To an outside observer on Thursday, November 14, New Zealand politician Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke’s reaction on Parliament’s floor may have been a surprise. But the immediate reaction of other Members of Parliament (MPs) joining the 22-year-old, who’d ripped up a copy of a treaty bill, made it more than obvious that they knew what was coming: a haka. The bill she was holding intended to reinterpret the 184-year-old clauses in the Treaty of Waitangi, previously signed between the Crown and Indigenous Māori chiefs.
Who Is Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke?
According to SBS News, Maipi-Clarke is New Zealand’s youngest MP since 1853, and this is not her first haka. Toward the beginning of her first speech to Parliament in December of 2023, she also performed a haka, a traditional Māori ceremonial dance involving dance-like movements, chanting and exaggerated facial expressions. With hopes of being the voice of a new generation of young voters in New Zealand, she has vowed to protect Māori rights and culture.
In two of her many areas of focus, she is a strong advocate for educating about indigenous people and addressing climate change. Inspired by her grandfather, Taitimu Maipi, a member of the Māori activist group Nga Tamatoa, she is also a grand-niece to Māori language activist Hana Te Hemara. (In a 1972 petition, spearheaded by Te Hemara and signed by 33,000 Māori and Pākehā, the document called for the introduction of Māori language and culture curriculum in schools nationwide while worldwide protests were happening regarding civil rights, women’s rights and the Vietnam war.)
Why Did Maipi-Clarke Rip Up the Bill About the Treaty of Waitangi?
For those who remember U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi tearing up the “State Of the Union” speech of 2016 President Donald Trump, this may have felt nostalgic. Pelosi’s reason for doing so? She couldn’t find one page “that didn’t have a lie on it,” she told fellow Democratic lawmakers the next day. The Dems’ response? A standing ovation.
In Maipi-Clarke’s case, the paper she was holding held more weight than a speech. Before a vote could be taken to make the bill a new law, Maipi-Clarke ripped up the controversial bill on the Parliament floor. The reinterpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, in Māori and English, was first signed in 1840. In it, the tribes were promised broad land rights that protect their interests in return for relinquishing governance to the British. In the rewritten one, all New Zealanders would have those rights.
According to the bill’s creator David Seymour, who will become deputy prime minister next year as part of a governing coalition agreement, stated that Maori people “enjoy privileges not accorded to other New Zealanders under the nation’s founding document, the 184-year-old Treaty of Waitangi.”
Arguments made in support of re-interpreting the treaty were similar to the kind of rationale used in opposition to Affirmative Action. In this case, though, the goal was changing the treaty for factors such as land ownership, a touchy point that was creating racial tension between some MPs and British leaders.
Maipi-Clarke’s One-Day Suspension, Willie Jackson Kicked Out for Not Apologizing
There were a couple of other interesting parallels in Parliament that may have felt like a blast from the not-so-distant past in the U.S. In 2017 and 2023, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled out at former President Barack H. Obama and current President Joe Biden, accusing them of being liars during their “State Of the Union” addresses. Neither member of Congress apologized, and the SOTU continued on.
Across the country on the Parliament floor in 2024, Willie Jackson, the Labor MP and Maori leader, was ejected from the chamber after calling Seymour a liar and refusing to withdraw or apologize for his comment. But after the haka and the vocal protest against British colonization, Speaker Gerry Brownlee suspended Parliament for nearly half an hour, describing Maipi-Clarke’s behavior as “grossly disorderly, appallingly disrespectful and premeditated.” Maipi-Clarke was suspended for 24 hours.
But unlike U.S. Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who also openly protested Congressional decisions, New Zealand MPs Jackson and Maipi-Clarke were not kicked out of their roles altogether. The U.S. House of Representatives, on the other hand, specifically targeted two of three protesters while one remained unscathed.
The Protest Hits the Streets
Tens of thousands of Māori communities gathered outside of the Parliament doors in a hīkoi (i.e., protest) against the re-interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi and Māori rights. On Tuesday, November 19, these 35,000 protestors marched from the northern tip of New Zealand’s North Island to parliament in the capital Wellington, at the southern tip of the island. The march was also described as a “celebration of a resurging Indigenous language and identity” and a way to fight for their “tamariki, for our mokopuna” (children and grandchildren).
And unlike protests such as January 6, 2021, this has been a peaceful cross-country march without breaking into any politician’s office or private Parliament quarters. No one has reportedly had to be evacuated or threatened with hangings. At bus stops, people of all ages and races waited with Māori sovereignty flags. Some local schools opted out of reporting students as absent who participated, and the city’s mayor joined the protest.
Small Party, Big Power
Regardless of open proponents, the proposed law passed its first vote last Thursday, November 14, after it had been discussed at length for months. Even in New Zealand’s tiny parties, the political system is set up to allow them to negotiate outsized influence. But the treaty is especially alarming to those who are noticing progress made for the Māori, such as celebrating the new national holiday Matariki in 2022, one year after Juneteenth became a federal holiday in the U.S.
And while the bill has not become a law, protesters are vocal and noticing they’re more united than they were in years prior.
“It’s different to when I was a child,” a protester named Shanell Bob told Associated Press. “We’re stronger now, our tamariki are stronger now, they know who they are, they’re proud of who they are.”
