A New Zealand Green Party MP has been forced to back down from a claim that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had told a “demonstrable lie” to parliament when he said that the Coalition government was “not weakening our actions on climate change, we’re just going about it a different way.”
Calling an MP a liar in parliament is against Standing Orders—the rules that govern MPs’ behaviour—and a refusal to “withdraw and apologise” could have seen the third-term MP Chloe Swarbrick referred to the Privileges Committee.
Ms. Swarbrick is widely seen as one of the Green’s better-performing MPs and a potential future leader by many.
She is only the second Green MP to win an electorate seat, and was the first to do it without needing a deal with the Labour Party. The seat she won, Auckland Central, was one that popular former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern twice failed to take.
At 28, she is no longer the youngest MP in the House—that title was taken this election by fellow Green Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke who, at 21 years old, became the youngest MP in 170 years to enter New Zealand’s parliament.
Warned of the Consequences
ACT leader David Seymour raised a point of order with Speaker Gerry Brownlee over Ms. Swarbrick’s accusation, and while Mr. Brownlee said he had not heard the statement, he suggested she “consider withdrawing and apologising.” Ms. Swarbrick, however, initially refused to do so.
Mr. Brownlee referred to Standing Orders, which are built on the rulings of previous speakers, and which have long held that “saying a member is lying is always out of order, so if that is what the member said and doesn’t want to withdraw it, then that does have other consequences.”
Ms. Swarbrick replied, “I was speaking to the content of the policies as put forward by this government and the fact that the content of those policies are a lie. If the inference is that therefore the minister or the prime minister are a liar, that wasn’t the statement that I was making.”
The Speaker then said the House would move on, noting Ms. Swarbrick’s position “is an opinion [and] others will make a judgement on whatever the Hansard record might eventually show.”
Later, Ms. Swarbrick appeared to accept that she may face disciplinary action over her statement, saying “We have a responsibility as parliamentarians to tell the truth, and I'll work through any of the consequences that come through in the House as is necessary to keep the focus on the climate crisis.”
However, a week later she made a personal explanation to parliament.
“I made comments intended to challenge the content of the prime minister’s answer to oral question number one, I can understand how this statement could be interpreted to be a personal reflection against the prime minister,” she said.
“It was not my intention to make a personal reflection on the prime minister in this House, and to that effect I apologise to this House. I recognise that that should have happened at the time.”
