Wellington: New Zealand lawmakers dealt an overwhelming defeat Thursday to a controversial proposed law seeking to redefine the country’s founding treaty between Maori tribes and the British Crown.
The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi bill was rejected by Parliament in a 112 to 11 vote in Wellington, halting its progress to a third and final vote. Cheers and applause erupted before lawmakers and the public sang a waiata — a traditional Maori song — after the result was announced.
The sweeping reinterpretation of the 1840 treaty signed by British representatives and 500 Maori chiefs during New Zealand’s colonisation was never expected to become law. But the measures provoked a fraught debate about Indigenous rights and last November prompted the biggest race relations protest in the country’s history.
But its defeat did not spell the end for scrutiny of Maori rights. Parliamentary opposition leader Chris Hipkins lambasted the Bill as “a stain on this country” and accused its supporters of spreading “the myth of Maori special privilege.”
The Treaty of Waitangi “is not about racial privilege or racial superiority,” said opposition lawmaker Willie Jackson. “It is and always has been about legal rights Maori have in their contract with the Crown.”
Parliament received 300,000 written submissions from members of the public — more than a proposed law had ever received before — 90% of them opposed to the measures.