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November 19, 2024 | 10:29 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Around 35,000 people gathered to protest or hkoi (in Maori language) outside the Parliament building New Zealand on Tuesday, November 19, 2024. This was done while the parliament members inside the building were discussing the Principles of the Treaty Bill that is seen to reduce Maori rights.
Some protesters even traveled about 1,000 kilometers over the past nine days, from the northern tip of the country to the capital Wellington.
Among the parliament members present, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was seen stating that today is a "significant day". He also reiterated his stance that the bill will not be passed into law.
"Our position as the National Party remains unchanged. We will not support this bill after the second reading and therefore it will not become law," he said, as reported by New Zealand Herald.
Luxon described the bill as something "straightforward", the newspaper added. "We don't think with a pen, you'd rewrite debate and discussion over 184 years."
Meanwhile, the leader of the Libertarian Act Party, David Seymour, who reportedly came out to see the hkoi, was jeered when he returned to the Parliament building. His actions sparked fiery shouts of "stop the bill" among the protesters, according to Herald.
The proposed bill by the Libertarian Act Party contains changes in the interpretation of New Zealand's treaty law between the Maori tribes and the British Crown.
The controversial rules are deemed to potentially threaten Maori rights in New Zealand by removing key principles outlined in the Waitangi Treaty - a treaty signed 184 years ago between more than 500 Maori chiefs and the British.
For a country with a population of over 5 million people, this is a major protest - and one of the most significant in history.
As this group enters the final stage of their journey, they are compared to the famous 1975 Mori land rights march, attended by 5,000 people and seen as a nation-defining moment.
However, the ongoing protest is seven times larger, at least twice the size of another major protest in 2004, which demonstrated to demand coastal and marine ownership rights.
This also dwarfs the protests against the New Zealand government's handling of Covid-19 - where the largest protest involved several thousand people - and rivals the tens of thousands who protested at the parliament during the school strike for climate change in 2019.
However, the largest protest in New Zealand's history was the visit of the South African rugby team to the country in 1981, when the nation faced global pressure over apartheid. At that time, over 150,000 people participated in over 200 demonstrations during 56 days.
REUTERS | NEW ZEALAND HERALD
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