House Speaker Trevor Mallard twice prevented Rawiri Waititi from asking questions in the debate chamber on Tuesday, insisting that parliamentarians could only ask questions if they were wearing a tie.
Waititi, 40, who became a parliamentarian for the first time in the election last October, wore a Maori green stone pendant, Taonga.
When Waititi continued with his question after being interrupted a second time, Mallard ordered him to leave.
“It’s not about ties, it’s about cultural identity, man,” said Waititi as he left the room.
Spokesman Mallard said that although the links were out of date in his opinion, an overwhelming majority of members asked that the rule be maintained in consultations on the issue in recent months.
The incident started a debate about colonialism in New Zealand and generated outrage around the world, with # no2tie soon becoming a trend on Twitter.
Speaking to Reuters on Wednesday, Waititi said he was not surprised by the treatment given to the speaker, as the Maori have faced this type of treatment for hundreds of years.
“Māori have not been treated the same way in their own country and indigenous peoples around the world have been subject to discrimination because of the racist systems that keep our people in second place,” he said.
“For us to stand up against subjugation, to stand up against assimilation, to stand up against those who try to make us look, feel, make us think as they want us to think … that was standing up against that.”
Waititi wore the same suit to go to parliament on Wednesday and this time he was allowed to speak.
“The knot was removed from our necks and now we can sing our songs,” said Waititi in the interview.
It has 11% LGBTQI representation and 21% Māori representation. Parliament saw its first MP of African and Sri Lankan origin after last October’s elections.
But Waititi, who called the ties “a colonial tie”, said there was still systemic racism in New Zealand and that was the product of colonization.
Māori are overrepresented in prisons, the majority of children in state care are Māori and poverty and unemployment abound in the community.
Asked to comment, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was not something she had a strong opinion of and that she had no objections to anyone wearing a tie in parliament or not.
“There are much more important issues for all of us,” said Ardern.