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Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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Mass rally opposes proposed New Zealand treaty reform

by Phil Mercer

SYDNEY --

A nine-day march to protest race relations laws in New Zealand ended
Tuesday with a rally of more than 40,000 perople [sic] in the capital,
Wellington.

Introduced last week by New Zealand's center-right government, the
Treaty Principles Bill, would enshrine a narrower legal interpretation
of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

The right-leaning government says a bill - or a proposed law reform -
would allow political and constitutional questions raised by the Treaty
of Waitangi to be decided by lawmakers instead of the courts.

However, some insist the measure would damage the rights of Indigenous
Maori.

Emmy Rakete is a lecturer at the University of Auckland's School of
Human Sciences. She told Radio New Zealand's Morning Report program
that there is great anger at the proposals.

"This is, kind of, the live wire underneath this country - the
fundamental contradiction between dispossessor and dispossessed and
colonizer and colonized, which has, kind of, been ignited again," she
said. "People are here in huge numbers. It is really beautiful to see,
actually."

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed by the British monarchy and more than
500 Maori chiefs, and it laid down how the two parties agreed to govern
New Zealand.

The controversy over the Treaty Principles Bill is how the document is
interpreted.

David Seymour, the leader of the libertarian ACT Party, a junior
partner in the governing coalition, introduced the reform to Parliament
last week.

He believes the treaty discriminates against non-Indigenous citizens.
Seymour told lawmakers its guiding principles need to be clarified.

"There was one big problem," he said. "Nowhere in the Treaty of
Waitangi Act and at no time since, has this Parliament said what those
principles actually are. The democratically-elected body of this
Parliament has been silent."

New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has described the bill
as "divisive" - despite being part of the governing coalition alongside
David Seymour's minor political party.

New Zealand is a Pacific nation of just over 5 million people.
Indigenous Maori make up about 20% of the population, but suffer high
rates of imprisonment and ill-health.

#new-zealand #māori #maori #treaty-of-waitangi #protest #wellington #indigenous-people #colonialism #british-empire #1840

See also [gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/feeds/democracynow/2024/Nov/19/8](gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/feeds/democracynow/2024/Nov/19/8)
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi