Racial tensions erupted on the floor of the New Zealand parliament on Thursday as enraged indigenous MPs staged a haka over a highly controversial bill that threatens to radically reduce Maori influence. A vote on the bill was momentarily called off when opposition parties and people in the public gallery joined in the war dance, led by the Maori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, 22, who then ripped up a copy of the bill. Willie Jackson, the Labour MP and Maori leader, was ejected from the chamber after he denounced the bill’s architect, David Seymour, as a liar. The haka’s disruption prompted the speaker, Gerry Brownlee, to suspend parliament for nearly half an hour. When the House returned, he said Maipi-Clarke’s behaviour was grossly disorderly, appallingly disrespectful and premeditated. She was suspended for 24 hours. Seymour, who will become deputy prime minister next year as part of a governing coalition agreement, contends Maori people enjoy privileges not accorded to other New Zealanders under the nation’s founding document, the 184-year-old Treaty of Waitangi. signed by Maori chiefs and their British colonisers. Read the best of our journalism: https://www.thetimes.com/ Subscribe to The Times and The Sunday Times YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=timesonlinevideo Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/timesandsundaytimes/ Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thetimes Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetimes/ #newzealand #haka #protest