New Zealand politicians broke out in song Thursday after striking down a right-wing-backed proposal that opponents feared would erode indigenous rights. <\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of people \u2013 predominantly from the M\u0101ori community \u2013 had already taken to the streets to oppose the bill, which sought to redefine the terms of a treaty that British colonialists signed with the indigenous group more than 180 years ago. <\/p>\n
The proposal made global headlines when a video went viral of the nation\u2019s youngest legislator tearing the bill in two and leading a haka \u2013 a ceremonial M\u0101ori dance \u2013 in parliament. <\/p>\n
As the bill was voted down by 112 votes to 11 on Thursday, after an occasionally heated session, politicians from both sides of the house sang a M\u0101ori song, or Waiata, in celebration, marking the end of a bitter public debate. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis bill hasn\u2019t been stopped, this bill has been absolutely annihilated,\u201d said Hana-R\u0101wihti Maipi-Clarke, the MP who led the parliamentary haka during the earlier debate. <\/p>\n
The Treaty Principles Bill sought to define the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi \u2013 an agreement signed between the British Crown and a group of indigenous M\u0101ori leaders in the 1840s, which formalized New Zealand as a British colony and reserved M\u0101ori land and customary rights. <\/p>\n
Its proponent, David Seymour, argued parliament needed to define the principles of the treaty because definitions currently only existed in a series of court rulings made over decades \u2013 rather than in an act of parliament. <\/p>\n
His ACT Party \u2013 a minority party in the right-wing governing coalition \u2013 believes the current law has led to a society where M\u0101ori have been afforded different rights and privileges to non-M\u0101ori in New Zealand. <\/p>\n
Opponents said the courts had already settled the principles of the treaty and that the draft list Seymour put forward would erode indigenous rights and harm social cohesion. <\/p>\n
Speaking in parliament on Thursday, Labour MP Willie Jackson called the bill \u201cright-wing obscenity, masquerading as equality.\u201d <\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s leader Chris Hipkins, the former prime minister, said the debate would be a \u201cstain on the country\u201d and called the proposed law change a \u201cgrubby little bill, born of a grubby little deal.\u201d <\/p>\n
The bill was allowed to pass through to the select committee stage because the ACT Party had made it a condition of the coalition deal that helped put Prime Minister Christopher Luxon\u2019s ruling National Party into power. <\/p>\n
But the Nationals and the other party in the coalition, New Zealand First, never agreed to support the bill beyond the select committee stage. Luxon had tried to publicly distance himself and his party from it. <\/p>\n
Despite the overwhelming opposition, Seymour has vowed to \u201cnever give up\u201d on his efforts to change the law. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that your race matters is a version of a bigger problem, it\u2019s part of that bigger idea that our lives are determined by things out of our control,\u201d he said in parliament on Thursday. <\/p>\n