Alice Calcraft
On Tuesday 19 November, more than 40,000 people gathered in protest outside New Zealand’s Parliament in the country’s capital city of Wellington. This protest intended to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill, which effectively proposes to remove the rights of all Maori people in New Zealand by reinterpreting the country’s founding document of the Treaty of Waitangi. This Treaty signed over 180 years ago between more than 500 Maori Chiefs and governors in the country, is instrumental to upholding Maori rights, and it guides legislation protecting Maori people in New Zealand today.
The ‘hakoi m? te Tariti’, which translates into English as ‘march for the treaty’, began on Monday 11 November in Northern New Zealand in Cape Reinga, winding to its final point of the protest in the New Zealand capital of Wellington just over a week later on 19 November.
Carrying placards and chanting the haka, the peaceful protest outside of Parliament was one of the largest in the history of the country, with many participants adorned in the red, white and black colours of the Maori flag and immense joy and unity rippling through the crowds. Previously, hikois have numbered 5000 people in 1975 with a protest for Maori land rights, and roughly 15,000 in a rally for shore and sea ownership rights in 2004.
We won’t be supporting the bill beyond second reading and therefore it won’t become law’.
With Maori and non-Maori alike protesting outside the Parliament, they presented a petition with over 200,000 signatures opposing the Treaty Principles Bill. Inside, the MPs debated the Bill, where Prime Minister Christopher Luxon stated that ‘Our position as the National Party is unchanged. We won’t be supporting the bill beyond second reading and therefore it won’t become law’.
This statement came in the wake of the Bill passing its first reading in the New Zealand Parliament on Thursday 14 November despite immense disapproval. Opposition to the Bill was led by Maori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP ever in the New Zealand Parliament. She was videoed ripping up papers containing the Bill and leading a haka in which many MPs and public viewers from the gallery above joined in to chant their opposition to the decision of Parliament: a video which since has cascaded across the Internet, with social media users from around the world celebrating Maipi-Clarke and more widely their support for the Maori culture.
Over the past 50 years, the government has made efforts to guide the relationship with the Maori people: developing the interpretations of the Treaty in line with translations of language but also recognising the Maori language as an official language in New Zealand and striving to improve health conditions of the population which makes up 20% of the 5.3 million population in the nation yet has a 7 year lower life expectancy than non-Maori people.
Maori culture in New Zealand has existed since the 14th century. Travelling from Polynesia to the North island of the country known today as New Zealand, the tribes arrived on canoes on the island. Named ‘tangata whenua’, translating to ‘people of the land’, the tribe settled first on the coast, hunting sea creatures for food and later settling in forests. However, when the Europeans began to arrive in the 18th century, Christianity began to dominate society, and the Maori culture began to be threatened, with numbers dropping to around 42,000 in the 1890s.
Today, this has amounted to over 1 million New Zealanders identifying as Maori and proudly proclaiming their ancestry to society. which is evident by the widespread support in the recent protests. This suggests that, whilst conservative politicians may attempt to restrict the rights of the Maori people, they will always remain loyal to their heritage and ancestry and fight for their freedom.
Alice Calcraft
Featured image courtesy of Kerin Gedge via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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