Prebble on Labour and TPM
Richard Prebble writes:
Claims standards of parliamentary behaviour have fallen are nonsense. Except for Te Pāti Māori, this is a well-behaved House.
The Speaker’s referral of the floor protest to the Privileges Committee was not discretionary. It was required by Standing Orders.
The Speaker was lenient. He could have ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to end the Māori Party haka. Any MP who resisted is automatically suspended for the rest of this Parliament.
No Parliament can tolerate its proceedings being disrupted by protest.
In 1981, British Speaker George Thomas suspended Labour MP Ron Brown for 20 days for nothing more than placing a protest flag on the Commons table.
In 2023, the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two Democratic lawmakers for leading a protest on the House floor.
Yes, there have been incidents of disorder in the House before, but all admitted their actions were wrong. No MP has ever refused a summons to the Privileges Committee.
This is spot on. There is no general problem. Just a problem with one party. And indeed a three week suspension is lenient for the nature of what they did.
Across Europe, there are MMP parliaments with extremist parties that reject parliamentary norms. Europeans know it is a mistake to appease democracy’s enemies.
The democratic parties establish a “cordon sanitaire”. They refuse to form coalitions or alliances with parties that oppose democracy.
Here’s what is also unprecedented: the New Zealand Labour Party, long a champion of parliamentary democracy, has not set a cordon sanitaire and ruled out working with Te Pāti Māori.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins told Parliament that Labour wants no penalty on the MP who instigated the protest and just 24 hours for the party leaders – no real sanction in my view.
Parliamentary democracy is not safe with Labour.
TPM are proudly an anti-democracy party. They do not believe in one person, one vote. They want one person, six votes.
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