Minority Rights

The 42,000 Maori march: New Zealand's largest protest in history

Protesters criss-crossed the country to defend the Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840 by the British Crown and 500 captains

by Enrico Marro

20 November 2024

I Maori camminano per le strade di Wellington, in Nuova Zelanda. (AP Photo/Mark Tantrum)

2' min read

Key points

The Treaty of Waitangi
The proposed amendment
A haka against Seymour

2' min read

It was one of the largest protests in the history of New Zealand, the largest in defence of the Maori people. The hīkoi (march) that started in Cape Reinga, in the north of the country, after thousand kilometres and nine days landed with no less than 42 thousand people in front of the Parliament in the capital Wellington.

The aim of this historic 'hīkoi mō te Tīriti' (march for rights) is the cancellation of the controversial bill that would extend the Treaty of Waitangi, concluded in 1840 between the British Crown and the chiefs of some five hundred Maori tribes, to all New Zealanders.

Migliaia di persone si radunano davanti al parlamento neozelandese per protestare contro una proposta di legge. (AP Photo/Mark Tantrum)

The Treaty of Waitangi

The ancient document, at the time written in English and in the Maori language with some discrepancies in the drafting that have given rise to problems of interpretation, is the fundamental text regulating relations between the British colonisers and the locals: in exchange for the appointment of a British Governor, it provided the right for the Maoris to keep land and property, acquiring the same rights as the subjects of the Crown.

It actually represents the basis of the body of law that corrects the injustices committed by the colonisers, for example with the confiscation of land (later returned), and that grants the Maori people margins of autonomy and compensation for past discrimination.

The proposed amendment

The bill that aims to revise the Treaty of Waitangi was introduced by David Seymour, leader of the right-wing ACT party that is part of the conservative-populist coalition government along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's National Party and New Zealand First.

Convinced that the ancient agreement favoured the Maori community too much by creating imbalances with the rest of the New Zealand population, Seymour wants with his bill to extend the rights of the Treaty of Waitangi to all, effectively depriving the Maoris of the protections guaranteed by the document.

A haka against Seymour

The bill passed an initial parliamentary vote amidst protests from Maoris, with 22-year-old Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke leading the dissent in the House with a haka (the famous traditional dance) that ended up all over social media. The chances are slim that the proposed amendment will be finally passed in the next two rounds of the parliamentary vote. With their 'hīkoi mō te Tīriti', probably, the Maoris have won.