‘They can’t suspend our movement’: extreme punishment for anti-racist MPs in NZ
The New Zealand government looks set to hand down the most severe punishment in its history, with two MPs likely to be suspended from parliament for 21 days, and one for seven.
Who has acted so egregiously to warrant such extreme measures?
The obvious assumption for any decent person would be the reactionary racists in government—like Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, Minister for Regulation David Seymour and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon—who have spent the last two years attacking the oppressed and blaming them for society’s wrongs.
But that assumption would be wrong. The MPs facing suspension are actually those who stood up to these attacks. Te Pāti Māori MPs, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, face suspension for protesting the Treaty Principles Bill, Maipi-Clarke for seven days and co-leaders Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi for 21. They will not be allowed to sit in parliament or receive a salary for the period of suspension.
The Treaty Principles Bill was the racist creation of Seymour, a libertarian with a long history of attacking indigenous rights. The bill sought to remove Māori sovereignty from law, rolling back the gains made by Māori mass movements of resistance.
Maipi-Clarke, Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi made international headlines when they protested the bill at its first reading last year. When asked to indicate the Te Pāti Māori MPs’ votes on the Bill, Maipi-Clarke ripped the bill in half, and began a haka, a ceremonial dance of resistance. She was joined by supportive MPs as well as members of the public who were present, their actions disrupting and postponing the vote.
The protest brought into the halls of parliament a grassroots movement that Te Pāti Māori had been building on the streets and the community. It broke down the separation between government representatives and those they serve, a separation that serves to insulate MPs from the consequences of the laws they make on ordinary people. For a brief period, it made those consequences impossible to ignore, and that was extremely uncomfortable for those used to attacking ordinary people with impunity. Not surprisingly, extreme punishment followed.
The privileges committee, which is the body recommending the suspensions to the government, claimed the MPs “acted in a manner that could have the effect of intimidating a member of the House” and that Maipi-Clarke made a gun gesture at another MP, an obvious misrepresentation of a wiri, a traditional hand movement in a haka. The committee was headed by Judith Collins, attorney general and member of the National Party, who cited a “lack of civility” from Te Pāti Māori MPs in her decision.
Collins has a long history of racist attacks on Māori. In 2021 she advocated for a referendum on the use of “Aotearoa” (the Māori name for New Zealand) by the government, viciously opposed Māori governance through bodies like the Māori Health Authority, and denied that systemic racism existed in police. The severity of the proposed punishment, and its justification through racist descriptions of Māori culture, shows how deeply embedded anti-Māori racism continues to be. Waititi described the process as “being punished for being Māori”, and Ngarewa-Packer as Collins “slapping the whip to get all natives into line”.
The three MPs threatened with suspension each hold one of seven Māori seats (seats only Māori can vote for). This means nearly half of all Māori seats will be empty during the period of suspension, seats that represent more than 210,000 Māori, in a blatant act of disenfranchisement. It is also possible the suspension will coincide with the budget debate.
The ruling right-wing coalition is threatened by the ongoing resistance to its unstable rule. The Nationals, New Zealand First and ACT only just managed to cobble together a Frankenstein government with 53 percent of the vote. They have cut social spending and pushed down workers’ living conditions to boost profits, in the midst of a recession and one of New Zealand’s worst cost-of-living crises on record. The coalition’s promises to bring the country out of recession have not come to fruition, and their business-over-everything approach has further eroded their meagre support, Luxon recently polling at 22 percent, his lowest yet.
The Treaty Principles Bill, and revival of racist culture wars, proved to be a step too far for many, sparking one of the largest protest movements in the country’s history. Tens of thousands of people, from all demographics and parts of the country, participated in a mass movement under the slogan “Toitu Te Tiriti”—defend the Treaty. The movement directed rage at the government over a number of issues, from its support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, to attacks on other sections of the oppressed and the environment. The bill was voted down at its second reading.
The upcoming budget is expected to be even more painful for everyday people than the last. The government’s policy statement makes clear that it is doubling down on its slash and burn approach to the services people need, like health care, education and public housing, while finding $12 billion over the next four years for the military.
Maipi-Clarke, Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi are some of the most outspoken in parliament against attacks on Māori, and also against attacks on living standards and the rights of the oppressed generally. As Waititi explained in an interview after the privileges committee’s decision was announced, “We are trying to lift everybody out of poverty ... to ensure that everybody is fed, housed and cared for”.
The proposed suspension is a cowardly attempt to smother left-wing dissent and resistance with bureaucratic policies and procedures. But capitalist parliaments stand on sand, and their rule can melt into air when challenged by the masses. As a statement from the Te Pāti Māori put it, “They can suspend our MPs, but they can’t suspend our movement”.
