Davidson Marama; Mallard Trevor; Woodhouse Michael; Seymour David; Hipkins Chris; Bishop Chris; Shaw James; Brownlee Gerry; McKee Nicole; Sio Hon Aupito WilliamSPEAKER'S RULINGSAllegations of Racism—Use of Word Racist"Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Mr Speaker point of order. Mr Speaker I acknowledge that I am actually seeking your leeway to raise a point of order related to question No. 1 in the House today. I required some time to go through the Speakers' Rulings. So I wanted to ask that—recently you have ruled in this House about your interpretation of Speakers' rulings 44/1 and 44/2 regarding allegations of racism. Mr Speaker I am asking could you further reflect on those rulings especially 44/1 because that came from 1998 and effectively rules that no member in this House can ever be racist—which is actually not reflective of a House of Representatives and does not help towards raising the standard of debate in this House when we start to undermine debate as including harmful racist narrative. SPEAKER: Speaking to the point of order the Hon Michael Woodhouse.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I think this a very important issue and it's been raised two or three times in the last month. To the last point that Ms Davidson just raised the Standing Orders are very clear that while accusations of racism are not to be levelled it is entirely within the Speaker's prerogative to rule matters out and to judge them or for a member to take offence. In respect of Speaker's ruling 44/1 I would suggest to you that Speaker Kidd's ruling is enduring because it goes to the question of the perception of things that are interpreted in questions or in speech comments that may or may not be the intention of the speaker—and it's very clear in that second sentence or third sentence: "I understand the feelings of members who feel that the policies or views of other members are objectionable. They must be permitted to criticise those policies or views in strong terms." So that goes both ways. But to automatically presume that because a certain line of questioning which you've ruled is in the Standing Orders should be ruled out because somebody has a perception that it carries with it an inference I think would demean the quality of the debate and the freedom that we have the privileges that we have in this House to engage in robust but reasonable debate in accordance with the Standing Orders.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order Mr Speaker. I do feel that this is a point that needs to be addressed. The purpose of this House we all agree is to scrutinise and hold to account the executive. Now the executive appears to have some policy initiatives which are racially explicit—that means that they need to be debated by this House; that can often be uncomfortable. I personally would prefer that they weren't but to somehow restrict the House from being able to debate the executive's policies with charges of racism was rightly ruled out by previous Speakers. If anything the influx of racially explicit policy on the part of the executive makes it more necessary that we are able freely to debate them.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Having just had a quick read of the Speaker's ruling in question I think the overall objective here was to get members debating the substance of an issue rather than using labels in order to characterise one another. I think members expressing concern about sentiments being expressed on one side of the House or another is absolutely legitimate; it is a legitimate part of debate. I think what Speaker Kidd—and in fact I think he maybe even references that in his ruling—suggests is that using a single word as a lazy shorthand to characterise a member's concerns isn't the way to go; that if you have an objection with what someone is saying elaborate on that debate it rather than simply throw labels at each other.CHRIS BISHOP (National): Speaking to the point of order I want to echo exactly what Mr Hipkins just said then and also what David Seymour said in his contribution. The simple reality is that we have a political constitution in this country in the sense that it's for the Parliament to decide our constitutional arrangements and the reality is that the Treaty of Waitangi signed between Māori and Pākehā settlers into New Zealand is something that will always be and has always been in the time we've had parliamentary democracy the subject of intense debate in the Parliament. That's the reality and we should not inhibit debate around that in this House.Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I acknowledge—and am asking genuinely for your guidance—we have the Speakers' Rulings available to us that are procedural. I am also looking for your guidance on how we can have genuine debate without marginalising entire groups of communities including tangata whenua who feel that the standard of debate in this House is not at all welcoming or inviting to actual democratic debate on the important issues of how our country comes together in the future.SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I am going to say that in this point of order in particular I'm going to rule strictly that it will be heard in silence. There are some comments that are just not helpful.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): The House is in fact about to—or I suspect; unless there's something else about to happen that I don't know about—engage in an hour of debate where members can do exactly that; they can raise whatever issues they wish to. The issue around the word "racist" I think falls into a similar category as the word "liar" or "hypocrite" or other such labels which are also not allowed to be used in the House. Though members may deeply hold the view that what somebody on the other side has said fits one of those descriptions those are descriptions that we can't use. We are encouraged to engage in debate that is a little more sophisticated than that.Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): Speaking to the point of order I think there are a number of issues that need to be disaggregated one of which is that the Treaty is a legal instrument between two peoples. If they were peoples of the same ethnicity it wouldn't be conflated with race and yet that is how it's been conflated in the House.The second issue is that the tone or certain labels that get used in question time or have been used in question time recently are offensive to some members but under the rules of the House under the procedural rules that the Hon Marama Davidson was referring to we're unable to say that we take offence because it's not directed at an individual member of Parliament. So we can't within the procedures say that we take offence to something that another member has said as part of question time.I think the third component here is that ultimately we are talking about the tangata whenua the indigenous people who are in a minority in this House and therefore are unable to express the offence that has been taken by the narrative or some of those labels that are being thrown around as a result of other members of the House due to the nature of those procedures. That is why we are raising the point as a point of order within the rules around question time.SPEAKER: I'm getting close to being able to rule.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Mr Speaker I think the challenge that's being put down to you is trying to work out how you in fact deal with debate on policy that is formulated essentially on race without offending those who consider that such a debate should not take place and that there should be no question about the basis of the policy itself. And that is I think the fine line that you're being asked to walk and we look forward to your consideration of that.NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Point of order Mr Speaker. I am one of those indigenous peoples and I sit here in this House as a representative of others as well. And when we have politicians that say that they speak for my race that I belong to I find that they're not actually speaking for me. So I would actually like to be able to have the debate that's being held. While we do all know that some people find things offensive others actually believe that we do need to have this debate and this is what this House is about. I do not find some of the comments that have been made as being racist but rather looking at ways of working through solutions to the issues that have been put in front of us. And the representatives for the minority walked out of this House. They didn't abide by the rules of this House and therefore they have walked away from the people that they said that they want to represent.So I think it's very important that we consider—SPEAKER: Order! Come right back to that rather than reflecting on what happened.NICOLE McKEE: I would like to be able to continue to have a debate on the laws that go through here—an open and honest conversation on every piece of legislation that we debate in the House. Thank you. [Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! CHRIS BISHOP (National): Speaking to the point of order. I think Mr Brownlee has summarised the position the dilemma that you have to confront. The implication of the points of order from Ms Davidson and Mr Shaw are quite troubling because they are asking you to go beyond Speakers' rulings essentially which are that you can't call someone directly racist but that labels should be interpreted as essentially racist or some language should be interpreted in that light even if it's not intended in that light. Actually I point out that no examples have been given around the language that some members—Green members—have found offensive. So we would put it to you from the National Opposition that the current Speakers' rulings around improper language more than suffice and we should allow robust and free debate in this House.SPEAKER: This is the last contribution.Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Courts): Mr Speaker there are various worlds here and they're colliding because the system here is not an indigenous system. I'm not trying to defend what's occurred; what I'm saying which I think has been demonstrated here is that there are certain issues of debate within this House where there's a duty of care in how we approach it. How it's handled in this House also has rippling effects on the wider community. And for minority groups including myself it is quite painful to sit in here knowing that whilst it is a robust House here where all things are open for debate there's a line that often crosses here. And I think it's no different from us also being careful about sexual harassment and abuse that we've often talked about.SPEAKER: I want to thank members for what I think has been a useful discussion. I'm going to make a ruling now but reserve the right to come back again if I think it needs to be updated. My starting point—and I go back to comments that the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith made around hypocrisy in the past—is that there is a difference between calling an individual a racist and criticising either a policy or a view as being racist. I think that's essentially the point that the Hon Mr Brownlee was making: that some people in this House have the view that some policies are racist. Some people have the view that other members' views are racist. In my opinion ruling that out would be excluding the rights to free speech which we value substantially.On the question of just the use of words Speakers can and have regularly ruled specific words out. Calling someone a liar I think is one which is pretty straightforward with the expressions that happen in this House. So I think the essence of my ruling is asking people to take care as they express themselves to think of the wider consequences when they do but I am not going to ask one part of the House to refrain from suggestions that some policies are race-based or effectively racist and I'm not going to stop another group in the House expressing the view that other members' views—not the members themselves but the views expressed—are in fact racist. I think that will get the balance about right. It will leave the freedom of speech but it will stop people saying that individuals are racist which I think most members would find offensive.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Speaking to that if I may. I do appreciate your indulgence Mr Speaker but you have just made a comment that—I infer from it that what you have said is that while a party may have a line of speaking or questioning that is racist it's still within the Standing Orders. I find that very troubling so could I ask you: if you have examples of speech that you believe met that definition then please forward it to the shadow Leader of the House. Or alternatively if that wasn't what you wanted to imply could we have that clarification too? I mean we're talking about subjective assessments of what people think people are saying and then the offence that they take from it. If I have heard you say that I am very concerned about it.SPEAKER: I want to indicate that if people had listened carefully to the reactions of some members in the House today we would have seen—we could see—that some members view the approach taken by others as racist. It's a genuinely held view—clearly genuinely held. We saw it from the Māori Party today. We can argue about whether they are right or wrong but I think it gets really hard if they are not allowed to express their views. I want to also say that I took some inferences from questioning today that a major party viewed a possible policy direction in exactly the same way. I don't think either side should be refrained from expressing the view as long as it is not personalised to members.Now I'm quite willing to continue this discussion later on in my room if people would like to and I'd certainly welcome any considered notes on it because as I indicated before it is a very important area. I'll reiterate something that I said yesterday. That is that I think—[Interruption] Mr Bennett—that matters which might have been seen as not being racist in New Zealand 20 or 40 years ago are now and having members call things like that for as they see them is something which I wouldn't want to prevent."