The New Zealand Parliament has voted to impose record suspensions on three lawmakers who did a Maori haka as a protest. The incident took place last November during a debate on a law on Indigenous rights.

New Zealand’s parliament on Thursday agreed to lengthy suspensions for three lawmakers who disrupted the reading of a controversial bill last year by performing a haka, a traditional Maori dance.

Two parliamentarians — Te Pati Maori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi — were suspended for 21 days and one — Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, from the same party — for seven days.

Before now, the longest suspension of a parliamentarian in New Zealand was three days.

  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    God people are stupid and one sided on this

    They were suspended for disrupting the democratic vote process.

    It’s not about the haka. Its about a time and a place for democratic voting policy. Democracy is paramount it’s not about any one person, people or groups of people trying to intimate the vote. That happens outside. No one is complaining about doing the haka for or against anything at any other time.

    But when it cones to voting you got to behave.

    It is highly disorderly for members to interrupt a vote while it is being conducted. The right to cast one’s vote without impediment goes to the heart of being a member of Parliament. The threshold at which an interjection during a vote may be considered a contempt is where the interruption could be considered intimidatory

    Thats the wording of the report. But Lemmy is already on their wokey high horse. Minorities can do no wrong.

    The fact of the matter is intimidating voting process is not okay. You are stopping democracy. If a white people acted that way there would be no outcry. The outcry is only about people not being given special treatment for being Maori, if I white person done it the result would have been fine and everyone here would say it’s justified. It sounds like everyone here is racist but NZ actually made a decision not based on race.

    • Ideonek@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      Did you miss the part about how disproportional the punishment was compared to any other given in the past?

    • kadup@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Perhaps consider watching the recording or reading what actually happened before typing a massive rant claiming others are wrong?

    • mutant_zz@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Except they didn’t interrupt voting. Go and watch the video, Maipi-Clarke clearly gives TPMs vote before the haka started. The fact that the report claims they interrupted voting clearly shows how bullshit the process was.

      I think it’s you who are on your high horse. Claiming there needs to be some kind of “decorum” over a bill designed to strip rights from Maori is utter bullshit and frankly racist.

    • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      If a white people… Dog-the article is literally that this is a greater than normal punishment.

    • witchybitchy@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      there’s a difference between being technically right and doing the right thing