New Zealand’s founding treaty is at a flashpoint. Why are thousands protesting for Māori rights?

Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Police say tens of thousands of people have arrived at New Zealand’s Parliament in protest of a proposed law that would redefine the country’s founding agreement between Indigenous Māori and the British Crown. Under the principles laid out in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guide the relationship between the government and Māori, tribes were promised broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British. The bill would set concrete definitions for the treaty’s principles and specify that those rights should apply to all New Zealanders. Detractors say it would drastically reverse Indigenous rights.