Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick kicked out of House for a second time

A defiant Chlöe Swarbrick has been booted from the House for a second time this week after refusing to apologise for remarks made during a fiery debate on Palestine on Tuesday.

NZ First Winston Peters has defended Swarbrick, saying her remarks inferring Government MPs lacked a spine were not offensive enough to be kicked out of the House.

“If you can have John Key say “get some guts”, or accept the c-word, which was outrageous, then how could she be offensive in that context?

“This is a robust theatre for debate, people have serious emotional concerns about what they believe in, to take away the essence of that emotional concern of what they are talking about, is to neuter the place.”

The issue stems from comments made during Tuesday’s Palestine debate.

Swarbrick was urging Government MPs to support her bill sanctioning Israel, saying: “If we find six of 68 Government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history”.

Speaker Gerry Brownlee told her to apologise. When she refused, she was kicked out of the House and barred for a week.

When Swarbrick returned to the House today, a similar scenario played out.

Brownlee again asked her to apologise and kicked her out when she refused. He also “named” her, among the harshest penalties a Speaker can dish out on the spot and results in her pay being docked.

As she left the House, she said: “Free Palestine”.

After Swarbrick left the chamber, other MPs questioned the Speaker’s decision to name Swarbrick.

Labour MP Willie Jackson said he had been kicked out but not barred from the House for twice calling David Seymour a liar. He noted this incident, in which Swarbrick has been very seriously disciplined, did not sit well with that precedent.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer referred to Act MP Brooke Van Velden’s use of the word c**t in the House without punishment.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said a Speaker’s Ruling from Jonathan Hunt was that when the MP leaves the chamber on the day the original incident occurred, the matter was considered over.

But Brownlee said a new ruling, from 2017, superseded that.

Speaking to reporters outside the debating chamber, the Greens co-leader said the punishment was unprecedented and the Speaker was not treating her party fairly.

MPs had said far more egregious things in the House before without facing such a tough punishment, she said.

“As far as I am aware, there is no situation in which a Speaker has asked for somebody to withdraw and apologise, that person has refused to apologise, then been ordered to leave the house ... and the person has complied.”

She said she felt as though the rules were being made up.

“This is uncharted territory. There is no precedent to cling to here.”

Swarbrick already has plans to be in her electorate of Auckland Central tomorrow. Her party would continue discussing the issue with the Clerk.