The New Zealand Parliament on Thursday witnessed a chaotic session as Maori MP Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke staged the traditional Haka dance at the House to protest against a bill.
The Maori MP, who also happens to be the youngest in the country's Parliament, tore up the controversial Treaty Principles Bill as she broke into haka.
The Te Pati Maori MP came into the limelight last year after she performed haka at the Parliament during her maiden speech, with her video soon going viral. As the MP performed the dance again in the New Zealand Parliament on Thursday, a video of the same has gone viral.
The video shows the 22-year-old MP tearing up a copy of the Bill interrupting the session, while other members and the visitors in the public gallery joined her. This prompted Speaker Gerry Brownlee to suspend the House for a brief time.
🔥Unprecedented & simply magnificent. That time in Nov 2024 when a haka led by Aotearoa's youngest MP 22yo Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke erupted in the House stopping the Treaty Principles Bill from passing its first reading, triggering the Speaker to suspend Parliament.… pic.twitter.com/pkI7q7WGlr
November 14, 2024The performance of haka, a traditional war dance performed by New Zealand's tribal groups, in the Parliament was a protest against the Treaty Principles Bill.
Why Did Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke Perform Haka?
Maipi-Clarke's haka comes as a protest against the Treaty Principles Bill, which was unveiled by the ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in New Zealand's centre-right coalition government. The bill seeks to alter some of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, a step which is protested by many people of the indigenous Maori community.
The Treaty, first signed between the British Crown and over 500 Maori chiefs in 1840, outlines how the two parties agreed to govern the country. New Zealand's legislation and policy is still guided by the interpretation of the clauses laid down in the Treaty.
The ACT New Zealand Party last week put forward the bill to place a narrower interpretation of the Waitangi treaty in law.
This controversial legislation is seen by several members of the Maori community and their supporters as a bid to undermine the rights of the country's Indigenous people, who constitute about 20% of the total population of the country (nearly 53 lakh).
After the first reading of the proposed bill was passed in the Parliament last week, thousands of people set out on a nine-day march, called 'hikoi', from northern New Zealand to capital Wellington in order to protest against the same.
Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke also made clear that she protested against the proposed bill in the Parliament, as she tore the document copy while performing haka. However, the bill is not anticipated to pass the second reading as both coalition partners of ACT New Zealand Party have said that they would not support it to become legislation.
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