The New Zealand Parliament on Thursday agreed to the language suspension for three MPs, who performed a traditional Maori dance last year and disrupted the reading of a controversial bill last year.
Two parloemenians-te patra Maori co-leader debic dearewa-packer and rawiri
Vaitti -ware suspended for 21 days and a one-Hana-Ravi Mippi-Clarke, for seven days from the same party.
Prior to now, the longest suspension of a parliament in New Zealand was three days.
While members are suspended, they will not be paid or will not be able to vote on the law.
Last November, it was being read at the time of the incident, which is widely unpopular and has been voted since then, between the 185-information Treaty and the Swadeshi Maori would have re-written to tribal leaders who still guide the country and the law.
Why were MPs suspended?
In May, a Parliamentary Privilege Committee has “suspended to act in a way, which could have an effect of intimidating a member of the House.”
In the respective incident, Hana-Raviti Mappi-Clarke, who is the youngest in New Zealand at the age of 22, tore a copy of the bill and started the Haka with the other two members of his party.
Some MPs were worried that during the performance of Haka – a Maori dance that traditionally welcomed the tribes traveling or stroked on the floor towards government politicians – to consciousness the warriors before the war.
Judith Colins, who is the head of the Privilege Committee and acts as the Attorney-General, i.e. before Thursday’s vote, told Parliament that the Speaker was forced to suspend the proceedings for 30 minutes.
“It’s not about Haka … It is about following the rules of Parliament that we are bound to follow and we all promise to follow,” Colins said.
Mappi-Clarke, for his share, told the MPs before the vote of what the suspension tried to prevent Maori from hearing in Parliament.
“Are our voices very sharp for this house? Is this why we are bees? Is our voice shaking the main foundation of this house? In the house where we had no voice in the building … we will never be silent and we will never do,” she said.
Despite signing the treaty in 1840, a large amount of Maori land was seized in the coming years as a result of several bloody conflicts between the colonial government and the Maori tribes. Tension has remained till date among the indigenous people of New Zealand and the descendants of Europeans who colonized their country.
Edited by: Elizabeth Shumacker
