Tui Vaeau
So the Māori Party have finally been suspended from parliament. Good. About time someone had the stones to show these self-absorbed prima donnas the door.
This was not protest. It was petulance. These are elected MPs, not TikTok influencers doing a cultural flash mob. The chamber is for lawmaking, not half-naked theatrics and aggressive chanting masquerading as political speech. If a group of middle-aged accountants burst into a boardroom doing the “Macarena” over tax policy, they’d be sectioned. But slap the word haka on it and suddenly we’re meant to stand in solemn awe? Bollocks.
Let’s get this straight: parliament is not a bloody marae. It’s not a dancefloor, a church or a safe space for tantrum-throwing grievance merchants. It’s the centre of the nation’s law making and governance. It demands order, dignity and, at the very least, a working grasp of adult behaviour.
But no. These jokers decided to turn up and treat it like a stage for political theatre, waving their arms about and bellowing like fools mid-proceeding, and now they want sympathy? Please. This isn’t courage: it’s childish attention-seeking dressed up in feathers and entitlement.
The worst part? The media lapped it up. International headlines. BBC. Al Jazeera. The Times of India, for God’s sake. As if New Zealand has nothing better to showcase to the world than a pack of MPs making asses of themselves in what should be the most serious room in the country.
The world isn’t laughing with us. It’s laughing at us.
Judith Collins was right. Civility matters. Rules matter. If parliament lets this sort of tribal performance art slide, we might as well turn the place into a circus and charge admission. Come one, come all – watch the children in suits stomp, pout and dance whenever they don’t get their way.
Suspend them. Fine them. And if they don’t like the rules, they can bugger off and start a drum circle somewhere else.
Parliament is for grownups. These ones don’t qualify.
