The House: Parliamentary privileges - Race as an aggravating factor?
On Wednesday, Parliament's Privileges Committee released its final report into the MPs who protested the Treaty Principles Bill with a haka in the House in November 2024.There was surprise and shock over the recommended punishments for Te Pāti Māori MPs, which seemed both unprecedented and extreme.
In retrospect, considering this week's response from Parliament's Speaker, the advice now available from Parliament's Clerk, and Committee Chair Judith Collins' public defence of her own report, that the initial reaction was overly calm. The committee report now appears partisan, indefensible and open to attacks of racism.
On Tuesday, 20 May, Parliament's House will debate whether or not to accept the Privileges Committee Report and its recommendations for punishments, namely that Te Pāti Māori's two co-leaders be suspended from Parliament for 21 days and their junior colleague for seven days, all without salary.
Talking to RNZ's Morning Report, Collins gave her view of the actions and motivations.
"This is not about haka, this is not about tikanga. This is about MPs impeding a vote, acting in a way that could be seen as intimidating MPs trying to exercise their right to vote.
"After Te Pāti Māori had exercised their right to vote, they then stopped the ACT Party from exercising theirs."
That is not true.
ACT had already voted. Every party had voted before Te Pāti Māori did. As the smallest party in Parliament, Te Pāti Māori is always the last to be called on for their vote.
It has been that way all Parliament.
Judith Collins could not fail to be aware of that.
The vote tallies and outcome had not yet been declared by the Speaker, so the fuller voting process was incomplete, and disrupting it was disorderly behaviour; but the claim that the MPs were intimidating another party to prevent it from voting is entirely unfounded.
The answer Collins gave RNZ was either misinformation (perhaps Judith Collins mistakenly believes the MP's actions were more serious than they were) or it was disinformation (in the aftermath of the report, she might have felt it necessary to convince the country the incident was more serious than it was).
Whatever the reason for the untruth, the claim suggests that Collins has a more jaundiced view of the MPs' actions than is realistic or defensible.
Did she fundamentally misunderstand the MPs' actions during the investigation (which would cast the committee findings into doubt), or did political or other prejudice make those actions appear worse than the evidence showed?
Research has repeatedly found that in any justice system, dark-skinned defendants are treated more severely based on ethnicity.
Findings based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the sequence of events would be highly embarrassing. Findings tainted by political or other prejudice would bring both the committee and the Parliament into disrepute.
The House: Parliamentary privileges - Race as an aggravating factor?
Analysis: Reactions and advice from Parliament's Clerk, Speaker and even the committee chair show it has recommended indefensibly harsh punishments.Phil Smith (RNZ)
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Picture anonymity: Take pictures & blur identities with this privacy camera appf-droid.org
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Here's a photo of a Juvenile Eurasian Jay I took yesterday
#nature #birds #Wildlife #photography #NaturePhotography #BirdPhotography #BirdsOfMastodon #UK #BirdScrolling
#Turchia, viaggio di gruppo a clinica tricologica scambiato per corteo neonazista.
lercio.it/turchia-viaggio-di-g…
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Federico Simoncini Ulivellilercio (Lercio)
this was Verizon's reward for buckling under Trump's demands that they be more racist, and sitting on their hands while Elon Musk steals their $2 billion FAA contract
Verizon wins FCC approval for ...
Verizon wins FCC approval for $9.6-billion Frontier acquisition
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I’ve unfollowed so many people and there’s still more carefree #eurovision chatter showing up on my timeline. It’s gonna be a long night. A genocide? What? Shh! We’re trying to have fun here!
You can’t even boycott entertainment to show solidarity with a people facing genocide as we speak? Entertainment with an entry by and whose main sponsor is a company from the country committing the genocide?
*smdh*
#eurovision #europe #EU #europeanValues #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #israel #Palestine #Gaza
How rapid advances in AI are helping Harvard's Galileo Project and other UFO research efforts process huge amounts of data in real time from multiple sources (Bloomberg)
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techmeme.com/250517/p13#a25051…
How rapid advances in AI are helping Harvard's Galileo Project and other UFO research efforts process huge amounts of data in real time from multiple sources
From Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.Techmeme
Post your recent art studies ♥
#CreativeToots #MastoArt #art #LillenArt #portrait #digitalart #painting
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Link: aruarian.dance/blog/japan-ic-c…
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…
Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful
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2001年にSublime RecordsからリリースされたSusumu Yokotaの名作「Zero」からのリミックス・カットVol.2は、「Feel My Love」ではKyoto Jazz MassiveによるリミックスとHallelujahではSusumu Yokota自身のミックスを収録。
[…] took lots of images today […]
#dailyphoto #photoblog #monochrome #photography #fotografie #leica #leicaQ
2025-05-17
Went to the indoor swimming pool first thing in the morning, then a family visit and a late breakfast (lunch?) at the fırın (Turkish bakery). I also took lots of images today, so I'll just share a couple of them.florian.photo
Colonna sonora del sabato sera.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZQ…
Tomoko Aran - Fuyu Kuran (Full Album)
Partagez vos vidéos avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entierYouTube
World Leaders Shown AI Baby Versions of Themselves at European Summit
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Baby Erdoğan’s Mustache It’s called diplomacy, guys. This year’s European Political Community, an annual forum for European leaders founded in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, kicked off on Friday in Tirana, Albania. Europe’s leaders were greeted with a ten-ish minute presentation that celebrated Europe’s commitment to so…
World Leaders Shown AI Baby Versions of Themselves at European Summit
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World Leaders Shown AI Baby Versions of Themselves at European Summit
futurism.com/the-byte/ai-baby-…
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404media.co/the-universe-will-…
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Tracklist
A1. Feel My Love (Kyoto Jazz Massive Mix)
A2. Hallelujah (Susumu Yokota Mix)
B1. Could Heaven Ever Be Like This (Malawi Rocks Mix Vocal)
B2. Could Heaven Ever Be Like This (Malawi Rocks Mix Instrumental)
The Universe Will Decay a Lot Sooner than Expected
404media.co/the-universe-will-…
Welcome back to the Abstract! I’m trying out something a little different this week: Instead of rounding up four studies per usual, I’m going deep on one lead study followed by a bunch of shorter tidbits. I’m hoping this shift will make for a more streamlined read and also bring a bit more topic diversity into the column. With that said, wild horses cou…
The Universe Will Decay a Lot Sooner than Expected
This week, we have stories about wild horses, wild chimps, and wild cosmic deaths.Becky Ferreira (404 Media)
Plenty of these sunbathing Wood Pigeons around.
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Trump Fumes After Walmart Cites His Policies For Price Hikes: 'STOP Trying To Blame Tariffs'
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In case someone wants more detail about why it's NOT TRUE that dead stars radiate and slowly shrink away until they disappear.
There, I've done my duty.
johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2…
Dead Stars Don’t Radiate
Three guys claim that any heavy chunk of matter emits Hawking radiation, even if it’s not a black hole: • Michael F. Wondrak, Walter D. van Suijlekom and Heino Falcke, Gravitational pair…Azimuth
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psypost.org/study-finds-couple…
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Also seen on a walk round my neighbourhood was this Pied Wagtail that had just taken off after grabbing a grub from the grass.
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Posted into Business @business-bloomberg
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Terribile, terribile, terribile
Gaza, 17 maggio 2025: cronaca di un giorno di massacri targati Netanyahu
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Who governs the UK; Labour or big business?
UK government dropped health push after lobbying by ultra-processed food firms
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blazetrends.com/hamas-reveals-…
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Lu
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