Maintaining outdated convention senseless

IT was ridiculous, and racist.

Maori Party coleader Rawiri Waititi was expelled from a sitting of the House of Representatives because, despite Speaker Trevor Mallard saying, at the start of that day’s sitting, that he wouldn’t be allowed to speak in the House unless he was wearing a tie, he persisted in attempting to do so.

Mr Mallard allowed him, in response to that statement, to raise a point of order, asserting that the hei tiki he wore meant he was wearing ‘‘Maori business attire’’. But when he rose later, during Question Time, to ask a supplementary question of the Corrections Minister, Mr Mallard refused to let him speak, and when he rose to put a further point of order, ordered him to leave the House.

The rule about dress of an MP in the House is printed in Chapter 3, Section 7, of Speaker’s Rulings 2020: ‘‘The Speaker will take issue with any member who is not dressed in appropriate business attire, whether the member is male or female.’’

That rule, at first glance pretty flexible, has been interpreted as meaning that men must wear a tie, though, apparently, there’s agreement that dress appropriate to an MP’s culture is acceptable — presumably if a male ethnicIndian MP wore in the House a socalled Nehru jacket (as worn by the Prime Minister of India when meeting the President of Brazil in 2011), the collar of which leaves no room for a tie, or a female ethnicIndian MP a sari, that would be acceptable to the Speaker.

Last year, Green Party coleader James Shaw asked the Speaker to change the ‘‘tie interpretation’’, so Mr Mallard ‘‘consulted’’ MPs during the summer recess, found a majority didn’t want a change, and decided (despite personally disliking ties) to retain that requirement.

What he didn’t point out was that the National Party had submitted a partywide objection to change (Judith Collins says that she ‘‘liked ties’’), effectively making it a partypolitical matter.

Was that to slap down the Greens? Mr Waititi, and at least one Green MP, didn’t make a submission about ties — perhaps, like the Prime Minister, they thought New Zealanders were keen for their politicians to focus on real issues, not Parliamentary attire. Or perhaps they took the wording of the published Speaker’s ruling literally.

Fifty years ago, businessmen working in offices usually wore suits and ties (though businessmen working in farming, plumbing, drainlaying, building and other handson trades generally didn’t). Civis’ GP wore a threepiece suit, unless it was very hot, when the jacket might be hung behind the door. Suits are still worn by many businessmen, but often with openneck shirts, and most GPs dress more casually now.

If an MP is wearing what is now appropriate attire for businessmen, why isn’t it appropriate in the House?

Wearing a tie is a Pakeha convention. Why should it be forced on representatives of the Crown’s Te Tiriti partner? Rawiri Waititi was right: ‘‘It’s not about ties, it’s about cultural identity’’. Insisting on Pakeha conformity for Maori (or others) is racist.

And, as Prof Jarrod Haar has pointed out, it’s when people who’re different from the majority feel comfortable and safe to be themselves at work, in all their differences, that diversity becomes inclusion, with functional advantages for the whole.

Thankfully, the Speaker was more relaxed on Wednesday, and the Standing Orders Committee has seen sense.

Many rituals and principles of the New Zealand House of Representatives derive from the British House of Commons.

Some are justified: the ban on the Monarch or GovernorGeneral entering the House, following Charles I’s 1642 attempt to arrest members of the House of Commons, underlines its sovereignty in a constitutional monarchy. But this one was pointless.

In 2017, the House of Commons abolished its convention (not rule) that male MPs must wear ties in the House.

Now, thankfully, the ‘‘colonial noose’’ has finally been removed from New Zealand MPs’ necks.