Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer flips report critical of Rawiri Waititi back on Government

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has accepted a report that was deeply critical of her co-leader Rawiri Waititi’s conduct in Parliament for failing to uphold the principle of comity. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer acknowledged and accepted a report that was deeply critical of her co-leader Rawiri Waititi’s conduct in Parliament for failing to uphold the principle of comity.

However, she pointedly pushed some of the report’s criticism back at the Government, noting that it too was guilty of failing to uphold the principle of comity between judicial, executive, and legislative branches of government.

Speaking to the report in Parliament, Ngarewa-Packer said she “acknowledged” the report and its conclusion.

She said her party “have been more aware and respectful of the principle of comity” and said Parliament’s relationship with the courts was of the “utmost constitutional importance”.

“Given the week we’ve had the comments of calling judges ‘communist’ it’s probably a timely reminder for us all,” she said.

Her remarks referred to senior Minister Shane Jones who was revealed to have called High Court Justice Cheryl Gwyn as a “Communist judge”.

Ngarewa-Packer was speaking to a report on how Parliament should deal with instances where an MP might have breached a court suppression order without warning. It followed an instance in the last Parliament where Waititi appeared to knowingly breach such an order in the House.

Breaching an order might be a matter of privilege, and could have seen Waititi found in contempt. However, the then-Speaker Adrian Rurawhe agonised that investigating the matter further in order to ascertain whether a breach had been committed might make things worse by potentially confirming the existence of a suppression order and identifying the subject of it.

Instead, he dealt with Waititi’s transgression as a matter of order, naming him and suspending him for 24 hours.

He asked the Privileges Committee to look into what course of action should be followed in matters like this. The Committee, now chaired by Attorney-General Judith Collins, reported back this week saying that it believed the right course of action was followed by Rurawhe at the time.

“We encourage other presiding officers to consider taking this action if a similar situation arises in the future,” Collins said.

Collins cited standing order 116, which asks members to inform the Speaker in writing before discussing matters, suppressed or not, that were currently before the courts. She said this rule was intended to preserve the principle of comity between the legislature and the judiciary. Comity means that each branch of government respects the others’ spheres of influence and the privileges associated with it.

Collins said the act of investigating the matter in order to uphold the principle of comity might actually further undermine it.

Collins said the rules for raising matters before the courts set out in standing order 116 was a “reasonable limitation on the privilege of free speech in the House”.

“It is appropriate for the courts to be able to decide what information about their proceedings should be publicly available,” Collins said.

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.