Hana Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke tears up the Treaty Principles Bill and leads a haka in protest at the government’s willingness to table it. (Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone)

The powerful haka in parliament this week exposes the serious limitations of our imported Westminster system, write Massey University educators Brian Tweed and Pania Te Maro.

Our parliament is already aligned with the spirit of the Treaty Principles Bill, as its institutional practices this week have shown.

When Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke was banned for performing a haka after a debate on the Treaty Principles Bill, it opened a window into the culture of parliament.

Hana’s haka showed how the House itself is suffering from a fundamental conflict of interest.

The Treaty Principles Bill, according to the Act Party “would confirm in law that all New Zealanders have equal rights, as promised by the Treaty of Waitangi”.

There are at least two big problems with this claim. We already have equal rights in law as citizens of New Zealand, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi quite obviously did not only promise citizen-based equal rights. It also promised tino rangatiratanga: Māori control of themselves and their taonga in their own land.

The bill is based on a definition of equality that erases how our history has privileged some and impoverished others. Implementation of this kind of equality would perform a reset of society that automatically legitimises the inequality that’s resulted from the injustices of our colonial history.

It wants to bury the fact that Māori also have rights that are distinct from “general rights” because of Te Tiriti and the prior existence of Māori cultural, political and economic systems (and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People).

The kind of “equality” referred to in the bill denies the possibility of difference except in ways that cannot challenge the existing order of things. Implementing this form of “equality” as if it is self-evident and universal is racist. You can be Māori, it says, but only at home or on your marae. Don’t be Māori in my backyard.

The bill is plugged into a homogenising worldview that assumes its own values are universal and that everyone must be dependent on the current economic and political system. It requires that we all believe history doesn’t exist.

This is why the events on Thursday during the reading of the Treaty Principles Bill are so important.

Speaker of the House, Gerry Brownlee, rolls his eyes when the haka begins. (Image: Parliament TV)

When Hana initiated the haka, which many other MPs joined, it was a chance for parliament to show maturity and bicultural understanding. What we got instead was a petulant suspension of parliament. Gerry Brownlee, the Speaker of the House, banned Hana from parliament for 24 hours. We might wonder why only Hana was banned, but the important point here is what suspension and banning mean.

It is an extreme form of “tone policing”. Tone policing is a strategy used to deflect attention and energy away from the substance of a message, and toward the way the message is delivered. This is a well-recognised strategy used by dominant groups to silence marginalised people — and suspending parliament and banning people is certainly one way to silence them. More importantly, it demonstrates how little progress has been made in the foundational cultural practices of our parliament, which remain firmly “Westminster”.

In Māori terms, haka is a legitimate way to express ideas. This was not recognised by the Speaker. Gerry’s exclamation of “Oh don’t do that!”,  and his intolerance of what was happening as he stood waiting for it to end was obvious.

The haka should have continued until finished and been understood for what it was — an expression fully acceptable in Māori terms. Then business could have proceeded as usual. Instead, the haka was described as a disruption, and an attempt to disrupt the vote on the bill. The irony of this during a session on the disruptive and divisive Treaty Principles Bill is palpable.

The misrecognition of a legitimate form of Māori expression shows a deep-seated problem — the positioning of parliamentary norms as universal and therefore applicable across cultural boundaries. The argument for abiding by parliament’s norms, and not shutting the bill down before it was tabled because an agreement was made by three parties, is self-contradictory.

If sticking to agreements is so important, then why do they not need to abide by the agreements made in Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

What is also ironic about claims of haka disrupting proceedings is what anyone who listens to debates in the chamber can see and hear during every session.

Our MPs shout at others, are rude and disrupt others while they’re talking all the time. The haka is a far more elegant, respectful and eloquent device than the usual disrespectful, intentional attempts to insult and denigrate others that parliamentarians use to bully and silence on a regular basis.

It is highly hypocritical to say that one Māori form of expression is disruptive, while carrying out bullying, disrespectful and disruptive behaviours that have been inherited from a foreign country.

Sadly, some prominent Māori MPs perpetuate this parliamentary lack of cultural competence.

The comments from Shane Jones about the haka, for example, show a range of tactics to silence and undermine marginalised people. He patronises and belittles Hana by referring to her youth and inexperience (which he seems to think disqualify her from ever doing anything) and calling her “an unhinged songbird”. Such personal attacks generally come from those who have nothing of substance to say.

He’s also suggesting jail time for the leaders of the haka, as if the haka somehow reduced the rights of other MPs, or that kapa haka in parliament is somehow a recruitment tool.

Perhaps the worst tactic, however,  is saying that Māori participation in parliament is optional. That anyone who doesn’t like the rules should leave. Is there another parliament somewhere? No, so the argument becomes either that you abide by the rules and norms of the monolithic monoculture of parliament, or you have no political presence at all.

The performance of the haka in parliament elicited a range of responses that make it clear that parliament itself is embedded in a homogenising, colonial culture that goes hand-in-hand with the cultural forces motivating the Treaty Principles Bill.

Parliament, when haka-provoked, exposed some of the tell-tale signs of its own foundational cultural system. This is a conflict of interest. It raises the question of parliament’s legitimacy as a forum where anything to do with Te Tiriti can be debated.

In fact, it raises the question of whether we have any legitimate forum at all in which to debate constitutional-level issues to do with Te Tiriti.

Pania Te Maro and Brian Tweed, educators at Te Kunenga Ki Pūrehūroa / Massey University. (Photo supplied)

Brian Tweed is originally from the UK. Brian has worked extensively as a mathematics and science teacher and advisor in both English-medium and Māori-medium schools in New Zealand for the past 30 years. He is currently a senior lecturer in Te Kura o te Mātauranga, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehūroa / Massey University teaching the history, sociology and politics of education.

Pania Te Maro (Ngāti Porou – Te Whānau a Pōkai) is Associate Professor and Kaihautū Māori in Te Kura o te Mātauranga at Te Kunenga Ki Pūrehūroa / Massey University. She is Associate Dean Māori for Te Kura Pūkenga Tangata, responsible for improving educational outcomes for Māori students in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Pania is also one of the Kura o te Mātauranga Kaiārahi Tiriti, supporting the college to embed Te Tiriti provisions and principles across all aspects of their mahi.

E-Tangata, 2024