Te Pāti Māori receive ‘harshest punishment Privileges Committee’s ever handed out’

Wednesday, 14 May 2025

Opposition MPs and the public gallery stood to perform Ka Mate during the bill's first reading.

The co-leaders of Te Pāti Māori will be stood down from Parliament without pay for three weeks as punishment for the haka they performed at the first reading of ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill. Senior Reporter Lloyd Burr takes a look.

On a cold dark night in Wellington, at the end of a long oval table in her office on the fifth floor of the Beehive, Judith Collins sits down and delivers a verdict.

She’s the chairperson of Parliament’s Privileges Committee, made up of MPs from across the House, and is charged with upholding Parliament’s rules. It’s sometimes known as Parliament’s court.

“Ms Ngarewa Packer is severely censured by the House,” she says. “And suspended from the service of the House for 21 days for acting in the manner that could have the effect of intimidating a Member of Parliament in the discharge of their duty”.

National minister Judith Collins, the chairwoman of the Privileges Committee, reaffirmed the recommended suspension of Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi in a press conference on Wednesday night.

“Mr Waititi is severely censured by the House and suspended from the service of the House for 21 days for acting in a manner that could have the effect of intimidating a member of the House in the discharge of their duty,” she says.

Collins moves to her third ruling.

“Ms Maipi-Clarke is suspended from the House for seven days for acting in a manner that could have the effect of intimidating a member of the House in the discharge of their duty”.

Three Te Pāti Māori MPs - two of whom are co-leaders - suspended from Parliament without pay for a combined total of 49 days. Maipi-Clarke’s was less because she showed some contrition and remorse.

Te Pāti Māori members perform a haka in front of the ACT Party.

Their crime? Causing chaos during the vote of the first reading of David Seymour’s controversial (and eventually failed) Treaty Principles Bill.

Te Pāti Māori’s co-leaders face a possible three-week suspension from Parliament over a haka protest during the Treaty Principles Bill vote. A decision is pending a vote on the committee’s recommendation.

Instead of just saying how many votes opposed Te Pāti Māori had, Maipi-Clarke added a rendition of the ‘Kamate’ haka, ripping pages of the bill in half and chucking them towards the ACT Party which sits mere metres away.

It prompted Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer to join in, and it became a full-blown haka, done twice. Their fingers mimicked hand pistols and they were shooting at Seymour.

Speaker Gerry Brownlee had to shut the entire Parliament down for 30 minutes in order to re-gain order in the chamber.

Collins says the behaviour was intimidating, disorderly, and impeded Parliamentary business.

“Make no mistake, this was a very serious incident and the likes of which I have never seen before in my 23 years in the debating chamber - and I am a robust debater,” she adds.

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi face three week suspensions.

It’s taken the committee so long to come to their decision because all three MPs in question failed to turn up to meetings on numerous occasions. They only submitted in writing, rather than in person.

“We invited them on several occasions to attend so that we could ask them questions. We were very concerned about the level of premeditation, and on each occasion, they refused to do so, except on their own terms, which is not how the Privileges Committee operates,” she says.

When asked if the rules of Parliament need to be changed to accommodate more tikanga Māori, Collins said that’s beyond the remit of her role.

“The Privileges Committee is not the place to discuss it, because it is not my role. It’s the Standing Orders Committee. Every year, every term, Standing Orders get together. They work out what it is they want to do, and they make changes.

“You don't do it by breaching the rules and turning up or not turning up to the Privileges Committee and telling them they should change the rules. Well, it's not our job,” Collins says.

Te Pāti Māori are calling the verdict “the worst punishment handed down ever in our history”.

“When Tangata whenua resist, colonial powers reach for maximum penalty,” a post on Facebook read. “This is a warning shot to all of us to fall in line”.

One of its MPs Mariameno Kapa-Kingi says the decision is “grossly unjust, unfair, and unwarranted, resulting in an extreme sanction. This was not about process, this became personal”.

Collins rejects those claims.

“It's very sad that Mariameno said that. So she did attend some of the meetings, but I would say, and I've chaired several meetings this last year, and since I've been the chair of it, everybody was given an opportunity to say anything they want.

“So that would be a grossly unfair statement that she has made, but that is her view, but it is certainly not my view, and I think you'll find it's not the view of the majority of the committee.”

We have corrected the spelling of Ms Maipi-Clarke’s name to include the ‘e’ at the end of Clarke.

We have also amended a sentence to make clearer that Maipi-Clarke had shared how any votes opposed Te Pāti Māori had, and that she then added a rendition of the ‘Kamate’ haka.

(19 May 2025 6.10pm)