MPs are demanding that Te Pāti Māori will ' respect my authoritah ' by complying with the rules of parliament as they see them as being, or else. Whether the committee's stance then has much of a disciplining impact on Te Pāti Māori's MPs remains to be seen. After all, there's not much that an opposition MP actually can achieve in the House anyway. You can't win any votes. And making speeches or asking questions of ministers is only as effective as the publicity that it gets. All of which pales in comparison with the attention that the protest haka received – amplified now by the martyrdom granted to those who had the temerity of practicing their culture on behalf of those who elected them.
Scoop
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Peeni Henare Takes Over Foreign Affairs
Labour's Peeni Henare will pick up the foreign affairs portfolio, following David Parker's departure from Parliament. He retains his other portfolios of defence, economic development, Māori-Crown relations: Te Arawhiti and associate health. Lawyer and human rights advocate Vanushi Walters returns to Parliament this week and will pick up shadow Attorney-General and associate foreign affairs. 'I am delighted to have Vanushi Walters returning to Parliament,' Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. 'She, Peeni Henare and Phil Twyford will make a formidable team in the important portfolio of foreign affairs. 'New Zealand has a proud history of independent foreign policy, but Christopher Luxon's Government is not standing up for New Zealand in a more and more divisive and unstable world. 'My expectations of this team will be to ensure we are ready to step back into Government in 2026. That we have clear, principled positions that make sense to New Zealanders. 'David Parker provided a fantastic platform for Labour to build on in this space. His experience and passion will be missed, and I wish him all the best as he embarks on life after politics,' Chris Hipkins said.
Scoop
29-04-2025
- Health
- Scoop
Simeon Brown Hid Dunedin Hospital Downgrade
Simeon Brown needs to come clean to the people of Dunedin about why he hid plans to downgrade their new hospital's Intensive Care Unit. The Otago Daily Times today revealed then-Health Minister Dr Shane Reti was told on January 23 this year that the number of ICU beds would be reduced on opening from 30 to 20. 'Simeon Brown then took over as Health Minister and swooped into Dunedin a week later trying to act the hero on the hospital. But he failed to share this important information about downgrading the number of ICU beds,' Labour acting health spokesperson Peeni Henare said. 'While attempting to patch up the mess National had made of Dunedin Hospital he hid the fact a third of its planned intensive care beds had been cut. 'That is hugely disingenuous. I can see why locals, including the former head of the emergency department, are angry,' Peeni Henare said. This follows reporting by Stuff at the weekend that New Zealand is nationally 500 hospital beds short. 'Simeon Brown continues to claim everything is going to be okay despite announcing a health infrastructure plan without a cent of actual funding attached, and stopping hospitals from hiring the workforce they need under the guise of saving money,' Peeni Henare said. 'National's track record is to scale back and delay hospital builds as it has done with Nelson and Dunedin hospitals, which will cost New Zealanders more in the long run. Simeon Brown is content kicking the can down the road while people's health suffers,' Peeni Henare said.
