Privileges committee sides with speaker Adrian Rurawhe over suppression issue involving Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi at Parliament. Photo / Marty Melville

Parliament’s Privileges Committee says former Speaker Adrian Rurawhe took the right approach to Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi who “appeared to breach” a court suppression order in the House last year.

At the time, Rurawhe said he was in a bind because investigating whether Waititi had breached Parliamentary Privilege would risk drawing more further attention to the suppression and undermine it. Instead, he referred the question of the best course of action to the Privileges Committee, while dealing with Waititi as a matter of order, rather than privilege.

Rurawhe decided Waititi was grossly disorderly. He was named and suspended for 24 hours. A naming and suspension is one of the most severe punishments that can be handed to an MP. It means the MP is barred from having a vote cast, from sitting on a committee, or entering the debating chamber, and will have the day’s pay deducted from their salary.

Member’s of Parliament enjoy powerful Parliamentary Privilege which allows them to speak more freely during sittings of the House. However, that privilege does not extend to unilaterally breaching suppression orders.

The Committee drew on rules that went beyond mere suppression, and noted that the principle of comity between the courts and Parliament meant that matters before the courts were generally meant to be left out of Parliamentary debate

The Committee noted that Standing Order 116 states that “matters awaiting or under adjudication in, or suppressed by an order of, any New Zealand court may not be referred to in any motion, debate, or question (including a supplementary question)”.

However, the Committee also noted Standing Order 116 is “subject to the discretion of the Speaker”. If an MP wished to call on the Speaker’s judgement in order to raise a matter before the courts they needed to “give written notice to the Speaker of their intention”.

“If a member follows this process, then there is a pathway for such information to be discussed in the House,” the Committee said.

An earlier Privileges Committee had considered what to do about the conflict between freedom of speech and court orders. The Standing Orders Committee, which reviews the rules of Parliament, said that “members wishing to discuss matters that are before a court [should] inform the Speaker in writing before raising the matter in the House”.

“The Speaker could then advise the member, and the Speaker would be in an informed position to deal with the matter immediately in the House if the member proceeded to raise a matter contrary to the Speaker’s advice,” the report said.

In this situation, Waititi did not provide written notice to the Speaker. The committee noted that Waititi’s comments “gave the reasonable impression” that he believed the matter he was discussing was subject to a suppression order.

The Committee said it was “important for Parliament to uphold the privileges of the courts, just as it expects that the courts will uphold Parliament’s privileges”.

It said if MPs wanted to raise matters that may be suppressed by a court, without first notifying the Speaker of their intent to do so, “there are inherent practical difficulties in investigating whether a matter is indeed suppressed, as investigating this could in itself disclose suppressed information”.

It said Rurawhe “took the approach of taking time to review the situation after it was raised during oral questions, and then raising it again as a matter of order at a subsequent sitting”.

The Committee said “taking time to consider the matter, while also preventing ongoing discussion of the matter on the day, could reduce the exposure of potentially suppressed information”.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.