WELLINGTON: New Zealand parliamentarian Chloe Swarbrick was ordered to leave parliament on Tuesday during a heated debate over the government\u2019s response to Palestine.<\/p>\n
An urgent debate was called after the center-right government said on Monday it was weighing up its position on whether to recognize a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n
Close ally Australia on Monday joined Canada, the UK and France in announcing it would recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference in September.<\/p>\n
Swarbrick, who is co-leader of the Green Party, said New Zealand was a \u201claggard\u201d and an \u201coutlier\u201d and the lack of decision was appalling before calling on some government members to support a bill to \u201csanction Israel for its war crimes.\u201d The bill was proposed by her party in March and is supported by all opposition parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we find six of 68 Government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history,\u201d said Swarbrick.<\/p>\n
Speaker Gerry Brownlee said that statement was \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d and she had to withdraw it and apologize. When she refused, Swarbrick was ordered to leave parliament.<\/p>\n
Brownlee later clarified Swarbrick could return on Wednesday but if she still refused to apologize she would again be removed from parliament.<\/p>\n
New Zealand has said it will make a decision in September about whether it would recognize Palestine as a state.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Winston Peters told parliament that over the next month the government would gather information and talk to partners, which would inform cabinet\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be weighing this decision carefully rather than rushing to judgment,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n
Along with the Green Party, opposition parties Labour and Te Pati Maori support recognition of a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n
Labour parliamentarian Peeni Henare said New Zealand had a history of standing strong on its principles and values and in this case \u201cwas being left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WELLINGTON: New Zealand parliamentarian Chloe Swarbrick was ordered to leave parliament on Tuesday during a heated debate over the government\u2019s response to Palestine. An urgent debate was called after the center-right government said on Monday it was weighing up its position on whether to recognize a Palestinian state. Close ally Australia on Monday joined Canada, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":85308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85309,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85307\/revisions\/85309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}