Larry Williams Drive

It sounds like Gerry Brownlee thinks that the Māori Party punishment is too harsh. He started Parliament today with the Speaker's ruling and he dropped some pretty strong hints that he thinks that 21 days without pay for Debbie and Rawiri over that haka is too much. He called the punishment very 'severe' and unprecedented because up til now, the harshest punishment has been 3 days, not 21 days. He pointed out that the punishment was only carried by a narrow majority on the Privileges Committee - and that going through with the punishment as it stands will deprive the Māori Party of their ability to vote in the House for several sitting days, and that Parliament does not have to go through with it. He told them that - he said, you don't have to go through with it, Parliament can change the punishment. Now, I can't say I agree with them on this for one simple reason, and that is deterrence. Whatever the punishment is going to end up being, it has to be harsh enough to stop the Māori Party doing this again - or