Privileges Committee recommended Peeni Henare apologise in House for ‘disorderly’ actions during Treaty Principles vote

Labour MP Peeni Henare has been found by a powerful Parliament committee to have engaged in “undoubtedly disorderly behaviour” but his actions “do not amount to a contempt”.

It recommended that he apologise to the House for his behaviour, and Henare did so on Wednesday afternoon.

Parliament’s Privileges Committee has released an interim report as part of its investigation into the actions of four MPs – Henare as well as Te Pāti Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke – during the vote on the Treaty Principles Bill last year.

The four MPs were referred to the committee for their involvement in a haka during the legislation’s first reading. They left their seats to perform a haka, with Te Pāti Māori MPs approaching Act’s leader David Seymour, the architect of the controversial bill.

The report deals exclusively with the actions of Henare, who left his seat and advanced in front of the Labour Party’s seats to perform the haka but did not walk over to Seymour.

Henare told the committee that his conduct “did not reach the threshold of previous privileges complaints where contempt was found, as he was across the floor of the House from other members”, the report says.

“He stated that ‘if there was disrespect, I apologise unreservedly’. In his hearing with us, he again apologised for ‘breaking the rule of stepping away from my seat and onto the floor of the debating chamber. I know the rule with respect to that, and I knew that in doing so I would be breaking that rule’.”

The committee found that Henare’s actions of stepping onto the floor of the chamber to participate in a haka during a vote “did obstruct or impede the business of the House” and was “undoubtedly disorderly behaviour”.

“However, we find that Mr Henare’s actions do not amount to a contempt. We recommend that Mr Henare be required to apologise to the House for acting in a disorderly manner that disrupted a vote being taken and impeded the House in its functions.”

Labour MP Peeni Henare during his appearance before the Privileges Committee this month. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The committee explained that Parliament’s rules set out that the House “may treat as a contempt any act or omission that obstructs or impedes the House in the performance of its functions”.

When Speaker Gerry Brownlee referred the matter to the committee last year, he noted two examples of contempt identified in Parliament’s Standing Orders: “Threatening, or intimidating a member … in the discharge of [their duties]” and “threatening, or disadvantaging a member on account of [their] conduct in [the House]”.

The committee said: “The Standing Orders do not require that all acts that meet the criteria outlined under Standing Order 417(1) be treated as contempt”.

“Following the referral of a question of privilege concerning a possible contempt, it is for the Privileges Committee, in the first instance, and the House, ultimately, to judge whether a particular act should be considered a contempt.”

Henare apologised in the House on Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier, he told the Herald: “I made my point clear that I accepted I broke the rules and whatever punishment was meted out, I would take what comes. I will, as the report recommends, make my apology,” Henare said.

There’s previously been some discussion about how tikanga and haka is dealt with in the House in the future.

Henare said, “in finding me not in contempt, but acknowledging I broke the rules, [the report] gives us a scope and an opportunity to say, what is in contempt, what is it we think we can do in terms of our rules and tikanga in this whare to make sure democracy is upheld”.

At a hearing this month, Henare apologised for knowingly breaking the rules by stepping onto the floor of the debating chamber, but he said he stood by performing the haka.

“It was also a very heated debate in the House for members who were there that day, and I was certainly one who was interjecting strongly throughout the contributions on that bill,” he said.

“In my passion in seeing this bill defeated, I stand by wholeheartedly performing the haka on the floor of the House.”

The haka during the first reading went viral globally. Maipi-Clarke, who began the haka, was named by the Speaker and suspended from Parliament for 24 hours.

The legislation is currently before a select committee, which has had to consider an unprecedented number of submissions from the public about it.

Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.