A member of the Aotearoa delegation on the Global Sumud flotilla humanitarian aid mission seeking to break the illegal Gaza enclave blockade imposed by Israel since 2007 clashed with New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters in a parliamentary hearing yesterday.

Peters was attempting to defend his heavily criticised government response to Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — while speaking to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee yesterday.

Peters was answering a line of questions from MPs on whether New Zealand had spoken strongly enough against Israel, when Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto) — a flotilla activist who was brutally abused by Israeli military after being kidnapped in the Mediterranean sea near Cyprus last month and detained — stood up and interrupted him.

• READ MORE: A world first: Australia will now investigate Israel over Gaza flotilla brutality
• France opens ‘war crimes’ probe into Israel’s treatment of Gaza activists
• Other allegations of Israeli brutality against Gaza flotilla activists
• The Global Sumud Aotearoa dossier answering Israeli claims

“Is it New Zealand First, Winston? Or is it Israel First?” Ormsby asked.

He then asked whether New Zealand would sanction Israel, or “investigate Israel for the people that were on the flotilla who were brutally beaten and tortured?”

Ormsby and his fellow activists were then ordered by committee chair Tim van de Molen to leave the room. The video livestream feed was also cut during the protest.

Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation activists came to Wellington this week to challenge Peters over what they condemned as “government inaction following the abduction and mistreatment of New Zealand citizens” by the Israeli military forces in both May and last year.

Australia, France, other countries investigating
Unlike Australia, France, Spain, Malaysia, Türkiye and several other countries, New Zealand and Peters have failed to launch a government investigation into the mistreatment of New Zealand citizens.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP), under instruction from Foreign Minister Penny Wong have now launched an investigation into rape and torture by Israeli forces on Australian citizens who were detained in international waters.

“Knowing we were coming to Wellington, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent us an email yesterday asking us to provide information on what happened to our activists,” a spokesperson for Global Sumud Aotearoa, Rana Hamida, said.

‘Israel both criminal and judge’
“The message was that they would put this to the Israelis — in other words: they will leave it to Israel to be both the criminal and the judge. That’s not good enough.

“Malaysia, for example, is taking Israel to the International Court of Justice over the kidnapping and violence dished out to their citizens.”

Hāhona Ormsby, who endured multiple beatings by the Israelis after being seized in international waters and taken to Israel, said: “Calling in the Israeli ambassador and slapping him with a wet bus ticket over tea and scones does not count as meaningful action.”

The government has treated people like Ormsby as a “threat” while doing nothing to hold Israel to account, Global Sumud Aotearoa said in a statement.

“I had two detectives come and interview me this week to assess if I was a ‘threat’. Imagine that? I joined the Sumud flotilla armed with nothing other than aroha and I — a New Zealand citizen — get treated as the problem,” Ormsby said.

“But some Israeli soldier fresh from killing women, children, and babies in Gaza and Lebanon knows they can holiday in New Zealand with no questions asked.”

Global Sumud Aotearoa is demanding that the NZ government launch its own “non-Israeli-led investigation”. New Zealand should coordinate with other governments who had already launched inquiries into the attack on their citizens, the group said in its statement.

‘Interview the activists’
“A first step would be for the government to formally interview our returning activists. Second, the government should liaise with the Turkish authorities who sent planes to Israel to bring over 400 detained Sumud activists to safety in Istanbul.

“It should be noted New Zealand provided absolutely no support whatsoever to their citizens,” the statement said.

All the Sumud people who were flown out of Israel, including the New Zealand citizens, were given medical examinations and forensic interviews in Türkiye.

Some, including Hāhona Ormsby and fellow Kiwi Mousa Taher, received hospital treatment for their injuries.

“MFAT requesting medical records from Türkiye would be a useful place to start,” the Sumud statement said.

Global Sumud Aotearoa has widely distributed a detailed response to “Israeli propaganda that ludicrously suggested that the black eyes, broken noses and ribs inflicted on citizens from over 40 countries was an elaborate hoax”.

“The photo of the damaged face of New Zealand citizen Julien Blondel, beaten by Israelis in an attack in international waters on April 29, should have triggered immediate action by the NZ government,” the statement said.

“The Israelis, realising that New Zealand and other Western governments stood with them, not their own citizens, increased the level of violence in their June attack on over 50 vessels.”

Winston Peters has been accused of “pure racism” in Parliament by Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who has called out National ministers for failing to combat or challenge it.

The Greens say Peters is scapegoating migrants, while ACT’s David Seymour — his own Cabinet colleague — says Peters is simply seeking attention.

The condemnation came following Parliament’s Question Time yesterday when the NZ First leader singled out a Green MP for his Rarotongan heritage.

• READ MORE: Hipkins accuses Peters of ‘pure racism’, slams ‘ugly side’ of politics

Green MP Teanau Tuiono had used the word “Aotearoa” to refer to New Zealand while asking questions about climate aid in the Pacific.

It prompted Peters to interrupt: “Why is [the minister] answering a question from someone who comes from Rarotonga to a country called New Zealand . . . ”

Speaker Gerry Brownlee cut him off to object to noise from other MPs in the debating chamber.

Hipkins then leapt to his feet: “Members in this House are equal. For a member of the House to stand up and question whether someone is entitled to ask a question because of their country of origin is pure racism, and you should’ve stopped him in the beginning.”

Brownlee said he did not hear Peters’ remark, but would review the transcription later.

Peters then completed his question, asking why somebody from Rarotonga had decided “without any consultation with the New Zealand people” to change the country’s name.

In response, Brownlee said that was “not an acceptable question at all”.

“I want that to be the last time that those sort of questions are directed so personally at members of this House,” Brownlee said.

Tuiono has both Māori and Cook Islands Māori heritage but was born in New Zealand.

Hipkins calls out ‘ugly side’ to politics
In a speech to Parliament shortly later, Hipkins decried an “ugly side to New Zealand politics”, calling out “outright race-baiting” and “direct racism” being expressed in the debating chamber.

“Attacks on our Chinese and Asian communities in New Zealand, attacks on our Indian communities in New Zealand, and just today, attacks on whether those who have Pasifika heritage are entitled to ask questions in this house.

“And what have we heard from the government side on those attacks? Absolutely nothing.”

Hipkins said National ministers needed to “combat and challenge that racism” during this year’s election campaign, saying it was “totally unacceptable” for them to “say nothing and do nothing”.

“They are quite happy to stand by while members of their own government attack our Chinese community, our Indian community, our Pasifika community, migrants to New Zealand who work damn hard and contribute to New Zealand, and it’s an absolute disgrace.”

Hipkins said government ministers should celebrate diversity and not cast aspersions on it.

Speaking to reporters later, Hipkins said Peters’ behaviour “had no place in government and Parliament” — but he still would not say whether Labour would be prepared to work with NZ First after the election.

“I’m going make judgements about those things closer to the election, but I’ll call out bad behaviour when I see it.”

Greens call Peters ‘Temu Trump’
Addressing reporters outside Parliament, Tuiono said Peters was using “culture wars” to distract from the real harm he was causing New Zealanders.

“Just like Trump, he’s not very good with geography,” he said. “He just needs to get an atlas. A bilingual one preferably.”

His Green colleague Ricardo Menéndez March said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had failed to show leadership by allowing Peters — “a Temu Trump” — to spread anti-migrant sentiment.

“It’s migrant scapegoating . . .  it’s emboldens people outside of these four walls who wish to cause harm on our migrant communities,” Menéndez March said.

Speaking afterwards, ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour said he would never make such comments but would leave others to judge them for themselves.

“Do I like those comments? No. Would I make those comments? No. But I think if we all go on a 2019-style witch-hunt, we’re actually just fuelling it,” he said.

“If we all get ourselves in a lather, giving them the attention that they want, then that’s just as bad.”

‘Utter nonsense’ claim
In response, Peters told reporters Hipkins was talking “utter nonsense” and he did not care about Seymour’s views.

“How can somebody from another country who’s come to New Zealand decide to change my country’s name?” Peters said.

When told that Tuiono was actually born in New Zealand, Peters said, regardless, the Green MP claimed to be a “Cook Islander”.

“I would never go to the Cook Islands and start changing their name, would I?”

Peters said he was regularly being “literally mobbed” by New Zealanders on matters like the use of the word Aotearoa.

“I’m not indulging fools here. Let me tell you something: stand back and watch the polls go.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Speakers contrasted and condemned settler colonialism strategies in Aotearoa New Zealand and Israel’s illegal occupation and genocide in Palestine at a feisty solidarity rally in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau today — a day after Waitangi Day, the national holiday marking the 1840 signing of Te Tititi o Waitangi between 46 chiefs and the British crown.

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair John Minto was one of the speakers after attending an earlier rally at Kerikeri and then driving 240 km with four fellow activists to join the Auckland protest.

“Colonisation in the present resonates with every Māori family. So here we are in that process of decolonisation, a slow process — it’s happening within Māoridom, and it’s happening in the Pākehā world,” Minto told the crowd.

• READ MORE: Why the Treaty Principles Bill had to go down
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• Other Gaza genocide reports

“I was so delighted that when the Treaty Principles Bill came in we had that huge hikoī in Wellington,” he said.

“For those of you who know Wellington, we were in Manners Street towards the end of the march.

“And we got word that the rally had started in Parliament. We still had a kilometre to go. The streets were jammed with people, Pākehā, Māori, migrant people — Indigenous people from all over the world, all saying ‘no’.

“New Zealand is not a European country. We have an Indigenous people here and we want to work in partnership through the Treaty of Waitangi.

‘Weak prime minister’
“And what we have now, again, we’ve got a government that is — we have a weak prime minister, and we have got leaders of strong rightwing parties, that’s Winston Peters from New Zealand First, and that other guy from ACT . . .

“You know, whatever his name is . . .” Minto said jokingly. The crowd reeled of David Seymour’s name with a mocking tone and cries of “one term government” with a general election due on November 7.

Among other speakers was Janfrie Wakim, a longtime advocate for Palestine and one of the founders of the Auckland-based Palestine Human Rights Campaign founded in the 1970s, which later evolved into the PSNA in 2013.

She gave a “high fives” message of praise for protesters supporting the cause of Palestine justice and self-determination in this 122th week of demonstrations since October 2023.

Wakim also lauded the “kaimahi” — the workers who turned up each week to set up and pack up.

She said the colonisation of Aotearoa and Palestine had similarities — “but also some differences and decolonising is our task here in Aotearoa and in Palestine.”

Wakim paid tribute to Annette Sykes — “a wahine toa and heroic lawyer” advocate for Māori iwi — who wrote recently “decolonising is not erasing history but rewriting who controls the narrative”.

‘Enriching empires’
“Classic colonialists set out to exploit resources and enrich their empires,” Wakim said.

“European imperial powers dominated the past 500 years and they exited when their empires collapsed,” she said, naming Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Spain.

However, she added, “settler colonialism is different — it remains and is ongoing. All settler-colonial states seek more territory and fewer Indigenous people by ‘ethnic-cleansing’.”

“Settler colonialists sought to recreate Europe in the lands they invaded and they needed to eliminate the local native populations living there — think Australia.

“That is the story of Palestine.

“Settler colonialism is a structure not an event. And Zionists built their structure on that platform.”

Wakim said early Zionists knew well that Palestine was populated. They knew that the land had to be “emptied” to allow European Jews to establish their settler-colonial project.

Nakba refugees
She referred to the 1948 Nakba — “the catastrophe” — when 750,000 Palestinians were expelled by Israeli militias. They became refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria but with a UN-backed right to return.

More than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and their land stolen by the Israelis.

Wakim also told of the Zionists’ racist narrative dehumanising the Palestinians and their relationship to the land”.

“But nothing compares with what Israel is doing today — the brutal, ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing we have been witnessing and continue to witness.”

Wakim said the Zionist structure was built on a weak foundation that was crumbling — “not fast enough but the cracks are widening as is Israel’s reliance on one superpower which itself is in decline”.

She said Palestine and Palestinians remained steadfast and resisting the injustices.

“As here in Aotearoa, they are actively working across the world in solidarity with others to expose the lies and change the narrative and unite people of all nations, ethnicities and religions.

BDS movement growing
“BDS — [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] is growing slowly but surely.”

She said Israel was imploding and she called on New Zealand to renew its “lead on social justice issues”.

“We may be small, but we can be powerful,” she added.

Another speaker, kaiāwhina Kerry Sorensen-Tyrer, spoke of her encounter that day at Te Komititanga Square with three IDF soldiers from Israel “holidaying” in New Zealand. After a brief exchange, she photographed them and reminded the crowd to be vigilant and to report information to the PSNA’s IDF hotline.

“We do not want you in Aotearoa,” she said of the soldiers and their role in a genocidal war on Gaza to loud cheers from the crowd.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister says the war in Gaza is “utterly appalling” and Israeil Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost the plot”.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s comments came on a tense day in Parliament today, where the Green Party’s co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was “named” for refusing to leave the House following a heated debate on the government’s plan to consider recognising Palestinian statehood.

Speaking to media, Luxon said Netanyahu had “gone too far”.

• READ MORE: Israel kills 73 in Gaza as UK, EU and others slam ‘unimaginable’ suffering
• Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick ‘named’ for refusing to leave Parliament
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• MEAA condemns targeted attacks on Gaza journalists as a war crime
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

“I think he has lost the plot and I think that what we’re seeing overnight — the attack on Gaza City — is utterly, utterly unacceptable,” he said.

Luxon said Israel had consistently ignored pleas from the international community for humanitarian aid to be delivered “unfettered” and the situation was driving more human catastrophe across Gaza.

“We are a small country a long way away, with very limited trade with Israel. We have very little connection with the country, but we have stood up for values, and we keep articulating them very consistently, and what you have seen is Israel not listening to the global community at all,” Luxon said.

“We have said a forcible displacement of people and an annexation of Gaza would be a breach of international law. We have called these things out consistently time and time again.

“You’ve seen New Zealand join many of our friends and partners around the world to make these statements, and he’s just not listening,” the Prime Minister said.

Considering statehood
The government is considering whether it will join other countries like France, Canada and Australia in recognising Palestinian statehood at a UN Leader’s Meeting next month.

Luxon said recent attacks could “extinguish a pathway” to a two-state solution.

“I’m telling you what my personal view is, as a human being, looking at the situation, that’s how I feel about,” he said.

Opposition Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has called the war an “unfolding genocide”, echoing the comments made by former prime minister Helen Clark, who visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Palestinian territory this week. as part of The Elders’ delegation.

“She’s used the words ‘unfolding genocide’, and yes, I do agree with that. That’s a good description of the situation at the moment.”

Hipkins said calling it an “unfolding genocide” meant that New Zealand was not “appointing ourselves judge and jury” because there was still a case to be heard before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

“Recognising that there is an unfolding genocide in Gaza is an important part of the world community standing up and saying, we’re not going to tolerate it.

“We should recognise that there is now a growing acknowledgement around the world that there is an unfolding genocide in Gaza, and I think we should call that for what it is, and the world community needs to react to that to prevent it from happening,” Hipkins said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has been ejected from Parliament’s debating chamber and told to leave for the rest of the week after a fiery speech about the war in Gaza.

The incident occured during an urgent debate this afternoon which was called after the coalition government’s announcement that it would come to a formal decision in September over whether to recognise the state of Palestine.

As Swarbrick came to the end of her contribution, she challenged coalition MPs to back her member’s bill allowing New Zealand to apply sanctions on Israel “for its war crimes”.

Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick asked to leave Parliament after Gaza speech   Video: Parliament TV

“If we find six of 68 government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history,” Swarbrick said.

Almost immediately, Speaker Gerry Brownlee condemned the remark as “completely unacceptable” and demanded she “withdraw it and apologise”.

Swarbrick shot back a curt — “no” — prompting Brownlee to order her out of the chamber for the remainder of the week.

“Happily,” Swarbrick said, as she rose to leave.

Green Party whip Ricardo Menéndez March later stood to question the severity of punishment, saying Parliament’s rules suggested Swarbrick should be barred for no more than a day.

Brownlee later clarified that Swarbrick could come back to the debating chamber on Wednesday, but only if she agreed to withdraw and apologise.

“If she doesn’t, then she’ll be leaving the House again,” he said.

“I’m not going to sit in this chair and tolerate a member standing on her feet . . .  and saying that other members of this House are spineless.”

‘What the hell is the point?’ — Swarbrick
Speaking outside the debating chamber, Swarbrick described the ruling as “ridiculous” and the punishment excessive.

“As far as the robust debate goes in that place, I think that was pretty mild in the context of the war crimes that are currently unfolding.”

She drew a comparison with comments made by former prime minister Sir John Key in 2015 when he challenged the opposition to “get some guts”.

Swarbrick said she was tired and angry at the massacre of human beings.

“What the hell is the point of everything that we do if the people in my place, in my job don’t do their job?” she said.

“If we allow other human beings to be just mercilessly slaughtered, to be shot while waiting for food aid, what hope is there for humanity?”

Swarbrick was not the only MP to run afoul of the Speaker during today’s debate.

Earlier, Labour MP Damien O’Connor was told to either exit the chamber or apologise after interjecting while Foreign Minister Winston Peters was speaking. O’Connor stood and left.

Brownlee also demanded ACT MP Simon Court say sorry — which he did — after Court accused Swarbrick of “hallucinating outrage”.

Government urges caution, opposition demands action
In his speech, Court said any recognition of a Palestinian state must be conditional on all Israeli hostages being returned and Hamas being disarmed and dismantled.

“Security must come before politics,” he said.

No National MPs spoke during the urgent debate.

Peters — who is also NZ First leader — told MPs the matter of Palestinian statehood was not a straightforward or clear-cut issue.

“There are strong opinions on both sides,” he said. “That is why we are approaching this issue carefully, judiciously and calmly.”

Peters also took umbrage with the opposition’s complaints, pointing out Labour never moved on the matter when it was in government.

In a 10 minute speech, Labour foreign affairs spokesperson Peeni Henare said New Zealand was being left behind as the coalition walked into a “sunset of denial”.

“How many more people will suffer and how many more people will die?”

‘Despicable’ justifications
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told MPs it was “despicable” to hear the justifications for another month’s delay.

“What will be left? Rubble? Martyred spirits? What is that you want to have left in a month’s time?” she said. “I have never been more ashamed to be in the House than I am today.”

In her speech, Swarbrick told MPs libraries of evidence demonstrated that the events unfolding in Palestine were “ethnic cleansing… apartheid [and]… genocide”.

“We are a laggard, we are an outlier,” she said. “We are one of the very few countries in the world who so far refuse to acknowledge the absolute bare minimum.”

Earlier, during Parliament’s Question Time, ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour objected to Swarbrick having a Palestinian scarf, or keffiyeh, draped across her seat.

“I invite you to consider what this House might look like if everybody who had an interest in a global conflict started adorning their seats with symbols of one side or another of a conflict,” he said.

“I think that would bring the House into disrepute and no member should be allowed to do such a thing.”

Brownlee said Seymour raised a good point, only for Swarbrick to then wrap the scarf around her neck.

“Oh, here we go,” he said. “Well, stay warm. We’ll move on now.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament has confirmed the unprecedented punishments proposed for opposition indigenous Te Pāti Māori MPs who performed a haka in protest against the Treaty Principles Bill.

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi will be suspended for 21 days, and MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke suspended for seven days, taking effect immediately.

Opposition parties tried to reject the recommendation, but did not have the numbers to vote it down.

• READ MORE: NZ’s Treaty Principles Bill haka highlights tensions between Māori tikanga and rules of Parliament
• Other haka reports

Te Pati Maori MPs speak after being suspended.  Video: RNZ/Mark Papalii

The heated debate to consider the proposed punishment came to an end just before Parliament was due to rise.

Waititi moved to close the debate and no party disagreed, ending the possibility of it carrying on in the next sitting week.

Leader of the House Chris Bishop — the only National MP who spoke — kicked off the debate earlier in the afternoon saying it was “regrettable” some MPs did not vote on the Budget two weeks ago.

Bishop had called a vote ahead of Budget Day to suspend the privileges report debate to ensure the Te Pāti Māori MPs could take part in the Budget, but not all of them turned up.

Robust, rowdy debate
The debate was robust and rowdy with both the deputy speaker Barbara Kuriger and temporary speaker Tangi Utikare repeatedly having to ask MPs to quieten down.

Tākuta Ferris spoke first for Te Pāti Māori, saying the haka was a “signal of humanity” and a “raw human connection”.

He said Māori had faced acts of violence for too long and would not be silenced by “ignorance or bigotry”.

“Is this really us in 2025, Aotearoa New Zealand?” he asked the House.

“Everyone can see the racism.”

He said the Privileges Committee’s recommendations were not without precedent, noting the fact Labour MP Peeni Henare, who also participated in the haka, did not face suspension.

Henare attended the committee and apologised, which contributed to his lesser sanction.

‘Finger gun’ gesture
MP Parmjeet Parmar — a member of the Committee — was first to speak on behalf of ACT, and referenced the hand gesture — or “finger gun” — that Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer made in the direction of ACT MPs during the haka.

Parmar told the House debate could be used to disagree on ideas and issues, and there was not a place for intimidating physical gestures.

Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said New Zealand’s Parliament could lead the world in terms of involving the indigenous people.

She said the Green Party strongly rejected the committee’s recommendations and proposed their amendment of removing suspensions, and asked the Te Pāti Māori MPs be censured instead.

Davidson said the House had evolved in the past — such as the inclusion of sign language and breast-feeding in the House.

She said the Greens were challenging the rules, and did not need an apology from Te Pāti Māori.

NZ First leader Winston Peters said Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party speeches so far showed “no sincerity, saying countless haka had taken place in Parliament but only after first consulting the Speaker.

“They told the media they were going to do it, but they didn’t tell the Speaker did they?

‘Bunch of extremists’
“The Māori party are a bunch of extremists,” Peters said, “New Zealand has had enough of them”.

Peters was made to apologise after taking aim at Waititi, calling him “the one in the cowboy hat” with “scribbles on his face” [in reference to his traditional indigenous moko — tatoo]. He continued afterward, describing Waititi as possessing “anti-Western values”.

Labour’s Willie Jackson congratulated Te Pāti Māori for the “greatest exhibition of our culture in the House in my lifetime”.

Jackson said the Treaty bill was a great threat, and was met by a great haka performance. He was glad the ACT Party was intimidated, saying that was the whole point of doing the haka.

He also called for a bit of compromise from Te Pāti Māori — encouraging them to say sorry — but reiterated Labour’s view the sanctions were out of proportion with past indiscretions in the House.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the debate “would be a joke if it wasn’t so serious”.

“Get an absolute grip,” she said to the House, arguing the prime minister “is personally responsible” if the House proceeds with the committee’s proposed sanctions.

Eye of the beholder
She accused National’s James Meager of “pointing a finger gun” at her — the same gesture coalition MPs had criticised Ngarewa-Packer for during her haka. The Speaker accepted he had not intended to; Swarbrick said it was an example where the interpretation could be in the eye of the beholder.

She said if the government could “pick a punishment out of thin air” that was “not a democracy”, putting New Zealand in very dangerous territory.

An emotional Maipi-Clarke said she had been silent on the issue for a long time, the party’s voices in haka having sent shockwaves around the world. She questioned whether that was why the MPs were being punished.

“Since when did being proud of your culture make you racist?”

“We will never be silenced, and we will never be lost,” she said, calling the Treaty Principles bill a “dishonourable vote”.

She had apologised to the Speaker and accepted the consequence laid down on the day, but refused to apologise. She listed other incidents in Parliament that resulted in no punishment.

NZ Parliament TV: Te Pāti Māori Privileges committee debate.  Video: RNZ

Maipi-Clarke called for the Treaty of Waitangi to be recognised in the Constitution Act, and for MPs to be required to honour it by law.

‘Clear pathway forward’
“The pathway forward has never been so clear,” she said.

ACT’s Nicole McKee said there were excuses being made for “bad behaviour”, that the House was for making laws and having discussions, and “this is not about the haka, this is about process”.

She told the House she had heard no good ideas from the Te Pāti Māori, who she said resorted to intimidation when they did not get their way, but the MPs needed to “grow up” and learn to debate issues. She hoped 21 days would give them plenty of time to think about their behaviour.

Labour MP and former Speaker Adrian Rurawhe started by saying there were “no winners in this debate”, and it was clear to him it was the government, not the Parliament, handing out the punishments.

He said the proposed sanctions set a precedent for future penalties, and governments might use it as a way to punish opposition, imploring National to think twice.

He also said an apology from Te Pāti Māori would “go a long way”, saying they had a “huge opportunity” to have a legacy in the House, but it was their choice — and while many would agree with the party there were rules and “you can’t have it both ways”.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said there had been many instances of misinterpretations of the haka in the House and said it was unclear why they were being punished, “is it about the haka . . . is about the gun gestures?”

“Not one committee member has explained to us where 21 days came from,” he said.

Hat and ‘scribbles’ response
Waititi took aim at Peters over his comments targeting his hat and “scribbles” on his face.

He said the haka was an elevation of indigenous voice and the proposed punishment was a “warning shot from the colonial state that cannot stomach” defiance.

Waititi said that throughout history when Māori did not play ball, the “coloniser government” reached for extreme sanctions, ending with a plea to voters: “Make this a one-term government, enrol, vote”.

He brought out a noose to represent Māori wrongfully put to death in the past, saying “interpretation is a feeling, it is not a fact . . .  you’ve traded a noose for legislation”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Legal experts and Māori advocates say the fight to protect Te Tiriti is only just beginning — as the controversial Treaty Principles Bill is officially killed in Parliament.

The bill — which seeks to redefine the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi — sparked a nationwide hīkoi and received more than 300,000 written submissions — with 90 percent of submitters opposing it.

Parliament confirmed the voting down of the bill yesterday, with only ACT supporting it proceeding further.

• READ MORE: The Treaty Principles Bill : Here’s what’s in it
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The ayes were 11, and the noes 112.

Riana Te Ngahue, a young Māori lawyer whose bite-sized breakdowns of complex issues — like the Treaty Principles Bill — went viral on social media, said she was glad the bill was finally gone.

“It’s just frustrating that we’ve had to put so much time and energy into something that’s such a huge waste of time and money. I’m glad it’s over, but also disappointed because there are so many other harmful bills coming through — in the environment space, Oranga Tamariki, and others.”

Most New Zealanders not divided
Te Ngahue said the Justice Committee’s report — which showed 90 percent of submitters opposed the bill, 8 percent supported it, and 2 percent were unstated in their position — proved that most New Zealanders did not feel divided about Te Tiriti.

“If David Seymour was right in saying that New Zealanders feel divided about this issue, then we would’ve seen significantly more submissions supporting his bill.

“He seemed pretty delusional to keep pushing the idea that New Zealanders were behind him, because if that was true, he would’ve got a lot more support.”

However, Te Ngahue said it was “wicked” to see such overwhelming opposition.

“Especially because I know for a lot of people, this was their first time ever submitting on a bill. That’s what I think is really exciting.”

She said it was humbling to know her content helped people feel confident enough to participate in the process.

“I really didn’t expect that many people to watch my video, let alone actually find it helpful. I’m still blown away by people who say they only submitted because of it — that it showed them how.”

Te Ngahue said while the bill was made to be divisive there had been “a huge silver lining”.

“Because a lot of people have actually made the effort to get clued up on the Treaty of Waitangi, whereas before they might not have bothered because, you know, nothing was really that in your face about it.”

“There’s a big wave of people going ‘I actually wanna get clued up on [Te Tiriti],’ which is really cool.”

‘Fight isn’t over’
Māori lawyer Tania Waikato, whose own journey into social media advocacy empowered many first-time submitters, said she was in an “excited and celebratory” mood.

“We all had a bit of a crappy summer holiday because of the Treaty Principles Bill and the Regulatory Standards Bill both being released for consultation at the same time. A lot of us were trying to fit advocacy around summer holidays and looking after our tamariki, so this feels like a nice payoff for all the hard mahi that went in.”

She said the “overwhelming opposition” sent a powerful message.

“I think it’s a clear message that Aotearoa as a whole sees Te Tiriti as part of this country’s constitutional foundation. You can’t just come in and change that on a whim, like David Seymour and the ACT Party have tried to do.

“Ninety percent of people who got off their butt and made a submission have clearly rejected the divisive and racist rhetoric that party has pushed.”

Despite the win, she said the fight was far from over.

“If anything, this is really just beginning. We’ve got the Regulatory Standards Bill that’s going to be introduced at some point before June. That particular bill will do what the Treaty Principle’s Bill was aiming to do, but in a different and just more sneaky way.

‘The next fight’
“So for me, that’s definitely the next fight that we all gotta get up for again.”

Waikato, who also launched a petition in March calling for the free school lunch programme contract to be overhauled, said allowing the Treaty Principles Bill to get this far in the first place was a “waste of time and money.”

“Its an absolutely atrocious waste of taxpayers dollars, especially when we’ve got issues like the school lunches that I am advocating for on the other side.”

“So for me, the fight’s far from over. It’s really just getting started.”

ACT Party leader David Seymour continued to defend the Treaty Principles Bill during its second reading on Thursday, and said the debate over the treaty’s principles was far from over.

After being the only party to vote in favour of the bill, Seymour said not a single statement had grappled with the content of the bill — despite all the debate.

Asked if his party had lost in this nationwide conversation, he said they still had not heard a good argument against it.

‘We’ll never give up on equal rights.”

He said there were lots of options for continuing, and the party’s approach would be made clear before the next election

Eyes on local elections – ActionStation says the mahi continues
Community advocacy group ActionStation’s director Kassie Hartendorp, who helped spearhead campaigns like “Together for Te Tiriti”, said her team was feeling really positive.

“It’s been a lot of work to get to this point, but we feel like this is a very good day for our country.”

At the end of the hīkoi mō Te Tiriti, ActionStation co-delivered a Ngāti Whakaue rangatahi led petition opposing the Treaty Principles Bill, with more than 290,000 signatures — the second largest petition in Aotearoa’s history.

They also hosted a live watch party for the bill’s second reading on Facebook, joined by Te Tiriti experts Dr Carwyn Jones and Tania Waikato.

Hartendorp said it was amazing to see people from all over Aotearoa coming together to reject the bill.

“It’s no longer a minority view that we should respect, but more and more and more people realise that it’s a fundamental part of our national identity that should be respected and not trampled every time a government wants to win power,” she said.

Looking to the future, Hartendorp said Thursday’s victory was only one milestone in a longer campaign.

Why people fought back
“There was a future where this bill hadn’t gone down — this could’ve ended very differently. The reason we’re here now is because people fought back.

“People from all backgrounds and ages said: ‘We respect Te Tiriti o Waitangi.’

“We know it’s essential, it’s a part of our history, our past, our present, and our future. And we want to respect that together.”

Hartendorp said they were now gearing up to fight against essentially another version of the Treaty Principles Bill — but on a local level.

“In October, people in 42 councils around the country will vote on whether or not to keep their Māori ward councillors, and we think this is going to be a really big deal.”

The Regulatory Standards Bill is also being closely watched, Hartendorp said, and she believed it could mirror the “divisive tactics” seen with the Treaty Principles Bill.

“Part of the strategy for David Seymour and the ACT Party was to win over the public mandate by saying the public stands against Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That debate is still on,” she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

More than 35,000 people today gathered as Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hīkoi mō te Tiriti overflowed from Parliament’s grounds and onto nearby streets in the capital Wellington Pōneke.

Eru Kapa-Kingi told the crowd “Māori nation has been born” today and that “Te Tiriti is forever”.

ACT leader David Seymour was met with chants of “Kill the bill, kill the bill” when he walked out of the Beehive for a brief appearance at Parliament’s forecourt, before waving to the crowd and returning into the building.

• READ MORE: Hīkoi day 8: Te Pāti Māori co-leader speaks of ‘sense of betrayal’ over bill
• RNZ News live Hīkoi updates
• Other Hīkoi reports

The Hikoi at Parliament today. Video: RNZ News

The Treaty Principles Bill architect, Seymour, said he supported the right to protest, but thought participants were misguided and had a range of different grievances.

Interviewed earlier before Question Time, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it was up to Parliament’s justice committee to decide whether the select committee process on the Treaty Principles Bill should be shortened.

The select committee will receive public submissions until January 7, and intends to complete hearings by the end of February.

Waitangi Day uncertainty
It means the Prime Minister will head to Waitangi while submissions on the bill are still happening.

Luxon was asked whether he would prefer if the bill was disposed of before Waitangi Day commemorations on February 6

“It’ll be what it will be.

“Let’s be clear — there is a strong depth of emotion on all sides of this debate.

“Yes, [the bill] is not something I like or support, but we have come to a compromise.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

An estimated 10,000 people have marched through Rotorua today as part of Hīkoi mō te Tiriti protesting against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill.

Due to the size of the group, Fenton Street was blocked temporarily as the Hīkoi went through, police said.

It is anticipated that this afternoon the main Hīkoi will travel via Taupō to Hastings, where participants will stay overnight.

• READ MORE: NZ’s Treaty Principles Bill is already straining social cohesion – a referendum could be worse
• NZ’s Hīkoi challenging controversial draft bill ‘redefines activism’, says Herald
• Labour’s Willie Jackson ejected from House for calling David Seymour a liar during Treaty Principles Bill reading
• NZ’s Treaty Principles Bill passes first reading after Māori MP evicted over haka
• RNZ LIVE: Hīkoi news blog
• Other Hīkoi reports

Meanwhile, in Gisborne, a smaller hīkoi of around 80 people left Te Poho-O-Rāwiri Marae this morning heading south, accompanied by several vehicles.

There have been no problems reported at any of these locations.

Hīkoi activation events have now concluded for Te Waipounamu South Island ahead of their convoy to Parliament.

Tuesday, November 19 will mark day 10 of the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti and kotahitanga o Ngā Iwi ki Waitangi Park — everyone will meet at Waitangi Park on Wellington’s waterfont before walking to the steps of the parliamentary Beehive.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Hīkoi treaty bill protest heads south from Rotorua. Video: RNZ News

An investigative journalist who was barred from attending New Zealand’s national apology to survivors of abuse in care has now been granted accreditation.

Parliament’s Speaker has now granted temporary Press Gallery accreditation to journalist Aaron Smale for tomorrow’s apology for abuse in care. He must, however, be accompanied by a Newsroom reporter at all times.

It follows a significant backlash from survivors and advocates to the initial decision.

• READ MORE:  Speaker lifts ban on Newsroom journalist ahead of Crown apology
• Sorry means you don’t do it again — Aaron Smale
  
• Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse in state care – state response

Smale has covered abuse in care, and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the abuse, for eight years. His work has appeared in multiple publications and websites, including Newsroom, Newshub, The Listener, The Spinoff and RNZ.

Last week, speaker Gerry Brownlee declined an application from Newsroom for Smale to report on the apology.

Parliament’s Press Gallery had asked for an explanation, as a refusal was quite rare, especially when a reporter met the gallery’s criteria for accreditation.

It was told the application was declined, with the Speaker citing Smale’s conduct on a prior occasion.

This afternoon, the Press Gallery wrote to the Speaker, requesting a more fulsome explanation.

Speaker’s about-turn
In an about-turn, the Speaker approved the application.

The initial decision to decline Smale’s application was met with backlash by survivor groups and advocates, as well as politicians and Newsroom itself.

At a media conference at Parliament in July, Smale and the Prime Minister had an exchange over the government’s law and order policies, and whether the Prime Minister would acknowledge the link between abuse and gang membership.

According to Newsroom, Smale had also attended a media event at a youth justice facility in Palmerston North, and pressed Children’s Minister Karen Chhour over whether it had been appropriate to associate the memory of the Māori Battalion with the new youth justice programme.

“The Beehive was in touch with us to say they believed he had been too forceful and too rude, in their view, in those two occasions,” Newsroom’s co-editor Tim Murphy told RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme.

Murphy said that Smale had conceded he had pushed the children’s minister “a bit far”.

“But the one in Parliament, he was asking specific questions and kept asking them of the Prime Minister and I think that became irritating to the Prime Minister,” Murphy said.

‘Most informed’ of journalists
Describing Smale as “the most informed, possibly, probably of all New Zealand journalists” on the issue of abuse in state care institutions, Murphy said political discomfort should not be a reason to exclude Smale, and the ban should not stand.

“He should be there, and he should be asking questions, because he’ll know more than virtually everybody else who could be,” he said.

Murphy said Smale’s intention for his coverage of the apology itself was to write an observational piece through the eyes of survivors, and he was not intending to “get into a grilling.”

The Royal Commission Forum, an advisory group to the commission, said denying Smale accreditation was “profoundly concerning” and a damaging decision in the lead-up to the apology.

The Green Party said it was alarmed by the move, and said it set a dangerous precedent.

“As a society that values the role of the Fourth Estate, we should value the work of journalists like Aaron, because it helps us take a critical look at where we have gone wrong and how we may move forward,” said the Green Party’s media and communications spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon.

“Barring a leading journalist from an important event like this speaks to this government’s lack of accountability. It is something we might expect in Putin’s Russia, not 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House.

More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

Member of the Palestinian community Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab presented Labour MP Phil Twyford with the petition, signed by more than 16,000 people.

• READ MORE: ‘Clock tick­ing fast to­wards famine’ as Is­rael bom­bards Gaza, blocks aid
• Other War on Gaza reports

Twyford said Labour unequivocally supported the call for special humanitarian visas for families of New Zealanders currently trapped in Gaza.

“We created a special visa for the families of Ukrainian Kiwis so they could sponsor their families to escape the war zone. To not do so for the people of Gaza is a disgraceful double standard,” he said.

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick reiterated her party’s support for special visas.

“The Minister of Immigration has patronisingly said that the government do not want to offer what they call false hope to the people of Palestine. Let us say, that’s for the people of Palestine.

‘Offer consistency’
“It’s not for politicians in this place to patronise the people in Gaza and tell when what they should or shouldn’t hope for. The very least we can do is offer the consistency that we have to those affected in Ukraine by Russia’s aggressions.”

Last week, the government was urged to create a special humanitarian visas for Palestinians in Gaza who have ties to New Zealand.

It followed more than 30 organisations — including World Vision, Save the Children and Greenpeace — sending an open letter to ministers asking they step up support and help with evacuation and resettlement efforts.

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford acknowledged there was an “unimaginable humanitarian crisis in Gaza” but said issuing special visas would not assist people.

“Those people in Ukraine were able to leave. They were able to get on a plane and get to New Zealand. The situation in Gaza is that they cannot leave.

“I’m not going to be issuing visas, which is issuing false hope, for people on a great scale who cannot leave. As and when the situation changes, we will reconsider our position.”

Labour MP for Nelson Rachel Boyack, a Christian, said she was calling on MPs of all faiths in Parliament to stand up for Palestine.

‘War about land, power’
“Our religion and our faith has been used to fight a war that is fundamentally about land and power. I said in the House earlier this week in the debate that as a Christian, it pains me greatly to see other people of faith misuse their faith to kill and harm other people.”

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced plans to attend a NATO meeting in Brussels, and meet with counterparts in Egypt, Poland and Sweden.

The urgent humanitarian situation in Gaza will be a focus of the trip, with Peters saying New Zealand was part of an “overwhelming international consensus demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.

“This travel will allow us to share information and perspectives with a range of interested parties and coordinate on broad international action,” he said.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said Peters did not need to travel to the region to understand the need for further humanitarian support.

“it’s good to hear the minister talking about some support but we can do it now,” sdhe said.

“It’s right now that people are starving and dying without water and medical supplies. We can actually see that from here and that decision can be made right now to use all of the levers to get that kai and food and medical supplies through.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

As New Zealand’s former climate change minister James Shaw prepares to step down from the Green Party’s co-leadership role, the space has opened for a new contender.

Speaking after today’s announcement, co-leader Marama Davidson refused to guarantee she too would not step down before the election but said she would stay on for at least the next 12 months.

Numbering 15 MPs, the team is its largest ever but also largely inexperienced. Among the mix in the co-leadership possibilities is the party’s first MP with a Pasifika whakapapa — Teanau Tuiono.

• READ MORE: James Shaw resigns as Green Party co-leader
• Tributes for ‘decent, insightful’ minister as James Shaw resigns

Shaw announced earlier today he would be stepping down as Green Party co-leader in March.

“It has been the privilege of my lifetime to serve as New Zealand’s Climate Change Minister for the last six years and as Green Party co-leader for nearly nine,” Shaw said in a statement.

“I’m very proud of what the Green Party has achieved over the last eight years.”

He said he would remain in Parliament to support his Members Bill, which would insert a new clause into the Bill of Rights Act stating that everyone has a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

The bill was introduced to Parliament in December and is yet to have its first reading.

He said the Greens had become party of government, with ministers, for the first time and had made political history by increasing its support at the end of each of our two terms — “a feat no other government support partner had achieved”.

Following Shaw’s exit from Parliament, two-thirds will be fresh-faced first-timers and just Davidson and Julie Anne Genter will have any experience of sitting in opposition.

So who are some potential contenders for the leadership?

Chlöe Swarbrick (Auckland Central MP):
Ranked third on the party list, the Auckland Central MP appears to be the popular choice.

After losing the mayoral race in 2016, she joined the Green Party.

Winning the Auckland Central seat in 2020 and becoming the country’s youngest MP in 42 years, she has proven her popularity from early on.

She is the first Green MP ever to hold on to a seat for more than one term after winning again in the 2023 elections.

Swarbrick denied leadership ambitions in 2022, when more than 25 percent of delegates at the party’s annual general meeting voted to reopen Shaw’s position.

Still, she commands the highest profile of all Green MPs, regularly registering in preferred prime minister polls ahead of the party’s co-leaders.

Recently, she had to apologise to Parliament a week after saying in the debating chamber Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had lied — a breach of the rules.

If selected for the co-leadership, the 29-year-old would also become the youngest to co-lead the party.

Teanau Tuiono (List MP):
Teanau Tuiono (Ngāpuhi and Ngāi Takoto) moved to the fifth ranking on the party’s list after Jan Logie and Eugenie Sage retired in the 2023 elections.

As the party’s candidate Palmerston North, he became a list Member of Parliament — the party’s first MP with Pasifika whakapapa – in the 2020 general elections. And again was re-elected as a list MP in 2023.

He spoke of how he believed swearing allegiance to the Queen was outdated, and said that it should be to Te Tiriti o Waitangi instead.

In 2022, as Shaw battled to keep his co-leadership role, Tuiono publicly contemplated contesting.

Last year, his Restoring Citizenship Removed By Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982 Bill was introduced in Parliament. The bill would restore the right to New Zealand citizenship for people from Western Samoa who were born between 1924 and 1949 — a right promised to them and found owed them by New Zealand’s then highest court.

In December, Tuiono was appointed as the third assistant speaker — the first Green Party MP to become a member on the speaker team.

He recently expressed concern over the lack of Pasifika voices in the government.

Julie Anne Genter (Rongotai MP):
The MP for Rongotai currently stands in the fourth rank on the list. Since 2011, she has been elected to each Parliament while on the party’s list.

In 2017, Genter put her name forward for the Mount Albert byelection, but she came in second after Jacinda Ardern.

Genter served as the minister for women, associate minister for health and associate minister for transport from 2017 to 2020.

The Ombudsman twice investigated a letter she sent to then Transport Minister Phil Twyford during pre-consultation on the Let’s Get Wellington Moving indicative package draft Cabinet paper.

National had accused her of convincing Twyford to push back construction of a second Mount Victoria tunnel for at least a decade.

After the next transport minister released the letter in full, Genter said she stood by her comments and that the contents clearly reflected the Green party’s position.

Much like Swarbrick, Genter was not interested in contesting for the party’s leadership in 2022.

Rules and voting
Nominations will open on 31 January and close on 14 February.

Members will attend local meetings and vote, with a new co-leader to be announced on March 10.

Each branch is entitled to a certain number of votes proportionate to the number of members who live in that electorate.

The party’s rules were changed in 2022, removing the requirement for a male co-leader. Instead, members voted to mandate one female leader and one leader of any gender. One leader must also be Māori.

As Davidson meets both the female and Māori criteria, the vacancy can be filled by any Green member, in or out of Parliament.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The high-stress nature of working in politics is increasingly taking a toll on staff and politicians. But an additional threat to the personal wellbeing and safety of politicians resides outside Parliament, and the threat is ubiquitous: online violence against women MPs.

Since her election in 2017, Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman has been subject to persistent online violence.

Ghahraman’s resignation following allegations of shoplifting exposes the toll sustained online violence can have on a person’s mental health.

• READ MORE: New Zealand newsrooms saw the rise of ‘mob censorship’ in 2023, as journalists faced a barrage of abuse
• Analysis shows horrifying extent of abuse sent to women MPs via Twitter
• How misogyny, narcissism and a desperate need for power make men abuse women online

In an interview with Vice in 2018, Ghahraman expressed how the online abuse was overwhelming and questioned how long she would continue in Parliament.

Resigning in 2024, Ghahraman said in a statement:

it is clear to me that my mental health is being badly affected by the stresses relating to my work

and

the best thing for my mental health is to resign as a Member of Parliament.

Ghahraman is not alone in receiving torrents of online abuse. Many other New Zealand women MPs have also been targeted, including former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, National MP Nicola Willis and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

Words can not only hurt, but they can seriously endanger a person’s wellbeing.

Online violence against women MPs, particularly against women of colour, is a concerning global trend. In an Australian study, women MPs were found to be disproportionately targeted by public threats, particularly facing higher rates of online threats involving sexual violence and racist remarks.

Similar online threats face women MPs in the United Kingdom. Studies show that women of colour receive more intense abuse.

Male politicians are also subject to online violence. But when directed at women the violence frequently exhibits a misogynistic character, encompassing derogatory gender-specific language and menacing sexualised threats, constituting gender-based violence.

Golriz Ghahraman’s exit from politics shows the toll of online bullying on female MPs

Many say it’s become overwhelming, writes @LegallyFeminist (@ucnz).https://t.co/PSsG9OBCii

— The Conversation – Australia + New Zealand (@ConversationEDU) January 19, 2024

Our legal framework is not enough
New Zealand’s current legal framework is not well equipped to respond to the kind of online violence experienced by women MPs like Ghahraman.

The Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 is designed to address online harassment by a single known perpetrator. But the most distressing kind of abuse comes from the sheer number of violent commentators, most of whom are unknown to the victim or intentionally anonymous.

This includes “mob style” attacks, where large numbers of perpetrators coordinate efforts to harass, threaten, or intimidate their target.

Without legal recourse, women MPs have two options — tolerate the torrent of abuse, or resign. Both of these options endanger representative democracy.

Putting up with abuse may mean serious impacts on mental health and personal safety. It may also have a chilling effect on what topics women MPs choose to speak about publicly. Resigning means losing important representation of diverse perspectives, especially from minorities.

Having to tolerate the abuse is a breach of the right to be free from gender-based violence. Being forced to resign because of it also breaches women’s rights to participate in politics. Therefore, the government has duties under international human rights law to prevent, respond and redress online violence against women.

“More than 70 national elections are scheduled for 2024. But one group is likely to be significantly under-represented: women. A major reason is the disproportionate amount of abuse female politicians and candidates receive online.”https://t.co/SuPn36zLb4

— Indo-Pacific Defense FORUM (@IPDefenseForum) January 12, 2024

Steps the government can take
United Nations human rights bodies provide some guidance for measures the government could implement to fulfil their obligations and safeguard women’s human rights online.

As one of the drivers of online violence against women MPs is prevailing patriarchal attitudes, the government’s first step should be to correctly label the behaviour: gender-based violence.

Calling online harassment “trolling” or “cyberbullying” downplays the harm and risks normalising the behaviour. “Gender-based violence” reflects the systemic nature of the abuse.

Secondly, the government should urgently review the Harmful Digital Communication Act. The legislation is now nine years old and should be updated to reflect the harmful online behaviour of the 2020s, such as targeted mob-style attacks.

New Zealand is also now out of step with other countries. Australia, the UK and the European Union have all recently strengthened their laws to tackle harmful online content.

These new laws focus on holding big tech companies accountable and encourage cooperation between the government, online platforms and civil society. Greater collaboration, alongside enforcement mechanisms, is essential to address systemic issues like gender-based violence.

Thirdly, given the increasing scale of online violence, the government should ensure adequate resourcing for police to investigate serious incidents. Resources should also be made available for social media moderation among all MPs and training in online safety.

More than ever, words have the power to break people and democracies. It is now the urgent task of the government to fulfil its legal obligations toward women MPs.

Dr Cassandra Mudgway is senior lecturer in law, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman — a leading voice in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament for human rights, an independent foreign policy, and justice for Palestine — was subject to “pretty much continuous” death threats and threats of violence, says party co-leader James Shaw.

She has resigned as a Green Party MP after facing shoplifting allegations.

Ghahraman said in a statement today stress relating to her work had led her to “act in ways that are completely out of character. I am not trying to excuse my actions, but I do want to explain them”.

• READ MORE: Remembering the human within a political storm — Donna Miles
• Golriz Ghahraman resigns from Parliament after shoplifting allegations
• Scotties – who owns it and why does a dress cost $6995?
• Charges laid following shoplifting allegations day after Ghahraman’s resignation
• Who is Celia Wade-Brown, the next Green MP?

“The mental health professional I see says my recent behaviour is consistent with recent events giving rise to extreme stress response, and relating to previously unrecognised trauma,” she said.

She said she had fallen short of the high standards expected of elected representatives, and apologised.

In a joint media conference with Green co-leader Marama Davidson, Shaw said Green MPs were expected to maintain high standards of public behaviour.

“It is clear to us that Ms Ghahraman is in a state of extreme distress. She has taken responsibility and she has apologised. We support the decision that she has made to resign.”

Party ‘deeply sorry’
The party was “deeply sorry” to see her leave under such circumstances, he said.

Shaw said that Parliament was a stressful place for anybody.

“However, Golriz herself has been subject to pretty much continuous threats of sexual violence, physical violence, death threats since the day she was elected to Parliament and so that has added a higher level of stress than is experienced by most Members of Parliament.

“And that has meant, for example there have been police investigations into those threats almost the entire time that she has been a Member of Parliament, and so obviously if you’re living with that level of threat in what is already quite a stressful situation then there are going to be consequences for that,” Shaw said.

“And so I have a lot of empathy for you know the fact that she has identified that she is in the state of extreme mental distress.

“Ultimately Golriz is taking accountability for her actions, she’s seeking medical help and she is in a state of extreme distress, that’s where we are at and we support her decision.”

Asked whether the Greens should review how they should support and select MPs, Green co-leader Marama Davidson said the party had a high quality and very robust selection process.

MPs ‘are still human’
“It is also understandable that all MPs across all political parties are still human when they come into politics.

“We will continue to support Golriz through a really distressing time that she is having at the moment and that is a Green Party responsibility also.”

Ghahraman was clearly distressed, Davidson said.

“We know that this is a decision for her to apologise and to resign from Parliament, for her well-being, for her to be able to focus and our responsibility is to make sure she has the support she has needed and to continue to give her aroha and compassion.”

Asked why the Greens did not front up to the situation earlier, Davidson said the Green Party co-leaders needed to seek clarity about the situation before making statements and Ghahraman was still overseas.

“I think people can understand how important it is to have face-to-face and in person conversations with such allegations.

“Also to allow her to have the support that she needs to be able to discuss those allegations.”

Once the co-leaders had received advice and worked out a course of action, Ghahraman returned “at the earliest possible convenience”, Davidson said.

Treatment of women of colour
Davidson said there had been conversations in recent times about the particular treatment of women and women of colour who had public profiles.

“It is incumbent on all political parties and the parliamentary system to be able to support everyone under the pressure of political profiles and the Greens certainly have always taken that seriously to make sure there are avenues for MPs feeling that stress to be able to communicate and seek help.”

Asked whether the co-leaders were aware that Ghahraman was experiencing mental distress before the allegations came to light, Shaw said it would not be appropriate to comment on the mental health condition of one of their colleagues.

“Professional support is available to all of our MPs and we do know that people do access them and we encourage people to access that professional support,” Shaw said.

Davidson said it was a sad day and she was losing a friend and colleague who she had worked with for six years.

“We are here to give aroha and hold her leadership in the portfolio work, kaupapa work that she has often been a lone voice in,” she said.

“We just have aroha and sadness for the value of her kaupapa and for her as a person and she was a part of our team.”

Green caucus support
Shaw said Ghahraman was getting a lot of support for her colleagues in the Green caucus, other Green Party members, as well as from other communities that she is well-connected to.

“And of course most importantly, she’s got professional support as well.”

Davidson said that they would continue to support Ghahraman by ensuring she continued to know “that our aroha and compassion that we are holding that as colleagues, as friends, as women in politics, and that’s really important to us”.

Shaw said Parliament had improved in terms of making support available to MPs over the last few years.

“We strongly encourage our MPs and our staff to access professional support if they feel that they need it and we will continue to do so.”

Shaw said Ghahraman was not looking for an excuse by disclosing her mental health issues and she said she wanted to take full accountability for her actions.

“She’s not looking for an excuse here, she’s trying to sort of seek a reason to explain her behaviour, not to justify it and I think that’s really really important,” Shaw said.

Shaw said pressures on MPs were discussed as a caucus including at monthly staff meetings of senior MPs and staff, at a quarterly weekend meeting, as well as working closely with parliamentary security, police and IT.

Davidson said losing Ghahraman was a big loss but the party would continue to uphold her portfolio areas, legacy and mahi.

Ghahraman was elected on the Green Party list, ranked 7th. She held 10 spokesperson portfolios, including Justice, Defence, and Foreign Affairs.

Her resignation allows the next person on the list to enter Parliament — former Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

While the tide well and truly went out on Labour on election night in Aotearoa New Zealand, there are still several factors complicating the formation of a National and ACT coalition government.

Special votes are yet to be counted, with the official final result still three weeks away.

In past elections special votes have boosted the left parties. If that is the case this year, we will not know by how much until November 3. Consequently, the preliminary results may be slightly skewed against the left.

• READ MORE: It’s National on the night as New Zealand turns right: 2023 election results at a glance
• Lack of Pasifika MPs and ‘no voice’ in new NZ govt worries community
• Other NZ election reports

On these figures, National won 50 seats (up 17 since the 2020 election), Labour 34 (down 31), the Greens 14 (up four), ACT 11 (up one), NZ First eight (returning to Parliament), and Te Pāti Māori/the Māori party four (up two).

There are 121 seats overall (up one from the last parliament with a byelection to come).

While National and ACT currently have 61 combined seats, enough for a right majority, if past patterns hold they will lose one or two seats when the special votes are counted — and thus their majority.

Several variables in play
There are two other complications. First, there will be a November 25 byelection in Port Waikato after the death last Monday of an ACT candidate. The winner of that byelection will be added as an additional seat.

National is almost certain to win the byelection.

An honour and privilege to receive another mandate from our beautiful rohe.

Ngā mihi pic.twitter.com/HwkgKAnBB3

— Rawiri Waititi MP (@Rawiri_Waititi) October 14, 2023

Second, Te Pāti Māori won four of the seven Māori-roll electorates and Labour one. In the other two, Labour is leading by under 500 votes.

If Te Pāti Māori wins both these seats after special votes are counted, it would win six single-member seats, three above its proportional entitlement of three.

The new Parliament already has one overhang seat due to Te Pāti Māori’s electorate success. If it wins six, the new Parliament will have 124 members (including the Port Waikato byelection winner).

That would mean 63 seats would be needed for a majority.

National, though, would be assisted if Te Pāti Māori’s party vote increases from the provisional 2.6 percent to around 3 percent after special votes are counted, but it wins no more single-member seats. That would increase Te Pāti Māori’s seat entitlement to four and eliminate the overhang.

Then, if the right drops only one seat after special votes and National wins the byelection, National and ACT would have a majority.

While National performed better than anticipated given the late trend to the left in the polls, National and ACT are unlikely to have a combined majority once all votes are counted, and National will likely depend on NZ First in some way.

Polls understated the right
Party vote shares on the night were 39.0 percent National (up 13.4 percent), 26.9 percent Labour (down 23.1 percent), 10.8 percent Greens (up 2.9 percent), 9.0 percent ACT (up 1.4 percent), 6.5 percent NZ First (up 3.9 percent) and 2.6 percent Te Pāti Māori (up 1.4 percent).

For the purposes of this analysis, the right coalition is defined as National and ACT, and the left as Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. NZ First has sided with both left and right in the past, and supported the left from 2017 to 2020, so it is not counted with either left or right.

On the preliminary results, the right coalition won this election by 7.7 percentage points, enough for a majority despite NZ First’s 6.5 percent. In 2020, left parties defeated the right by a combined 25.9 points. But it is likely the right’s lead will drop on special votes.

The two poll graphs below include a late poll release from Morgan conducted between September 4 and October 8. I have used September 22 as the midpoint. This poll gave the left parties a two-point lead over the right, a reversal of an 8.5-point right lead in Morgan’s August poll.

The current result is comparable to the polling until late September and early October when there was a late movement to the left.

Overall, it looks as if the polls overstated the Greens and understated National. The polls that came closest to the provisional result were the 1News-Verian poll and the Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union.

In 2020, polls greatly understated the left; this time the right was understated.

It’s possible media coverage of the possibility of NZ First being the kingmaker drove voters back to National in the final days. By 48 percent to 26 percent, respondents in the Guardian Essential poll thought NZ First holding the balance of power would be bad for New Zealand rather than good. For now, any such concerns are on hold.

Adrian Beaumont, election analyst (psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Hundreds of protesters have marched to Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament in Wellington today, where streets were closed and the precinct blocked off in preparation.

The march was met by a smaller group of counter protesters from Pōneke Anti-Fascist Coalition.

About 600 protesters had gathered at Civic Square before setting off, according to RNZ reporters on the scene.

• READ MORE: RNZ protest live news blog

There is an extra police presence in the capital, roads have been closed and bus routes diverted with police saying officers were “prepared and on alert” and would be “highly visible across Wellington city”.

The protest has been organised by a diverse range of groups including Brian Tamaki’s Freedom Rights Coalition, the Convoy Coalition and Stop Co-Governance protesting against the UN’s “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.

New Zealand faces a general election on October 14.

Fact checks on UN claims
For context, RNZ reports multiple news organisations have repeatedly debunked claims that the UN’s Agenda 2030 and a “Great Reset” is some sort of plan for global domination.

These include:

•  BBC
• Reuters
• The Associated Press
• Australian Associated Press
• USA Today
• Full Fact
• Politfact

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

In his maiden speech to Parliament in 2020, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi told his fellow MPs:

You know what it feels like to have a pebble in your shoe? That will be my job here. A constant, annoying to those holding onto the colonial ways, a reminder and change agent for the recognition of our kahu Māori.

Three years later, most would agree that he and fellow co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have been just that — visible, critical, combative, prepared to be controversial.

The question in 2023, however, is how does the party build on its current platform, grow its base, and become more than a pebble in the shoe of mainstream politics?

Recent polls suggest Te Pāti Māori could win four seats in Parliament in October. But its future doesn’t necessarily lie in formally joining either a government coalition or opposition bloc, even if this were an option.

The National Party has already ruled out working with the party in government. And Te Pāti Māori has indicated partnership with either major party is not a priority.

Such are the challenges for a political party based on kaupapa Māori (incorporating the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of Māori society) in a Westminster-style parliamentary system.

Focusing on Māori values
These tensions have existed since 2004, when then-Labour MP Tariana Turia and co-leader Pita Sharples established Te Pāti Māori in protest against Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed Act.

Under that law, overturned in 2011, the Crown was made owner of much of New Zealand’s coastline. Turia and others argued the government was confiscating land and ignoring Māori customary ownership rights.

As a kaupapa Māori party, Te Pāti Māori bases its policies and constitution on tikanga (Māori values), while advocating for mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga. That is, Māori self-determination and sovereignty, as defined by the Māori version of te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi.

A tikanga-based constitution has helped shape policies advocating for Māori rights. But it has also, at times, sat at odds with the rules of Parliament.

Waititi, for example, called pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II “distasteful”. He also refused to wear a tie, breaching parliamentary dress codes.

Between left and right
Over the years, the party’s Māori-centred policies have enabled its leaders to move between left and right wing alliances.

Under the original leadership of Turia and Sharples, Te Pāti Māori joined with the centre-right National Party to form governments in 2008, 2011 and 2014. This was a change from traditional Māori voting patterns that had long favoured Labour.

During it’s time in coalition with National, Te Pāti Māori helped influence a number of important decisions. This included finally signing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the development of Whanau Ora (a Māori health initiative emphasising family and community as decision makers), and repealing the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

However, internal fighting over the decision to align with National led to the resignation of the Te Tai Tokerau MP at the time, Hone Harawira. Harawira later formed the Mana Party.

The relationship with National proved unsustainable when Labour won back all the Māori electorates at the 2017 election. Notably, Labour’s Tāmati Coffey beat te Pāti Māori co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell in the Waiariki electorate.

Rebuilding Te Pāti Māori
Waiariki was front and centre again in the 2020 election, where despite Labour’s general dominance across the Māori electorates, new Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi reclaimed the seat. The party also managed to win enough of the party vote to bring co-leader Ngarewa-Packer into Parliament with him.

Sitting in opposition this time, the current party leaders have been vocal across a range of issues. The party has called for the banning of seabed mining, removing taxes for low-income earners, higher taxes on wealth, and lowering the superannuation age for Māori.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Some policies, such as 2020’s “Whānau Build” have caused discomfort. Aimed largely at addressing the housing crisis, Whānau Build identified immigration as the root of Māori homelessness.

It was a sentiment more often associated with the extreme right, and the party has since apologised for that part of the policy.

Contesting more seats in 2023
Those bumps and missteps notwithstanding, recent polls show just how competitive Te Pāti Māori has become in the Māori electorates.

Ex-Labour MP Meka Whaitiri — an experienced politician who has held the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate since 2013 but left to join Te Pāti Māori this year — is in a tight race to regain her seat against new Labour candidate Cushla Tangaere-Manuel.

Co-leader Ngarewa-Packer is also running a close race against Labour candidate Soraya Peke-Mason for the Te Tai Hauāuru electorate — a Labour stronghold.

But Te Pāti Māori has also shifted from its previous focus on the Māori electorates, with Merepeka Raukawa-Tait standing in the Rotorua general electorate.

The Māori Electoral Option legislation, which came into effect this year, now allows Māori voters to change more easily between electoral rolls. In future, Te Pāti Māori may find it can best to serve Māori by standing candidates in general electorates.

Broader social change across Aotearoa New Zealand has also likely been an important contributor to the success of Te Pāti Māori, with greater understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, tikanga and te reo Māori among voters.

Indeed, the current party vision of an “Aotearoa Hou” (New Aotearoa), includes reference to tangata tiriti, a phrase being popularised to refer to non-Māori who seek to honour partnerships based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

According to the most recent polling, Te Pāti Māori may not be the deciding factor in who gets to form the next government come October.

But the party’s resilience and growth after it’s electoral disappointments in 2017 and 2020 show an ability to rebuild. In doing so, it is carving out it’s place in New Zealand’s political landscape.

And if Te Pāti Māori is not the kingmaker in 2023, it is still on the path to influence — and potentially decide — elections in the not-too-distant future.

Annie Te One is lecturer in Māori Studies at Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Parliament has ended for another term, shutting down ahead of the Aotearoa New Zealand election campaign with a debate where many focused on attacking their political opponents.

Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins warned New Zealanders: “We can continue to move forward under Labour, or we can face a coalition of cuts, chaos, and fear: A National/ACT/New Zealand First government that would be one of the most inexperienced and untested in our history.”

Parliament typically rises at the end of a term with an adjournment debate, and Thursday’s seemed to confirm the coming election on October 14 would be full of negative campaigning.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election reports

Here is a brief summary of the political leaders’ speeches:

Chris Hipkins (Labour):

Labour’s leader and incumbent Prime Minister Chris Hipkins launched into the closing adjournment debate reflecting on the eventful past six years. He said his own tenure in the role had not broken that mould, with the Auckland floods sweeping in just two days after he was sworn in, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle.

“Ours is a government that has been forged through fire. Every challenge that has been thrown our way, we have risen to that,” he said.

He said Labour had achieved a lot, but there was more to do — and much at stake in the coming election.

“We can continue to move forward under Labour, or we can face a coalition of cuts, chaos, and fear: A National/ACT/New Zealand First government that would be one of the most inexperienced and untested in our history, a government who want to wind the clock back on all of the progress that we are making.”

He praised Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s handling of the economy, highlighting a 6 percent larger economy than before the covid-19 pandemic, record low unemployment, and wages “growing faster under our government than inflation”.

He soon returned to attacking political opponents, however.

“Now is not the time to turn back. Now is not the time to stoke the inflationary fires with unfunded tax cuts as the members opposite promised, and it is not a time to turn our backs on talent by introducing a talent tax,” he said, referring to National’s plan to increase levies on visas.

“National wants to turn the clock backwards; we want to keep moving forward.”

He finished by saying Labour had a positive vision for New Zealand, before his final parting words: “and I wave goodbye to Michael Woodhouse, too, because he’s guaranteed not to be here after the election”.

Christopher Luxon (National):

The National leader said Hipkins’ speech should be one of apology, “to the parents and the kids who actually have been let down by an education system …to all the people who have waited for endless times and hours in hospital emergency departments … to all the victims of ram raids in dairies and superettes … to all the people that are lying awake at night worried about how they’re going to make their payments and keep their house.”

He continued with the requisite thanks such speeches so often sprinkle on officials, staff, supporters and workers before thanking the man he had been criticising.

“I do want to thank, in particular, the Prime Minister Chris Hipkins for his services to the National Party, because he rode in very triumphantly in February, and he announced that he was sweeping away everything that Jacinda Ardern stood for-especially kindness. But I have to say it turned out it was all words and no action, because, as we expected, he just carried on doing more of the same: Excessive, addicted government spending.

He turned to the slew of Labour personnel problems of the past year and more, likening the government to a car with the wheels falling off; the Greens were “in this rally too, they’re on their e-bikes, and they’re pedalling along the Wellington cycle lanes,” while Te Pāti Māori were “in their waka, but, sadly, they’re not the party of collaboration that they once were”.

“Then there are the ACT folk. They’re off in their pink van, and it’s been wonderful. They’re travelling the countryside, and David’s reading Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, which is a good read, as you well know, Mr Speaker.”

He lavished praise on his own team, singling out deputy Nicola Willis, then closed by promising National was “ready to govern, we are sorted, we are united, we have the talent, we have the energy, we have the ideas, we have the diversity to take this country forward”.

David Seymour (ACT):

ACT’s leader also honed in on his political opponents, targeting Labour’s polling.

“It’s been a long three years in this Chamber and it has been characterised by one fact that lays bare what has happened, and that is the fact that the Labour Party, in Roy Morgan, polled 26 percent. That means that half the people who voted for Labour at the last election have abandoned voting for Labour in three years. The question that they must be asking themselves is why that is.”

“I think the reason that we have so much change and support-Labour have lost half of their supporters in the last three years because, frankly, never has so much been promised to so many and yet so little actually delivered … New Zealanders overwhelmingly say this country is going in the wrong direction, and they also will tell you that their number one concern is the cost of living. That is Grant Robertson’s epitaph.”

He targeted housing, debt, inflation, victimisation, and child poverty before targeting the government for taking “a divisive approach to almost every single issue”.

“If you take the example of vaccination. Now, I’m a person who says that vaccination was safe and effective, yet by using ostracism as a tool to try and increase vaccination levels this government has eroded social cohesion and divided New Zealanders when they didn’t need to,” he said.

“New Zealand have had enough of that style of politics. They’ve had enough of Chris Hipkins going negative. They’ve had enough of the misinformation.”

He finished by saying the choice for New Zealanders now was not between swapping “Chris for Chris and red for blue”, but “we’ll actually deliver what we promise, we’ll cut waste, we’ll end racial division, and we’ll get the politics out of the classroom. Those aren’t just policies, those are values that we all share.”

James Shaw (Greens):

The Green co-leader took his own opening shot at Seymour, as “the leader of ‘New New Zealand First'”.

“Mr Seymour must be feeling quite grumpy right now, because last term he worked so hard to get rid of Winston Peters so that this term he could become Winston Peters, and now Winston Peters is calling and he wants his Horcrux back because that blackened shard of a soul can only animate the body of one populist authoritarian at once.”

He turned the hose on both major parties in one statement, saying it was odd National was proposing more new taxes than Labour while the Greens were promising bigger tax cuts than National. He criticised National over its plan to spend the funds from the Emissions Trading Scheme, before turning to climate change overall as — unusually — a source of positivity.

“Our greenhouse gas emissions in Aotearoa are falling, and that is because — and it is only because — with the Green Party in government with Labour, we have prioritised that work every single day.”

But positivity did not last long.

“Under the last National government, one in 100 new cars sold in this country was an electric vehicle. Last June, it was one in two … and National want to cancel all of that so that they can have an election year bribe.”

Rawiri Waititi (Te Pāti Māori):

The Pāti Māori leader Rawiri Waititi began with a fairy tale.

“It seems like this side of the House can find a grain of salt in a sugar factory. I just wanted to say, as I heard the story about Goldilocks — Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Baby Bear — I tell you, it’s been very difficult to sit next to a polar bear and a gummy bear, and it’s been quite hard to contain the grizzly bear in me.”

He spoke in te reo Māori before giving a speech which — unlike the other leaders — focused exclusively on his own party’s promises.

“We are the only movement that will fight for our people,” he said.

“What does an Aotearoa hou look like? It looks like how we would treat you on the marae. We will welcome you. We will feed you. We will house you. We will protect you. We will educate you. We will care you. We will love you.”

“Te Pāti Māori is a movement that leaves no one behind, whether you are tangata whenua or a tangata Tiriti, tangata hauā, takatāpui, wāhine, tāne, rangatahi, mokopuna — you are whānau.”

He spoke of the need to reduce poverty and homelessness, before making the second of two references to his suspension from Parliament this week, then said it was time to “believe in ourselves to be proud, to be magic, and to believe in your mana”.

“I am proud of you all, I am proud of our movement, and I’m proud to head into this campaign, doing what we said we would do.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka was welcomed to the New Zealand Parliament yesterday while on his first official trip to Aotearoa since being elected as PM in December.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced just over NZ$11.1 million in climate change support for Fiji.

Hipkins said he had “an inspired discussion” with Rabuka on how they could further cooperate on combating the effects of climate change.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji-NZ relations reports

He said it remained the single greatest threat to lives and livelihoods in the Pacific region.

Rabuka welcomed the finance boost saying it would support the implementation of renewable energy projects, infrastructure resilience, and climate policy.

Hipkins noted both nations regularly collaborated on climate disasters.

“I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank Fiji for their defence and emergency personnel assistance following Cyclone Gabrielle,” Hipkins said.

‘Long-standing links’
“We are connected by long-standing people-to-people, sporting, economic and cultural links, and through the Fijian communities who have made New Zealand their home.

“We are connected by the depth of our cooperation across a broad range of sectors including defence, policing, health, trade and industry, education, fisheries, climate change and disaster management to name a few.

“I know that New Zealand and Fiji, alongside other Pacific Island Forum leaders, share an ambitious vision for the social, cultural and environmental economic resilience of the region where we are strong, prosperous and secure.

“We know we are stronger when we combine our efforts and focus on Pacific regionalism and the priorities of the Blue Pacific continents.”

In response, Rabuka acknowledged the traditional owners of the land and paid respect to elders past and present.

He said his visit was to discuss ways forward for both countries, following covid-19.

“Exactly a month ago, the WHO declared covid-19 over as a global health emergency. Seven million deaths later, the global economy is still recovering,” Rabuka said.

‘Serious’ about Fiji economy
“The people’s coalition government that I lead is serious about growing our economy and my engagement here reflects that.”

He said the Fiji government was keen to work harder to boost its export capacity to New Zealand and pleased to see bilateral relations had continued to strengthen over the years.

On Monday, Rabuka met the Fijian community in Auckland and the following night community members in Wellington.

The official visit also comes 25 years after Rabuka last visited the country in an official capacity when he was previously Prime Minister.

The visit is also signifcant for the Fijian community as they had welcomed a Fiji prime minister for the first time in 16 years.

More than 500 Fijians in Auckland turned up to the Mahatma Gandhi Centre to welcome Rabuka and his wife, Sulueti, where they were accorded a full traditional welcome ceremony.

Community thanked for support
Rabuka thanked the community for its ongoing support for Fiji.

“You have left Fiji but continue to play an important role in Fiji. Thank you for keeping Fiji in your lives,” he said.

Rabuka informed the community that their financial support had contributed greatly as Fiji battled its unprecented economic crisis, with the World Bank reporting its debt levels reaching 90 percent of GDP last year.

In 2022, Fiji received more than F$1 billion in remittances which prove to be a saving grace during the height of the pandemic which caused great financial strain for Fijians.

Rabuka spoke about the success of national events such as Girmit Day and the reconvening of the Great Council of Chiefs and Ratu Sukuna Day.

President of the Fiji Girmit Foundation Krish Naidu thanked Rabuka for honouring his promise to the community.

Girmitiya holiday promise
“When the Prime Minister visited us last year, we asked for a public holiday to mark the contributions of the Girmitiyas, and told us if he made [it into] government he would do that.

“He lived up to his words. He is an honourable man.”

Naidu added that Rabuka’s visit was extremely crucial to the Fijian community.

“We look forward to this week with the Prime Minister building the much-needed aroha, loloma, and love between Fiji and NZ, which has been lost for 16 years,” he added.

The Fiji Prime Minister returns to Fiji today.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

If elected representatives have their work cut out for them to create the slightest social or political change through Parliament, spare a thought for activists.

For the committed activist, in it for the long term, their work brings them inevitably to engage with the parliament system.

Protesting at Parliament, demonstrating, submitting to select committees, sending in petitions, or just being there to watch, activists are an important, if sometimes misunderstood, part of the system.

And we’re not talking about the agitators who talk about “hanging MPs”.

The House offers a look at four activists who have long participated in the Parliament space — from single or multiple issue campaigners to the lifelong activist who became an MP and got out the other side alive:

Valerie Morse is a well established activist who has organised many campaigns in anti-war and climate justice spaces among others. Over the past 20 years, she’s been part of hundreds of protests to Parliament, and has made “dozens and dozens of submissions on everything from the environment to defence to the SIS to local body matters, everything under the sun”.

In order to get MPs to listen, Morse has sometimes used theatre in her activism. Some of the highlights include a naked protest on the forecourt in support of the genetic engineering moratorium, and entering a select committee hearing on  Security Intelligence Service legislation with a group who blew loud whistles to highlight the importance of whistle-blowing — to the dismay of the MPs.

There have been setbacks. In 2008, during an event to commemorate Vietnam War veterans, Morse attempted to enter Parliament with an A3-sized sign about then-prime minister Helen Clark and former foreign affairs minister Phil Goff’s anti-war activism during the Vietnam War being at odds with their subsequent support for the war in Afghanistan:

“Parliamentary security stopped me from coming to the grounds, and trespassed me from Parliament for two years,” Morse explained.

“Subsequently I challenged that by coming on to Parliament grounds at a protest around slashed funding for adult and community education in the John Key era. I came on to Parliament grounds with thousands of other people and was arrested by parliamentary security. I had to go all the way through the court system, and eventually, the speaker of the house at the time, Lockwood Smith, actually withdrew the trespass.”

There have been some wins too, such as when large protests against the Iraq war 20 years ago helped convince New Zealand’s government to not join it, as well as the work of Morse and others at the committee level to leverage some transparency from the intelligence services amidst heightened public interest in mass surveillance.

“Those processes are often very difficult to see very meaningful change in during the short term. Over the longer term, there’s been changes in the way those agencies operate, so there has been some greater openness.

“But particularly around submissions, unless you’re speaking to some very, very specific item that they (MPs) think is perhaps a mistake or a drafting error, they’re often hardened down party lines, so it can be really hard to make changes in that process.”

The Messenger

To convey a message of activism means to demonstrate it, according to Mike Smith, a leading figure in numerous environmental campaigns. Smith’s activism has encompassed “all manner of things” and he has proven effective at getting his message noticed. Almost three decades ago he took a chainsaw to the great pine on One Tree Hill, or Maungakiekie, to raise attention to Māori rights and shortcomings in the Treaty Settlement process.

In recent times, Smith (Ngā Puhi and Ngāti Kuri) has been absorbed in legal action against major fossil fuel users and suppliers over their polluting activities. But as we sat by the statue of Richard Seddon on Parliament’s forecourt, Smith took stock of his various forays to Parliament, from protests to petitions. He recalled the Foreshore and Seabed hikoi, mobilisations over asset sales as well as protests related to the Treaty — occasions on which he has delivered a message to Parliament.

“I think it was here that we presented the petition to stop deep sea oil drilling after a ten-year campaign. The prime minister came out and greeted us. We handed her a petition to halt deep sea oil drilling. She went back to her office, and within about two weeks the announcement came through that the government had indeed decided to put a moratorium on issuing new exploration permits,” he recalled.

“I think politics and indeed the law should reflect the morality or mood of the society at any particular time. However there will be powerful voices and vested interests that pull against popular opinion. It’s important that there are opportunities for the public to express themselves.

“The word ’demonstration’ sort of sums it up. We’ve got to demonstrate what that feeling is amongst the public.”

The activist from the far north said Parliament should be receptive to the expression of widespread public sentiment, and that it is up to the public to hold politicians’ feet to the fire if they are not responding constructively, or conversely if they are being accountable, to reward them at the polls.

“Anybody can arrange a meeting with ministers and they may or may not be listened to or heard, but there’s something far more powerful about an expression of a substantive section of society. I’ve been on marches where 50, 60,000 people have mobilised in Auckland or Wellington particularly on climate issues or (issues) about mining on conservation land. I know that the politicians, when they see that amount of people, they really do take notice of that.”

The Outsider Insider

Catherine Delahunty isn’t the only activist to have been a member of Parliament, but perhaps what marks her out is the seamlessness with which she has resumed her activism and maintained a critical voice to power forged during her three-term stint, which ended in 2017. If there was any motivation to enter Parliament, she said it was to advance various kaupapa of her many years of activism.

“There were some issues I’d been involved in over many years that I wanted to see if I could advance. For example, the sawmill workers who were poisoned in the Bay of Plenty to whom I’m still deeply connected to and (on their behalf) lobbying ACC for change. I thought well, if I can get into Parliament, maybe I can make some change. And I did actually manage to get the National government to set up a national register of toxic sites and things like that,” the former Green Party MP explained.

In a sense, Delahunty never ceased being an activist when she came to Parliament. She used her wide range of connections with interlocutors from grassroots communities to media to civil society and political leaders in order to advance causes such as sustainable forestry, opposition to mining on conservation land, highlighting human rights abuses and the West Papuan struggle for independence.

“I started by protest. Been on many, many protests here in my life. In fact when I was an MP I probably went to more protests, because you’d see them out the window so you’d just go out to join them,” she explained.

“What you find out of course when you get here is: yes, you can make a difference, and no, you can’t. So if there was any conclusion I came to as an activist after leaving Parliament it’s that we need constitutional transformation of this country based on Te Tiriti (o Waitangi) and He Whakaputanga. But having said that, I still engage with select committees and I still engage with the system to get small things done. But I’m not under any illusion that we’re changing the world.”

“I always felt the system was rotten, but actually when you’ve been inside it you do have more knowledge and more contact. So it’s easier for me to walk in the door here now and have a chat with somebody that I wouldn’t have known before. Whether I can have an impact is another matter, but the first thing is to get through the door.”

When asked about the difference between activists and lobbyists, Delahunty said “we don’t have a PR firm who work for us to massage our messages, we are activists who will take our truth to power. And I don’t think lobbying is necessarily about taking truth to power. It’s about vested interests that pay for their interests to be privileged inside the power system. That’s very different from activists challenging the power system to actually do something in the name of justice.”

The ‘Gallery Stalker’

Gary Chiles was only 13 years old when the Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1975, and it remains a bugbear for him that it’s still law 50 years later and that people are being criminalised for cannabis use or association with it. Drug law reform is Chile’s singular focus when it comes to his long running activism at Parliament.

Another regular protester outside Parliament during the Key years, Chiles decided to start going to the House to soak up the action inside the chamber. He made it his mission to attend each Question Time — around 90 days in a typical sitting year.

“It was all a bit of an eye opener. But I decided that I needed to know how things worked inside Parliament if I wanted to make change happen,” he explained.

“You’re not allowed to wave signs or wear sloganed t-shirts and things in parliament. But I found out the dress code allowed me to get in there if I have a suit on, so I bought a cannabis suit.”

Chiles stands out clearly in his dark suit emblazoned with bright green cannabis leaves, worn each time he attends Question Time. There he sits up in the public gallery, on one side or another, moving around to stay visible to MPs across the divide. A silent, persistent reminder of the need for drug reform.

“I think of myself as being the gallery stalker. They all know I’m there whether they’re engaging with me or not, and they all know what I’m about because of what I’m wearing. And it’s about reminding them (about the need for drug reform). What are you going to do about it? Do we have to wait another 50 years, what’s going on?”

Attending Parliament has given Chiles a greater appreciation for the work of the various parts of the system. He said that it has also humanised MPs for him, and that what goes on in parliament is often quite different to what is portrayed in the news media. Getting angry at the news isn’t political engagement, he pointed out, adding that the access the public has to this country’s Parliament is something unique and to be treasured.

“My whole attitude to Parliament changed the day that there was a person who set themselves on fire on the forecourt, and the first people on the scene to try and deal with that were Parliament security. That made me reappraise my attitude to them, because they walk the fine line every day between allowing public access and maintaining security, and I think they do a really good job of it.”

Short-term thinking
The four activists all point to short-term thinking — the focus on retaining power in a quick electoral cycle — as something holding Parliament back from enabling systemic change. On the other hand, their own work to transform these views and inject a public voice into the deliberations of the lawmakers is very much long-term.

RNZ’s The House — parliamentary legislation, issues and insights — is made with funding from Parliament. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Jacinda Ardern will largely be remembered in Aotearoa New Zealand as the prime minister whose pandemic-era policies saved thousands of Kiwi lives, according to former prime minister Helen Clark.

And she will also be considered an example of how to govern in the age of social media and endless crises, political experts say, while also achieving more than her critics might give her credit for.

Ardern was set to deliver her valedictory speech later today, having stepped down as prime minister earlier this year after just over five years in the job.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘You can’t help feeling sad about her going’ — Former prime minister Helen Clark
• View of political scientists Dr Bronwyn Hayward and Dr Lara Greaves
• Ex-PM Ardern named Christchurch Call envoy against online violence

“I think that while I’m happy for Jacinda that she’s going to get a life and design what she wants to do and when she wants to do it, you can’t help feeling sad about her going,” Clark, herself a former Labour prime minister, told RNZ Morning Report ahead of Ardern’s speech.

“Leaders like Jacinda don’t come along too often and we’ve lost one.”

Ardern has played down suggestions online vitriol played a part in her decision to stand aside — but acknowledged on Tuesday she hoped her departure would “take a bit of heat out” of the conversation.

Clark said she “fundamentally” believed the hatred got to Ardern, powered by “populism and division” generated by former US President Donald Trump and his supporters.

‘Conspiracies took hold’
“Conspiracies took hold and suddenly you know, as the pandemic wore on here, I think the sort of relentless barrage from America — not, not just through Trump himself and the reporting of him, but through the social media networks — we have the anti-science people, the people who completely distrusted public authority, the QAnon conspiracies and hey, it played out on our Parliament’s front lawn and it still plays out and it’s very, very vitriolic and divisive.

“So I think that that spillover impact was really quite, well, not just unpleasant — it was horrible.”

Researchers have found Ardern was a lightning rod for online hate.

The perpetrator of the 2019 mosque shootings used the internet to connect with and learn from other extremists, which led to Ardern setting up the Christchurch Call movement to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.

Her post-parliamentary career will include continuing that work, as New Zealand’s Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call, reporting to her replacement, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins.

“The mosque murders was just the most horrible thing to have happen on anyone’s watch, and she rose to the occasion, and I think the international reputation was very much associated with initially the empathy that she showed at that time,” said Clark.

But “one of New Zealand’s darkest days”, as Ardern put it at the time, was not the only near-unparalleled crisis she had to deal with in her time as prime minister.

“The White Island tragedy was another that needed, you know, very empathetic and careful handling. But then comes covid, and there’s no doubt that thousands of people are alive today because of the steps taken, particularly in 2020.

‘Would we have survived?’
“You know, I mean, I’m obviously in the older age group now which is more vulnerable. My father is 101 now and has survived the pandemic. But would we have survived it if it had been allowed to rip through our community, like it was allowed to rip through others?

“I think that there’d be so many New Zealanders not alive today had those steps not been taken.”

Data shows New Zealand has actually experienced negative excess mortality over the past few years — the elimination strategy so successful, fewer Kiwis have died than would have if there was no pandemic.

Former Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said that was “unique, virtually unique around the world”.

Despite that, it was New Zealand’s aggressive approach towards covid-19 in 2020 and 2021 that arguably drove much of the polarisation and online vitriol.

“There’s no doubt that those measures did save lives. They also drove people into frenzied levels of opposition and fear and isolation,” said Clark. “They felt polarised, they felt locked out.”

But she said Ardern bore “very little” responsibility for that.

Political scientist Dr Bronwyn Hayward of the University of Canterbury said Ardern’s Christchurch Call to eliminate extremist content will have a long-lasting impact on not just New Zealand, but the world.

“There’s been a lot made about the fact that she resigned under pressure from the trolls, which is completely missing the point that what she’s saying is that in this era where we’ve got particularly Russian, but also other countries’ bots that are attacking liberal leaders,” Dr Hayward told Morning Report, saying Ardern was the first global leader to “really understand” how what happens online can spill over into the real world.

“She understands that democracies are now under attack, and the front line is your social media, where we’ve got a propaganda war coming internationally.

“So she’s taken a very systemic approach to thinking about how to tackle that, so that in local communities it feels like you’re reeling from Islamophobia, to racism to transphobia, but actually, when we look internationally at what’s happening, naive and quite disaffected groups have been constantly fed this material and she’s taken a systemic approach to it.”

Clark said one of the biggest differences in the world between Ardern’s time as prime minister and her own, was that she did not have to deal with social media.

“I didn’t have a Twitter account, didn’t know what it was really. We had texts, that was about it. We used to have pagers, for heaven’s sake.”

Ardern’s domestic legacy
One of the first things Hipkins did when he took over as prime minister was the “policy bonfire” — but critics have long said the Ardern-led government has had trouble delivering on its promises.

Interviewer Guyon Espiner reminded Clark that her government had brought in long-lasting changes like Working for Families, the NZ Super Fund and Kiwibank — asking her what Ardern could point to.

Clark defended Ardern, saying the coalition arrangement with NZ First in Ardern’s first term slowed any reform agenda she might have had, and then there was covid-19.

“Looking back, there needs to be more recognition that the pandemic blindsided governments, communities, publics around the world. It wasn’t easy.”

Dr Hayward pointed to the ban on new oil and gas exploration and child poverty monitoring, “which before that was ruled as impossible or too difficult”.

Dr Lara Greaves, a political scientist at the University of Auckland, said it was “incredibly hard to really evaluate” Ardern’s legacy outside of covid-19.

“Ultimately … she is the covid-19 prime minister.”

The future
Clark said Ardern would be emotional during her valedictory speech.

“You have very close relationships with colleagues, you have relationships with others of a different kind — with the opposition, with the media, with the public — and you’re walking away, you’re closing the door on it.

“But you know that a new chapter will open, and that life post-politics can be very rewarding. I’ve certainly found it so. I have no doubt that Jacinda will get back into her stride with doing things that she feels are worthwhile for the the general public and worthwhile for her.”

After losing the 2008 election, Clark rose the ranks at the United Nations. She said while that was an option for Ardern, there is plenty of time for the 42-year-old to do other things first.

“I was, you know, 58 when I left being prime minister. And Jacinda’s leaving in her early 40s and she has a young child, so who knows? She may want Neve to grow up with a good old Kiwi upbringing.

“And she may want her, you know, involvement internationally to be more, you know, forays out from New Zealand. That’s for her to decide. I mean, the world’s her oyster, if she chooses to follow that.”

Dr Greaves also pointed to Ardern’s relative youth.

“It seems like she’s going for a period of sort of recovery and reflection and figuring out what to do next. But of course, she’s got another 20 years in her career, at least — the world’s her oyster.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

As Jacinda Ardern gets ready to deliver her valedictory speech in the Parliament today, former prime minister Helen Clark says she will largely be remembered as the prime minister whose pandemic-era policies saved thousands of Kiwis’ lives. https://t.co/LhKPSZulpW

— RNZ (@radionz) April 5, 2023

It has been a year since the violent end of the illegal occupation at Parliament in Aotearoa New Zealand. If you thought you had seen it all at the time, you should think again.

Boiling Point, a new documentary from RNZ, includes previously unseen footage of clashes at Parliament on 2 March 2022, when police broke up an illegal occupation of the area.

It is the first feature broadcast to provide a straightforward account of the final day of one of Aotearoa’s most infamous protests.

• READ MORE: Other NZ Parliament protest reports

The documentary, produced and presented by RNZ Morning Report host Corin Dann, was released today.

Previously unseen footage gives fresh insight into the rage that overtook some people. And eyewitness accounts take us back to the chaos, confusion and shock of it all.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Watch the trailer below and see the full documentary at rnz.co.nz/boilingpoint

The Boiling Point trailer.  Video: RNZ