New Zealand parliament suspended after haka protest over Maori rights

Racial tensions erupted on the floor of the New Zealand parliament on Thursday as enraged indigenous MPs staged a haka over a highly controversial bill that threatens to radically reduce Maori influence.

A vote on the bill was momentarily called off when opposition parties and people in the public gallery joined in the war dance, led by the Maori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, 22, who then ripped up a copy of the bill.

Willie Jackson, the Labour MP and Maori leader, was ejected from the chamber after he denounced the bill’s architect, David Seymour, as a liar.

The haka’s disruption prompted the speaker, Gerry Brownlee, to suspend parliament for nearly half an hour. When the House returned, he said Maipi-Clarke’s behaviour was grossly disorderly, appallingly disrespectful and premeditated. She was suspended for 24 hours.

Seymour, who will become deputy prime minister next year as part of a governing coalition agreement, contends Maori people enjoy privileges not accorded to other New Zealanders under the nation’s founding document, the 184-year-old Treaty of Waitangi. signed by Maori chiefs and their British colonisers.

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