Te Pāti Māori MPs a no-show at Privileges hearing

Wednesday, 2 April 2025

Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi has dismissed the 'silly little Privileges Committee and their silly little rules'.

Te Pāti Māori MPs have made good on their promise not to attend a scheduled Privileges Committee hearing, after raising concerns about what they were allowed to present.

The committee is giving the three MPs “one final chance” to turn up, with the potential consequences “very serious”, according to committee chair Judith Collins.

With co-leader Rawiri Waititi describing the committee as a “silly little committee” with “silly little rules”, he and co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer say they will hold their own hearing in May, on a date the party preferred to meet with the committee to hear the complaint, but which they say they were denied.

Collins called the MPs’ lack of attendance 'unprecedented', and said they would be given one more chance to attend individually, on another date.

'MPs don't appear as groups in privileges, no one has ever seen that before. But secondly, each of them is elected as individual members of parliament.'

Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer speak while the Privileges Committee was meeting on Wednesday.

Collins said that under normal procedures, 'people can bring a lawyer with them, but that is not for that lawyer to be answering questions or to be cross examined'.

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

'This is a very serious matter, we take it very seriously. The consequences can be very serious for members of parliament, we think, as a committee that we need to give one further chance, because we do not want to have anybody under any illusions as to just how serious this is.'

'But it can… there's a suspension, there's a fine, there's all those sorts of things.'

The co-leaders said they had made “numerous attempts” to work with the Privileges Committee over the complaint, made in relation to themselves and MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke.

The three left their seats in the House last year to perform a haka as the Treaty Principles Bill was being considered. It disrupting proceedings to the extent that Speaker Gerry Brownlee temporarily adjourned the House and ejected members and the public.

In relation to the Privileges hearing, they have complained they have had “fundamental rights” denied.

That included having their request for a joint session rejected; that they had been prevented from making submissions on tikanga, or from an expert on tikanga; that the hearing date was set without accommodating their schedules, or the schedule of their lawyer, Chris Finlayson, KC ‒ the former attorney general and National minister; and that the committee process was repeating sanctions already placed on Maipi-Clarke.

The submissions on tikanga were important for context to the haka, they say.

Judith Collings, the chair of the Privileges Committee, leaves the meeting on Wednesday. She has given Te Pati Maori one more chance to appear before the committee.

Labour MP Peeni Henare also faced Privileges action for leaving his seat in the House ‒ he apologised for leaving his seat when before the committee in March, but stood by the haka. The committee ultimately found he was not in contempt.

Ngarewa-Packer, speaking as the committee continued without them, said: “In 23-plus years there hasn’t been this type of challenge to the committee, but we wanted to make sure our defence was given the appropriate time and voice and we felt that it was really important this didn’t have a pre determined outcome.”

Waititi, describing the powerful Privileges Committee as a “silly little committee” with “silly little rules”, said the MPs were “not sorry”.

“Would we do it again? In a heartbeat.

Peeni Henare tells a select committee he stands by his haka in Parliament, calling the bill that sparked it one of the most divisive in his 11 years in the House.

“It would be easy for us to bow down to the system and do what they say and dismiss the very essence of who we are. We made promises … that we will always stand up for ourselves, especially in the face of a never-ending tsunami of hate.

“We will no longer stand for it. When you all took to the streets for Te Tiriti you empowered us to keep being brave.”

Earlier, ACT leader David Seymour said the MPs should have their pay cut.

“That’ll get them to the table pretty quick,” Seymour said just hours before the committee hearing was due to hear the complaint.

Te Pati Maori MPs lead a haka in opposition to the bill.

As well as Collins, members of the committee include deputy prime minister Winston Peters, as well as MPs Duncan Webb, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Ricardo Menéndez March.

The Privileges Committee considers and reports on issues relating to parliamentary privilege and can find MPs in contempt of the House.

In relation to the tikanga aspects of the party’s complaint, Menéndez March on Wednesday afternoon said the Privileges Committee had to work with the current standing orders that exist.

“I acknowledge some of those are archaic and don’t represent the modern Aotearoa that we live in and, saying that, I do support Te Pāti Māori as a member of the Privileges Committee and them having being allowed to present in a way that would have been culturally appropriate.”

Whether they should attend was, “a question for them”, he said.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the issues the party had raised “seemed pretty fair to me”.

“You know, that they want to be able to put the haka they performed in context, they want to be able to talk about tikanga, and I think that’s appropriate.

“One of the things Parliament needs to grapple with is, you know, the circumstances under which haka are appropriate, and in which circumstances they are not. This is the first time Parliament has had that debate.”