That is the only way to describe the Privileges Committee's recommendation to suspend the leadership of Te Pāti Māori for 21 sitting days for their haka protest against the racist Treaty Principles Bill (the haka's leader, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, gets only 7 days). Outrageous because this is the harshest penalty ever handed out by parliament; a clear case of the government abusing its majority to silence and exile the opposition - exactly like a corrupt tinpot dictatorship. And anti-democratic because in the process, they're depriving 210,000 Māori voters of their democratic representation, at the precise time the government will be introducing racist legislation to further undermine their rights, in the form of Rimmer's radical racist libertarian Regulatory Standards Bill.
I was expecting Te Pāti Māori to be convicted by National's kangaroo court, and I was expecting it to be both a badge of honour for its victims, and a source of shame for Parliament. But I was not expecting this level of punishment. It not only brings the entire house into disrepute; it undermines Parliament's very legitimacy. Because, very obviously, if Parliament ejects and suspends and gags its Māori members for vigorously defending, in a culturally appropriate way, the interests of their constituents, then it loses any claim to either represent or be owed allegiance by those constituents. And equally obviously, if a government can use its majority to do this to Māori, it can do it to everyone.
While a New Zealand government using the privileges committee and its House majority to suspend and silence all opposition was previously only a theoretical possibility, now it is real. And we must therefore defend ourselves, and our democracy, from that threat. And that means not just evicting this repulsive, racist, anti-democratic regime; it also means nobbling Parliament and ensuring it can never do this again. Parliament needs to actually be forced to follow the fundamental human rights it has promised to obey. As for how, repealing the 350 year old law which gives them their impunity and making them subject to the courts would be a good start. Politicians have shown they cannot be trusted, and will abuse whatever power they are given. Time to put some neutral adults in charge of them instead.
