“The question isn’t whether haka belongs in parliament, but does parliament truly belong in Aotearoa?” writes Anton Matthews. (Photo supplied)

The moment haka stops being for entertainment and starts being about resistance, parliament can’t cope, writes Anton Matthews.

I’ve been watching the kōrero unfold about whether haka has a place in our parliament.

Let’s be clear — haka absolutely has a place on the marae. That’s not up for debate. Especially on the marae ātea, the space out front of the wharenui. That’s the realm of Tūmatauenga, the atua of war. It’s the space where challenges are laid down, where hard things are said, where we test each other and stand firm in our truth. Haka belongs there.

Haka has always been more than just a performance or something you do before a rugby game or on the kapa haka stage. It’s a vessel. A way to carry deep emotions — grief, rage, love, pride. It’s a way of expressing thoughts, opinions, wero. It’s storytelling. Protest. Resistance. Unity. And, at its core, haka is Māori.

So was it appropriate, from a tikanga Māori point of view, for Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke to lead haka in parliament as a form of protest against a bill that she (and hundreds of thousands of others) opposed?

Āe, marika! Yes, absolutely.

If you’re using the public submissions as a guide, around 90 percent of people who submitted felt the same way she did.

But here’s where the tension lies.

The backlash from governing political parties wasn’t technically about the haka, according to the opposition. It was about “breaking the rules of the House”. And yet, within hours of the privileges committee recommending that she and her colleagues be stood down for 7 to 21 days — the harshest suspension of its kind by a factor of seven — another MP, a government minister, dropped the c-bomb in the House. Pretty sure that falls outside of the rules, eh?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not precious about swear words. I use them all the time. That’s not the issue here.

The issue is how differently we treat tikanga Māori when it shows up in spaces that were never designed for it.

This whole debate started with David Seymour trying to redefine the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. So it seems appropriate to talk about that very document.

In its preamble, Queen Victoria clearly states that the growing number of British subjects settling in Aotearoa were creating disorder. She seeks permission to establish “a settled form of Civil Government” to maintain peace and protect both Māori and Pākehā. She authorised Hobson to negotiate with the rangatira to gain kāwanatanga, so that her people — the settlers — could be governed properly by the Queen.

The original purpose of parliament, then, was to govern her own people. That’s a fact. The government wasn’t created to govern Māori. It was meant to create order among the growing settler population, while recognising the authority of rangatira. If you don’t believe me, go and read the preamble.

But over time, that purpose has been rewritten. Parliament became a place where Māori had to fit in, rather than a place where both systems of knowledge could co-exist.

It’s a system imported from Westminster, dropped into Aotearoa without much thought for tikanga, whakapapa or Māori ways of doing things. And it works — as long as Māori in those spaces don’t bring in too much of their “Maorification”, another term that’s been thrown around this week.

Because the moment that happens, the system tightens. Pushback comes fast and hard.

I heard a commentator this week try to draw a comparison between Rawiri Waititi naming haka as a form of tikanga, and his decision to wear sneakers or a hat in the House. Her attempt at a mic drop moment was: “Wearing sneakers and a funny hat is not tikanga, Rawiri.”

Who said it was? No one claimed sneakers were tikanga. Haka is. And in that moment of the haka, those MPs were expressing mamae (hurt), frustration, aroha for their people and resistance to a bill they believed would do serious harm.

It was powerful. And it was beautiful.

But what’s become painfully obvious is this: Aotearoa only loves haka when it suits. We put it on the tourism ads. We use it to sell tickets to sports games and all the merch for supporting that team in black. It moves people in a way that makes us all feel proud to be from this part of the world.

But the moment haka challenges power? The moment it stops being entertainment and starts being resistance?

We turn away from it. We say: “Oh, don’t do that.”

We pick and choose. In the House, we sprinkle a little bit of reo here and there, maybe a waiata if we’re feeling brave, but parliament has shown us again this week that it still doesn’t know how to hold tikanga in its hands. It doesn’t yet know how to honour the depth, beauty and purpose of haka when it arrives in the room.

Because when it really matters, our parliament still acts like an outpost of the system it came from.

So maybe the question isn’t whether haka belongs in parliament.

Maybe the real question is: Does parliament truly belong in Aotearoa?

Anton Matthews is a proud pāpā, husband, and the founder of Hustle Group, a whānau-owned business in Ōtautahi. Through ventures like Fush, Joe’s Garage Wigram, Tātou Tātou Catering, and Hustle Education, Anton is on a mission to normalise te reo Māori and weave Māori values into everyday life and business.

E-Tangata, 2025