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New Zealand MPs Receive Historic Suspensions for Haka Protest Over Indigenous Rights Bill

New Zealand MPs Receive Historic Suspensions for Haka Protest Over Indigenous Rights Bill

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Miko Santos
Jun 06, 2025
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New Zealand MPs Receive Historic Suspensions for Haka Protest Over Indigenous Rights Bill
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Credit: Māori Party

Three New Zealand lawmakers from the Māori Party received the longest parliamentary suspensions in the country's history after performing a traditional haka during a legislative session to protest a controversial bill targeting Indigenous treaty rights.

The suspensions, handed down this week, include a 21-day ban for two members and a seven-day suspension for a third, marking an unprecedented disciplinary action in New Zealand's Parliament. The lawmakers were protesting legislation they say would fundamentally redefine the Treaty of Waitangi, the 1840 founding document that established rights for the Māori people.

"This House calls it disorderly. We call it an elevation of our Indigenous voice. A declaration that Māori will never surrender the mana of the Tiriti o Waitangi," one of the suspended MPs said during the proceedings, using the Māori name for the treaty.

In an interview with ABC News Australia, Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who received a 21-day suspension, provided detailed context for the parliamentary protest and defended the cultural response as necessary resistance to government overreach.

Speaking from Taranaki, Ngarewa-Packer told ABC News Australia that the current political climate in New Zealand represents an unprecedented shift toward right-wing extremism. "We have a political landscape in New Zealand that is very like we finished watching earlier, where the Trumpism has taken a hold of an extreme right-wing government, which is the first time for us in New Zealand," she said.

The dramatic parliamentary confrontation highlights escalating tensions over Indigenous rights in New Zealand as the current government pursues what Māori leaders characterize as an assault on treaty protections that have guided the nation's approach to Indigenous relations for nearly two centuries.


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