Three Māori Members of Parliament from New Zealand’s Te Pāti Māori (The Maori Party) have been suspended for performing a traditional haka in protest against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill.

The parliamentary privileges committee recommended a 21-day suspension for co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, and a seven-day suspension for Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, the party’s youngest MP. The committee deemed their actions disruptive and potentially intimidating to other lawmakers.

The protest occurred during the bill’s first reading in November 2024, when Maipi-Clarke initiated the haka and tore up a copy of the bill. The Treaty Principles Bill sought to reinterpret the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document between Māori tribes and the British Crown, signed in 1840.

Critics argued that the bill threatened Māori rights and could reverse decades of progress. The bill was ultimately defeated in April 2025.

Te Pāti Māori condemned the suspensions as excessive and a punitive measure against Indigenous resistance. They defended the haka as an appropriate cultural and political response to the bill’s implications. The incident has sparked national debate about the role of Indigenous cultural expression in formal government settings and the broader issue of Māori political representation .

The suspensions are considered the harshest penalties ever imposed on elected officials in New Zealand’s legislative history. The final decision awaits a parliamentary vote, which is likely to pass with support from the ruling conservative coalition.