Yes, this is pathetic.

3 weeks ago 2

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The reason for the punishment. Threats not immediately obvious.

Yes, it's accurate to call Te Pāti Māori a racist party — both its constituencies and policies are race-based. Like Wee Willy Jackson, who spoke yesterday against them being banned for 21 days, they view everything through a lens focussed on race.

"The world is watching'" said Jackson, "and this type of punitive punishment will enshrine and entrench in world political commentators, and certainly the Māori Party, that this place is indeed racist and that there's no hope for this place. That's how bad that decision is."* TPM MPs and other were happy to pile on and magnify his point. "Everyone can see the racism," said Takuta Ferris. " It is hardly being hidden." "Racism-whistling," said Marama Davidson. "Racism," said Ms Hapi-Clarke. Racism, racism, racism.

Baloney.

It's just a Parliament trying to maintain the illusion that its members deserve any sort of respect.

As Chloe Swarbrick pointed out, it's a place full of of humbug: Winston stood up and preached about "contempt" — TPM's "utter contempt for the whole institution." Yet "the last time ... that the Privileges Committee did not make a consensus-based decision," cited Swarbrick in her speech, "in fact it was—and here I am reading explicitly from the Privileges Committee report back then—'for the Member, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who knowingly provided false or misleading information on a pecuniary interest.'" MPs of course caring nothing for how much they lie to you, but who get upset (or pretend to) when they're seen to lie to each other.

But as for those wanting to punish these MPs by removing them from the House for an unprecedented period?

Don't be so bloody precious.

The Parliament needs some formality in order to function, to allow violently-opposed views to be heard and debated. But it also needs some theatre — and no-one could argue that Han-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke's defiant rip-up-and-haka conclusion to the Treaty Principles Bill wasn't great theatre.

And let's not get all uptight about the alleged "threats" against the ACT Party front bench. If threats alone were enough to ban an MP for three weeks then Julie Anne Genter might be permanently on leave.

It was National Party MPs who escalated all this by arguing for a 21-day ban. And let's not forget it was ACT Party MP Parmjeet Parmar who investigated imprisonment as a possible punishment. Imprisonment!

Was that racism? No, it was simply irresponsible. (And in Parmar's case, authoritarian.)

Yesterday the Māori Party co-leader was still berating the "coloniser government" for punishing them. Maybe they should take a leaf out of Sin Fein's book, who also refused to concede the legitimacy of their Parliament. But in the Westminster Parliament Sinn Fein take their stand seriously: their seven MPs refuse to front at all.

* * * *

* To be fair, Jackson was a bit more subtle than that. "These people on the other side," he said, "they're not all Ku Klux Klan members .... Some of them are quite good."

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