Labour's Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson was the first MP ejected from the House on Thursday after he called David Seymour a "liar" during the Treaty Principles Bill's first reading - breaking Parliament's rules.
Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke was handed an even more serious punishment: suspended from Parliament and "named" after leading a haka that disrupted the vote on the first reading.
Naming is among the most serious punishments that can be handed down to MPs for behaviour in the debating chamber.
The haka had caused enough disruption that the Speaker suspended Parliament for nearly half an hour. When the House returned, he said Maipi-Clarke's behaviour was grossly disorderly, appallingly disrespectful, and premeditated.
Afterwards, the bill passed its first reading.
The suspension means Maipi-Clarke is banned from the Debating Chamber for 24 hours and can't vote or attend select committee meetings. There is also the potential she could be held in contempt of the House.
She will also have her pay docked for the 24 hours.
Labour's Willis Jackson: 'Liar'
Jackson was delivering his debate speech saying Seymour was using the select committee as a "six-month hate-tour".
"The minister's vanity Treaty Principles Bill will cost us $4 million ... at a time when we've got cost of living going through the roof.
He said Māori would never accept the redefining of the relationship with the Crown.
"We will march and march and we will hīkoi for our rights, mo ake ake ake. Mr Speaker this minister has purposefully allowed misinformation to replace the true nature of the relationship ... and sold that criticism as equality.
Addressing Seymour directly, he said: "You should be ashamed of yourself, and you are a liar".
Calling another MP a liar is considered unparliamentary language. Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee asked Jackson to withdraw his statement, and apologise, but he refused.
ACT: Seymour speaks
Seymour's earlier speech had pointed to the existing Treaty Principles, arguing they were problematic because they provided specific rights to Māori.
He said the problem the principles outlined through the courts had was "they afford Māori different rights from other New Zealanders, and I know why that is: lawyers, with their training, they can't help but see a contract and their instinct tells them to interpret a contract instead of ask 'what is the best constitutional foundation for a country'."
His speech was interrupted part way through by Te Pāti Māori's Debbie Ngarewa-Packer raising a point of order, arguing Māori had never ceded sovereignty and Seymour's statements were offensive and deliberately making references to Māori sovereignty. The Speaker shut that down, saying the point of order was not in keeping with the rules of Parliament.
Seymour said his proposed principles were "based on the three articles of Te Tiriti, the Māori text, or at least Professor Kāwheru's 1987 translation of it".
He repeated that the challenge for those opposed to the bill was to explain why they were opposed to its basic principles.
He said it was the "democractisation of the Treaty" that was so important, and was the "big change" in his bill. He said the bill's critics knew it was "only a matter of time before its logic prevails".
His speech was delivered under constant heckling and shouting, with the Speaker interrupting multiple times to call for more calm.
Greens: 'If you wear the mask ... it becomes your face'
Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick also called out Seymour's claim that the bill was about equality, saying New Zealand does not have equality.
"Pick almost any statistic that you like. Housing, incarceration, health, life expectancy: Māori get unfair and unequal outcomes because of unfair and unequal treatment which started with the Crown's intentional violent actions to dishonour Te Tiriti o Waitangi."
She said capitalism needed colonisation, requiring the assimilation and acquisition of new frontiers to exploit and turn every citizen into a consumer.
"Some politicians will tell you we just need to clean slate the past ... so let's be really really clear here: you do not need to be personally responsible for the historical dishonouring of Te Tiriti o Waitangi to actively benefit from that horrific legacy today."
She targeted the prime minister and urged government MPs to cross the floor and vote against their parties.
"Because if you wear the mask for a little while, it becomes your face. We are what we do. If you vote for this bill this is who you are and this is how you will be remembered."
National: 'A crude way to handle a very delicate subject'
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith was National's first speaker on the bill, falling back on the prime minister's previous statements about the party's commitment to later vote the bill down, and its disagreement - but standing by the decision to send it to the select committee.
"It is of course appropriate for politicians and the public to debate what the Treaty means today and what it should mean in the future. The interpretations given by the courts are not gospel. We should be able to debate these things.
"The concern comes however with the process under this bill whereby Parliament would set down its interpretation of the Treaty and then seek a majority of the public to confirm it in a referendum. This is a crude way to handle a very delicate subject. With a wave of the wand, as it were, we would unwind more than 30 years of jurisprudence, winner takes all."
He said National's position was that as a nation, New Zealand should be serious in honouring the commitments to Māori in the Treaty, but being careful never to lose sight of or drift too far from the basic expectations of equality
NZ First: 'We ... reject that there are principles'
Speaking for NZ First, Minister Casey Costello said the party did not believe the Treaty had principles.
She said she wanted not only to speak of principles, legal contrivances and political posturing, but instead to reflect on "the deeper roots beyond politics".
She said there was nothing to fear in challenging ideas and presenting different positions, which was what brought the bill to the House.
"We have and continue to reject that there are principles," she said, harking back to the NZ First-led effort to scrap the Treaty principles in 2005.
"We are a healthy enough democracy to survive contentious debate."
Te Pāti Māori: 'This bill serves to divide'
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi placed his signature hat on the ground for his speech, accusing Seymour of pulling the strings and running the country "like the KKK".
He said the prime minister was complicit in the harm caused by the bill, and urged all Māori to switch to the Māori roll, calling for more independent Māori electorate seats.
"This Parliament means nothing in Aotearoa without te Tiriti o Waitangi," he said.
"Te Tiriti was an arrangement to unify. This bill serves to divide.
"Tino rangatiratanga through self-governance is our ultimate goal. But there are steps we must take to get there."
Reminding Parliament the hīkoi was arriving next week, he finished saying "see you next Tuesday."
Tension ahead of first reading
Brownlee had earlier taken the unusual step of laying out the rules for those in the public gallery ahead of the debate.
"Members of Parliament must be able to debate issues without interruption from the public galleries. That becomes even more important when a bill before the house does not meet favour with all who are viewing its proceedings. Accordingly then, if anyone interrupts proceedings from the galleries they will be removed and not permitted to return."
The First Reading is Parliament's first opportunity to debate a proposed law and decide whether to put it through the process towards becoming law.
In this unusual circumstance, two of the governing parties - National and NZ First - have said they will vote against the bill at second reading, and are voting to support it at this first stage only to get it to select committee, where it will spend six months going through a public consultation process.
The four-page bill was introduced last Friday, revealing the exact text of the proposed law change for the first time - with a few differences from earlier versions put forth by Seymour ahead of the election and since.
It purports to redefine the Treaty Principles, scrapping those established through the courts and putting new ones in their place: that the government has the power to govern; that everyone is equal before the law; and that hapū and iwi are only afforded different rights if agreed through Treaty settlements.
Its critics said it did not reflect the text or meaning of the Treaty/Te Tiriti, it would revoke promises and guarantees made to Māori in 1840 and since, and that the bill itself would breach the Treaty and cause tino rangatiratanga for Māori to be extinguished in a legal sense.
Luxon and Seymour rhetorical clash
One of those critics, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, delivered a scathing appraisal of the bill before departing Parliament to attend APEC in Peru.
"You do not go negate, with a single stroke of a pen, 184 years of debate and discussion, with a bill that I think is very simplistic," he said.
His vote in favour of progressing the legislation is to be recorded in line with all other government MPs .
The bill's champion and chief author, David Seymour, pushed back - saying "equal rights for all New Zealanders is a simple idea but it's also a very powerful one. It also enables us to overcome many of the other challenges that we face".
The first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill in Parliament on 14 November 2024. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
He also disagreed with Luxon's suggestion his bill was a distraction from what really mattered to New Zealanders.
"Nah, I think the government's doing a very good job of focusing on the economy and law and order ... right across the board the government's doing a great job on these tough issues and ACT I would say is making a disproportionately large contribution to it."
National's Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka told RNZ the Treaty Principles Bill did nothing to ensure equal citizenship and equality of opportunity.
He says the bill carries forward the coalition deal between National and ACT as a result of the MMP system, but the bill does nothing to advance National's quest.
"Our quest is to ensure that we generate equal citizenship and equality of opportunity for Māori and all New Zealanders, as written and drafted by Tā Apirana Ngata nearly 100 years ago, and a reflection of the fight for Aotearoa New Zealand and for King and Country by the Māori battalion in battlefields that are named and adorned on the walls of this Parliament.
"So absolutely that is my quest, and this bill does nothing to engage and deliver on that quest."
Potaka said he was looking forward to the select committee and encourages everyone - particularly iwi Māori - to participate and ensure their concerns are articulated.
With Luxon absent, Potaka was challenged repeatedly in Question Time to defend the bill.
"I can acknowledge that there is hurt and pain across many communities as a result of this bill," he said, under questioning from Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
The party's other co-leader Rawiri Waititi had earlier told reporters it was not for Seymour to make constitutional changes, and a hui should be called with Māori hapū to have the conversation properly.
"This is not a democratic process, this is a constitutional process. If it isn't between the two sovereigns that signed it, it is an absolute waste of time."
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