David Seymour: ACT Party Leader on the stoush with Speaker Gerry Brownlee over racial harassment

A bitter stand off has erupted between the ACT Party and the Speaker of the House. 

The party is slamming Gerry Brownlee for allowing opposition MPs to propose removing ACT MP Laura Trask as Chair during select committee hearings on changes to Oranga Tamariki. 

MPs reportedly suggested the more experienced Carmel Sepuloni should step in as chair, saying that a Māori or Pasifika chair would be better due to the number of Māori and Pasifika submitters. 

ACT MP Karen Chhour broke down in front of cameras yesterday, saying that she’s been the target of personal attacks relating to her race.  

Seymour told Mike Hosking ACT is becoming increasingly frustrated. 

He said that if people want to argue the policy, he’s and Chhour are all for it, but the personalised attacks about her race, background, and upbringing are just unacceptable. 

Seymour said that they rely on the Speaker to uphold the rules and uphold the standards, and they just don’t feel they’re getting a response when they raise issues. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The weirdestone in Parliament as lapel pins became a standoff
issue between ACT and the Speaker. Then we had claims
of racism over Select Committee jobs, and then Karen Chua
ended up in tears claiming she's been bullied. So it's
all to do with the ACT Party. In the head
of the ACT Party is David Seymour, who's with us.
Very good morning, Good morning. Makee do chure thing first.
What's happened?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, Karen is, as you know, has been advancing the
Section seven AA reforms which take out the requirement of
orang Atamriki to put the treaty ahead of anything else.
We want children's welfare to be the number one issue
when it comes to Orang A Tamariki's operation. We don't
want these reverse uplifts where you can get taken out

(00:41):
of a household because the parents are supposedly the wrong race.
Now Karen has copped a lot of flat for that,
and a lot of it's quite personal from her people,
saying mainly from Tapatu Mahdi in peace to some extent
from Greens and labor in the house. I mean, certainly
there's people in the public, but some of the things
that have been said about her, that she is, you know,

(01:04):
somehow has internalized racism, that she's not a proper Maori,
that she's on a trauma journey because of the trauma
that she had in her upbringing. She's not really doing
the right thing. I mean, if they want to argue
the policy, go for it. I'm there all day and
so I was Karen. But it's the personalized attacks about
her race and background and her upbringing that really just

(01:29):
as unacceptable.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Is can anything. I mean, the public's one thing. You
can't do a lot about social media, but within the
parliament when that happens, is there anything I mean that's
bullying in the workplace, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well? It is. I mean I just acknowledge. With everything
going on, parliamentary drama is probably the last thing people
want to hear about, but our parliament functioning does ultimately matter,
and it's important just to put out there that it's
actually a sort of self governing community. I mean, technically
the police can't come onto parliament grounds and arrest and
emp so we rely on our speaker to uphold the

(02:03):
rules and uphold the standards. And really what's happening here
is actors increasingly frustrated when we take matters to the
speaker and sayeth you actually need to uphold some standards
because otherwise everything's just going to descend. We don't feel
we're getting the response, and that's why you're seeing some
tension there.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Okay, so the letter you wrote to Jerry brownling the
claim from Kappakinghi and Carter, with all due respect, people
will be very stressed about giving evidence on Simon double A,
where most obmitters will be Mariy. It would be better
if they had someone chearing who is Mariy or Pacifica,
as they won't recognize themselves in you. Carter says, yes,

(02:41):
it's better that Carmel as in Sepalone chairs as she
is relatable to submit. It is that I mean? Is that?
I mean that's racism, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, that's absolutely racism, and that is Laura's recollection that's
been corroborated by three national MP's who were there. Just
to be clear, the context was, there's a select committee,
a closed door meeting. They had to choose amongst themselves
somebody to chair a subcommittee to hear from members of
the public, and people said basically Laura Trusk, who as

(03:14):
a New Zealand European woman from christ Church wouldn't be
able to do the job because the submitters quote might
not see themselves in you. I just it is racism.
It wouldn't be allowed in any other workplace. I'm sure
people listening would know if that happened to their workplace.
People had hit the roof and all sorts of inquiries

(03:35):
and all sorts. As I say, parliament is a sort
of self governing community where we as MPs elect our
speakers who uphold the rules. We wrote to the speaker,
we said this is pretty serious, and the response we got,
which was copied back to the two people that we
complained about their behavior, basically said there is no issue.

(03:55):
I will take no further action. We subsequently wrote back
and here you must have speaker, we reflect your rule
because you know you've got to do all that, But
can you please just address the issue of the race,
because it goes to the heart of our democracy that
New Zealanders can elect someone to represent them and that
they cannot be easily intimidated a little and discriminated or

(04:15):
racially arrest And again, we haven't had much choey from that.
So we're becoming increasingly frustrated, and we know people don't
want to hear about all this parliamentary stuff, but we
actually do think it's important and that's why we've gone
public with it.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Where you might be in trouble. Here is the pin thing.
See I watched it play out yesterday, and you're a
person of principle, and I get that, and your principle's
right and the pen and I understand that, but once
you get down to pins and lapels, that's where people go.
You know what, surely we can do better than this,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, I totally accept that. I know people don't want
to see it, and the pin thing is a sideshow,
but I think the point it makes is that you've
got a speaker that actually prepared to stop people asking
and answering questions because he wants them to not wear
a pen, which, by the way, you know even Trueva
Mallard said you can wear five years ago and everyone
has for years. So he's quite happy to go to

(05:08):
the wall on that, but he's not addressing these deeper
issues around a member of Parliament being told that she
can't do a job because of their racial background. When
stuff like that comes up, that's just whatever. And as
a result, the standards are slipping and as a result,
people like Karen are very upset by the way the
tone of Parliament is changing, the abuse that's been thrown around,

(05:30):
and that ultimately is bad for all of us. That's
why we're taking the stand.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Good to talk to you appreciate it very much. David Simol,
the act leader. Then, for all of you have said
can they wear Palestinian scalps? Once again, I reiterate Brownly's thinking.
A Palestinian scarf is not party paraphernalia. It doesn't represent
a party. It's not green, it's not labor, it's not national.
It's the party paraphernalia you can't wear. It's the same
way if you have more a Gucci T shirt that

(05:55):
you wouldn't be better because it's not party paraphernalia. For
more from the Mic Hosking Breakfast, listen live to News
Talks at b from six am weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.