.jpg?itok=sqzbVX9m "Indonesian academic subjected to ‘interview and checks’ at Changi Airport as he attracted ‘security attention’: MHA")
SYDNEY: Indigenous Maori lawmakers have decried a push to temporarily banish them from New Zealand’s parliament, after disrupting the reading of a contentious race relations Bill with a protest haka.
Maori Party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, 22, derailed parliament in November when she ripped a copy of the proposed laws in half while performing a spirited traditional chant.
She was joined by party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who strode onto the chamber floor chanting the Ka Mate haka famously performed by the country’s All Blacks rugby team.
A parliamentary committee on Wednesday (May 14) evening recommended suspending Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer for three weeks, and Maipi-Clarke for seven days.
The Maori Party said it was one of the harshest punishments ever doled out in New Zealand’s parliament.
“When tangata whenua resist, colonial powers reach for the maximum penalty,” the party said in a statement, using a phrase for Maori people.
“This is a warning shot to all of us to fall in line.”
