Thousands protesting New Zealand’s Indigenous bill set to march to parliament

Political turmoil erupts in New Zealand as thousands protest a bill redefining the founding treaty between the Crown and Māori.

A proposed law that would redefine New Zealand’s founding treaty between the British Crown and Māori chiefs has triggered political turmoil and prompted more than 35,000 people to show up in protest at the country's Parliament on Tuesday (November 19, 2024).

The bill is never expected to become law. But it has become a flashpoint on race relations and a critical moment in the fraught 180-year-old conversation about how New Zealand should honor its promises to Indigenous people when the country was colonized -– and what those promises are.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital, Wellington, on Tuesday morning for the final stretch of a weeklong protest that has spanned the length of the country — a march through the city streets to Parliament. It follows a Māori tradition of hīkoi, or walking, to bring attention to breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi — and is likely to be the largest treaty rights demonstration in the history of modern New Zealand.

Considered New Zealand’s founding document, the treaty was signed between representatives of the British Crown and 500 Māori chiefs during colonization. It laid out principles guiding the relationship between the Crown and Māori, in two versions -– one in English and the other in Māori.

It promised Māori the rights and privileges of British citizens, but the English and Māori versions differed on what power the chiefs were ceding over their affairs, lands and autonomy.

Over decades, the Crown breached both versions. By the mid-20th century, Māori language and culture had dwindled -– Indigenous people were often barred from practicing it -- tribal land was confiscated and Māori were disadvantaged in many metrics.

Prompted by a surging Māori protest movement, for the past 50 years the courts of New Zealand, lawmakers and the Waitangi Tribunal -– a permanent body set up to adjudicate treaty matters -– have navigated the differences in the treaty’s versions and tried to redress breaches by constructing the meaning of the treaty's principles in their decisions.