New Zealand's parliament has handed record suspensions to three Indigenous Maori MPs after they performed a haka to protest a controversial bill last year.
Maori Party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer were banned from parliament for 21 days, the longest-ever suspension, while New Zealand's youngest MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke was suspended for seven days.
The three performed the haka last November ahead of a vote on a bill that would have reinterpreted the 185-year-old Treaty of Waitangi between the British and Indigenous Maori that still guides the country's policy and legislation.
In footage widely shared around the world, Ms Maipi-Clarke, 22, rose to her feet, ripped up the bill and started performing a protest haka.
She was joined by Mr Waititi and Ms Ngarewa-Packer, who strode on the chamber floor chanting the Ka Mate haka famously performed by the All Blacks rugby team.
Ms Ngarewa-Packer was also accused of pointing her fingers in the shape of a gun at the leader of the right-wing ACT Party, David Seymour, who had proposed the bill.
The trio were hauled before parliament's Privileges Committee, but refused to take part in the hearing.
Supported by New Zealand's three governing coalition parties, the bans were voted on and accepted on Thursday.
Maori MPs say suspensions an effort to silence them
Ms Maipi-Clarke responded by saying Maori would not be silenced.
"A member can swear at another member, a member of cabinet can lay their hands on a staff member, a member can drive up the steps of parliament, a member can swear in parliament, and yet they weren't given five minutes of suspension," she said.
"Yet when we stand up for the country's foundational document, we get punished with the most severe consequences."
She told parliament ahead of the vote that the suspension was an effort to stop Maori from making themselves heard in parliament.
"Are our voices too loud for this house? Is that the reason why we are being silenced? Are our voices shaking the core foundation of this house? The house we had no voice in building … We will never be silenced and we will never be lost," she said.
Mr Waititi held up a noose as he rose to speak in defiance of the ban on Thursday.
"In my maiden speech, I talked about one of our [ancestors] who was hung in the gallows of Mt Eden Prison, wrongfully accused," he said.
"The silencing of us today is a reminder of the silencing of our ancestors of the past, and it continues to happen.
"Now you've traded the noose for legislation. Well, we will not be silenced."
While the members are suspended, they will not be paid or be able to vote on legislation.
Suspending MPs is rare in New Zealand's parliament, and only three have been suspended in the past 10 years, according to New Zealand parliamentary services.
Before Thursday, the longest suspension was for three days, according to New Zealand representatives who spoke earlier in the day.
Judith Collins, who heads the Privileges Committee and serves as attorney-general, had previously told parliament that the haka forced the speaker to suspend proceedings for 30 minutes and that no permission had been sought to perform it.
"It's not about the haka … it is about following the rules of parliament that we are all obliged to follow and that we all pledged to follow," Ms Collins said.
The opposition Labour party called for a compromise and proposed censure instead of suspension.
Labour considers the suspension to be "inconsistent with the fundamental nature of this democracy", Labour parliamentarian Duncan Webb said on Thursday.
"This decision is wildly out of step with any other decision of the Privileges Committee," Mr Webb said.
The parliamentary committee panel members were sharply divided over the haka protest and the lengthy punishments were advanced only because the government has more MPs in the parliament than the opposition.
Calls to recognise Maori protocols in parliament
Inside and outside parliament, the haka has increasingly been welcomed as an important part of New Zealand life.
The sacred chant can be a challenge to the viewer but is not violent.
As Maori language and culture have become part of mainstream New Zealand in recent years, haka appear in a range of cultural, somber and celebratory settings.
They have also been performed in parliament to welcome the passage of high-profile laws.
Some who decried the protest haka in parliament cited its timing, with Ms Maipi-Clarke beginning the chant as votes were being tallied and causing a brief suspension of proceedings.
She has privately apologised for the disruption to parliament's speaker, she said on Thursday.
Some MPs urged their peers to consider rewriting rules about what members could do in parliament to recognise Maori cultural protocols as accepted forms of protest.
One cited changes to allow breastfeeding in the debating chamber as evidence the institution had amended rules before.
Thursday's debate capped a fraught episode for race relations in New Zealand, beginning with the controversial bill that the Maori Party MPs opposed.
The bill, which was defeated in parliament, sought to reinterpret the Treaty of Waitangi and put the new interpretation to a public vote.
It was widely seen as an attack on Maori because for more than five decades the treaty has been used to enshrine Maori rights into law.
The Treaty Principles Bill sparked massive protests across New Zealand, including in a hikoi — or march — of nearly 40,000 people arriving on the steps of parliament in late November.
The Maori Party, as well as other community members, have been central to organising those protests, as well as resisting the proposal inside parliament.
ABC/wires
