Parliament to consider changing rules following haka - is it a good idea?

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. OPINION Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke and her colleagues in the debating chamber and the public gallery broke a whole lot of rules last week when they launched into a haka during a vote on the Treaty Principles Bill.

History tends to remember fondly people who break rules in the name of protest. Anti-tour protesters weren’t allowed to be on the pitch in Hamilton in 1981, and Rosa Parks, according to the rules, should really have given up her seat on the bus in 1955. Rules are broken in Parliament all the time - occasionally by people who go on to strictly enforce them (former Speaker Tervor Mallard was, in his youth, hauled out of the public gallery during protesting an SIS bill) .



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