Turmoil in New Zealand

[arwen]

Contentious New Zealand bill leads to Maori protests, including in Parliament

MPs from the Te Pati Maori Party stood and began a haka, as hundreds march in protest across country

New Zealand's Parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday after Maori members staged a haka to disrupt the vote on a contentious bill that would reinterpret a 184-year-old treaty between the British and Indigenous Maori.

First signed in 1840 between the British Crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, the Treaty of Waitangi lays down how the two parties agreed to govern. The interpretation of clauses in the document still guides legislation and policy today.

Rulings by the courts and a separate Maori tribunal have progressively expanded Maori rights and privileges over the decades. However, some argue this has discriminated against non-Indigenous citizens.

The ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the ruling centre-right coalition government, unveiled a bill last week to enshrine a narrower interpretation of the Waitangi treaty in law.

(Full article in link above)

Video clip in this link - impressive and powerful - the woman who leads has very strong Kali Ma energy.....

https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1857091216149487629

[Johnnycomelately]

Maori politiicians do the best political war dance. Probs learned from their sporting All Blacks.

New Zealand MPs suspended for haka in parliament | ABC NEWS

ABC News (Australia)

2.34M subscribers

Posted 5.14.25

“In New Zealand, three members of the Māori Party will be temporarily suspended from parliament over a haka performed during the first reading of the controversial Treaty Principles Bill last year.”

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sg3lLUTNyBA

[Johnnycomelately]

Kiwis have always been solid. Here’s them in a recreated scene from that brief Christmas truce in WWI.

Haka starts about 10:12/14:29, I suggest watching from 8:10, for folks with lots else on the go.

The Haka - New Zealand WW1 Short Film | Isaac Lee

Isaac Lee
7.62K subscribers

Posted May 18, 2025

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=P1dZTsjhEJc

[Johnnycomelately]

Darkness from New Zealand’s fairly recent past, the 70’s. Journalist Tara Brown presents her 2001 piece about it, and follows up with news about the director of the horrid treatment, the sustained campaign of torture of adolescent government wards of a loony-bin of adults.

By the time he was in legal crosshairs, the guy was deemed too ill to prosecute, and he died a year later. The ‘01 minidoc shows him brushing off Tara’s questions. Some by-then-adult former subjects express their lasting trauma and their continuing belief that the man should die in prison.

L = 15:58.

The horrifying truth about the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital | 60 Minutes Australia

60 Minutes Australia
6.65M subscribers

In the 1970s, the adolescent unit at New Zealand's Lake Alice psychiatric hospital was a place of unimaginable torture, where vulnerable children, many simply wards of the state without mental illness, were subjected to painful electric shocks and terrifying punishments. In this confronting investigation, 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown travels to New Zealand to hear the horrific stories from the survivors, while confronting the man responsible for their lifelong trauma, Dr Selwyn Leeks, who continued to practice psychiatry in Australia.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5rP1fdbfw8I