KEY POINTS:
The police were accused in Parliament today of terrorising Maori communities and acting as an arm of the Government when they arrested 17 people in last week's raids.
Maori Party MP Hone Harawira said there was mounting frustration and anger by Maori "genuinely aggrieved" by the loss of
their land and the denial of the Treaty of Waitangi.
"Now these raids, smashing into Maori homes and terrorising Maori communities - of course Maori are bloody angry, and why wouldn't they be?" he said.
"The actions of the New Zealand police, contrary to the minister, are not separate from the Government but are in fact an arm of the Government."
At the end of Mr Harawira's speech, United Future leader Peter Dunne said it was "one of the most disgusting, embittered, divisive and downright irrelevant speech I've heard in this House for a long time."
Earlier today Prime Minister Helen Clark said the Government did not have the power to tell the police what to do.
She said they would be judged on the evidence they put before the courts in relation to last week's terror raids and whether charges stick.
Mr Harawira said he was offended by Mr Dunne's description of his speech, and asked for an apology.
Mr Dunne did not offer one. "Like the rest of New Zealand, I take personal offence to many of the comments made...so I think we're about even," he said.
The Maori Party MP used a debate on a bill that makes minor amendments to whistleblower legislation to launch his tirade against the police.
He said the raids "highlight an ongoing ignorance of the Maori community by the New Zealand police, a reluctance to engage Maori, a willingness to arrest Maori...and a readiness to brutalise Tuhoe in exactly the same way they did 100 years ago."
Mr Harawira said the police action "with the support of this Labour government" signalled to all Maori that "hell yes, the terrorism of the Maori community has in fact never ended and continues unabated."
Police have arrested 17 people since the nation-wide raids that commenced last Monday.
Several of the people arrested during the raids have been charged with firearms offences, and police say they are assessing whether to seek approval from the Solicitor-General to lay charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act.
The raids provoked an outcry from activists and Maori, who have said police use of the anti-terror laws in seeking warrants for the raids was heavy-handed and unnecessary.
Miss Clark said today the police were going to be judged on what they put before the courts, and whether charges stuck.
She said although she had been briefed ahead of the raids, she had no control over them as the police operated independently from Government.
However, she said police would have to face the public's judgment.
"We don't have the power to say 'don't do it', or 'do it'," she said on TVNZ's Breakfast programme.
"We have noted it. Clearly the police are going to be judged on what they put before a court and whether charges stick."
National Party leader John Key last week said he had been briefed on the raids, ahead of a trip to Europe, by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS).
Mr Key has come in for criticism for saying he received a briefing, due to a long-standing convention of not revealing the activities of the country's spy agencies.
Miss Clark said she always tried to speak as little as possible about security matters.
She said the most serious aspect of Mr Key's comments was he seemed to imply the SIS would be involved in the raids.
That was not the case, she said.
- NZPA
