Speaker’s Rulings — Suspension of the House—Disruption in the Gallery

The House is resumed. This afternoon, following the maiden statement by Oriini Kaipara, I suspended the House because of disruption in the gallery outside of an agreed process that the Business Committee had authorised. The key point in this place is that no one member is more or less elected than anyone else and the time that the House allocates for anyone to speak in here is by agreement, and when we have people coming into the House who decide they’re not going to abide by their agreements, then they put themselves in a contemptuous position.

The behaviour in the gallery was contemptuous, and it’s my intention over the next couple of days to find out whether or not that was by agreement with any party inside this House, because people go on to marae all over the country and respect the protocols. We have a protocol here; it is our tikanga. That tikanga is based, as I said before, on agreement, and for people to decide they’re not going to participate in that process, then they put themselves very firmly in contempt of Parliament.

The House will now continue with its business.