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Why are New Zealand’s Maori protesting over colonial-era treaty bill?
A fight for Maori rights drew 42,000 protesters to the New Zealand Parliament in the capital Wellington on Tuesday.
A nine-day-long hikoi, or peaceful march – a tradition of the Maori – was undertaken in protest against a bill that seeks to reinterpret the country’s 184-year-old founding Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed between British colonisers and the Indigenous Maori people.
Some had also been peacefully demonstrating outside the Parliament building for nine days before the protest concluded on Tuesday.
On November 14, the controversial Treaty Principles Bill was introduced in Parliament for a preliminary vote. Maori parliamentarians staged a haka (a Maori ceremonial dance) to disrupt the vote, temporarily halting parliamentary proceedings.
So, what was the Treaty of Waitangi, what are the proposals for altering it, and why has it become a flashpoint for protests in New Zealand?
Who are the Maori?
The Maori people are the original residents of the two large islands now known as New Zealand, having lived there for several centuries.
The Maori came to the uninhabited islands of New Zealand from East Polynesia on canoe voyages in the 1300s. Over hundreds of years of isolation, they developed their own distinct culture and language. Maori people speak te reo Maori and have different tribes, or iwi, spread throughout the country.
The two islands were originally called Aotearoa by the Maori. The name New Zealand was given to Aotearoa by British colonisers who took control under the treaty in 1840.
New Zealand became independent from the United Kingdom in 1947. However, this was after Maori people had suffered mass killings, land grabs and cultural erasure over more than 100 years at the hands of colonial settlers.
There are currently 978,246 Maori in New Zealand, constituting around 19 percent of the country’s population of 5.3 million. They are represented by Te Pati Maori, or the Maori Party, which currently holds six of the 123 seats in Parliament.
What was the Treaty of Waitangi?
On February 6, 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi, also called Te Tiriti o Waitangi or just Te Tiriti, was signed between the British Crown and around 500 Maori chiefs, or rangatira. The treaty was the founding document of New Zealand and officially made New Zealand a British colony.
While the treaty was presented as a measure to resolve differences between the Maori and the British, the English and te reo versions of the treaty actually feature some stark differences.
The te reo Maori version guarantees “rangatiratanga” to the Maori chiefs. This translates to “self-determination” and guarantees the Maori people the right to govern themselves.
However, the English translation says that the Maori chiefs “cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty”, making no mention of self-rule for the Maori.
The English translation does guarantee the Maori “full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries”.
“The English draft talks about the British settlers having full authority and control over Maori in the whole country,” Kassie Hartendorp, a Maori community organiser and director at community campaigning organisation ActionStation Aotearoa, told Al Jazeera.
Hartendorp explained that the te reo version includes the term “kawanatanga”, which in historical and linguistic context “gives British settlers the opportunity to set up their own government structure to govern their own people but they would not limit the sovereignty of Indigenous people”.
“We never ceded sovereignty, we never handed it over. We gave a generous invitation to new settlers to create their own government because they were unruly and lawless at the time,” said Hartendorp.
In the decades after 1840, however, 90 percent of Maori land was taken by the British Crown. Both versions of the treaty have been repeatedly breached and Maori people have continued to suffer injustice in New Zealand even after independence.
In 1975, the Waitangi Tribunal was established as a permanent body to adjudicate treaty matters. The tribunal attempts to remedy treaty breaches and navigate differences between the treaty’s two texts.
Over time, billions of dollars have been negotiated in settlements over breaches of the treaty, particularly relating to the widespread seizure of Maori land.
However, other injustices have also occurred. Between 1950 and 2019, about 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were subjected to physical and sexual abuse in state and church care, and a commission found Maori children were more vulnerable to the abuse than others.
On November 12 this year, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon issued an apology to these victims, but it was criticised by Maori survivors for being inadequate. One criticism was that the apology did not take the treaty into account. While the treaty’s principles are not set in stone and are flexible, it is a significant historical document that upholds Maori rights.
What does the Treaty Principles Bill propose?
The Treaty Principles Bill was introduced by Member of Parliament David Seymour of the libertarian ACT Party, a minor partner in New Zealand’s coalition government. Seymour himself is Maori. The party launched a public information campaign about the bill on February 7 this year.
The ACT Party asserts that the treaty has been misinterpreted over the decades and that this has led to the formation of a dual system for New Zealanders, where Maori and white New Zealanders have different political and legal rights. Seymour says that misinterpretations of the treaty’s meaning have effectively given Maori people special treatment. The bill calls for an end to “division by race”.
Seymour said that the principle of “ethnic quotas in public institutions”, for example, is contrary to the principle of equality.
The bill seeks to set specific definitions of the treaty’s principles, which are currently flexible and open to interpretation. These principles would then apply to all New Zealanders equally, whether they are Maori or not.
According to Together for Te Tiriti, an initiative led by ActionStation Aotearoa, the bill will allow the New Zealand government to govern all New Zealanders and consider all New Zealanders equal under the law. Activists say this will effectively disadvantage the Maori people because they have been historically oppressed.
Many, including the Waitangi Tribunal, say this will lead to the erosion of Maori rights. A statement by ActionStation Aotearoa says that the bill’s principles “do not at all reflect the meaning” of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Why is the bill so controversial?
The bill is strongly opposed by political parties in New Zealand on both the left and the right, and Maori people have criticised it on the basis that it undermines the treaty and its interpretation.
Gideon Porter, a Maori journalist from New Zealand, told Al Jazeera that most Maori, as well as historians and legal experts, agree that the bill is an “attempt to redefine decades of exhaustive research and negotiated understandings of what constitute ‘principles’ of the treaty”.
Porter added that those critical of the bill believe “the ACT Party within this coalition government is taking upon itself to try and engineer things so that Parliament gets to act as judge, jury and executioner”.
In the eyes of most Maori, he said, the ACT Party is “simply hiding its racism behind a facade of ‘we are all New Zealanders with equal rights’ mantra”.
The Waitangi Tribunal released a report on August 16 saying that it found the bill “breached the Treaty principles of partnership and reciprocity, active protection, good government, equity, redress, and the … guarantee of rangatiratanga”.
Another report by the tribunal seen by The Guardian newspaper said: “If this bill were to be enacted, it would be the worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty … in modern times.”
What process must the bill go through now?
For a bill to become law in New Zealand, it must go through three rounds in Parliament: first when it is introduced, then when MPs suggest amendments and finally, when they vote on the amended bill. Since the total number of MPs is 123, at least 62 votes are needed for a bill to pass, David MacDonald, a political science professor at the University of Guelph in Canada, told Al Jazeera.
Besides the six Maori Party seats, the New Zealand Parliament includes 34 seats held by the New Zealand Labour Party; 14 seats held by the Green Party of Aotearoa; 49 seats held by the National Party; 11 seats held by the ACT Party; and eight seats held by the New Zealand First Party.
“The National Party leaders including the PM and other cabinet ministers and the leaders of the other coalition party [New Zealand] First have all said they won’t support the bill beyond the committee stage. It is highly unlikely that the bill will receive support from any party other than ACT,” MacDonald said.
When the bill was heard for its first round in Parliament this week, Maori party lawmaker Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke tore up her copy of the legislation and led the haka ceremonial dance.
Is the bill likely to pass?
The chances of the bill becoming law are “zero”, Porter said.
He said the ACT’s coalition partners have “adamantly promised” to vote down the bill in the next stage. Additionally, all the opposition parties will also vote against it.
“They only agreed to allow it to go this far as part of their ‘coalition agreement’ so they could govern,” Porter said.
New Zealand’s current coalition government was formed in November 2023 after an election that took place a month before. It comprises the National Party, ACT and New Zealand First.
While right-wing parties have not given a specific reason why they will oppose the bill, Hartendorp said New Zealand First and the New Zealand National Party would likely vote in line with public opinion, which largely opposes it.
Why are people protesting if the bill is doomed to fail?
The protests are not against the bill alone.
“This latest march is a protest against many coalition government anti-Maori initiatives,” Porter said.
Many believe that the conservative coalition government, which took office in November 2023, has taken measures to remove “race-based politics”. The Maori people are not happy with this and believe that it will undermine their rights.
These measures include removing a law that gave the Maori a say in environmental matters. The government also abolished the Maori Health Authority in February this year.
Despite the bill being highly likely to fail, many believe that just by allowing the bill to be tabled in Parliament, the coalition government has ignited dangerous social division.
For example, former conservative Prime Minister Jenny Shipley has said that just putting forth the bill is sowing division in New Zealand.
new video loaded: How Venezuelans Worldwide Reacted to Overthrow of Maduro
By McKinnon de Kuyper
January 4, 2026
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President Donald Trump late Sunday predicted Cuba was “ready to fall” after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, warning that Havana can no longer rely on Caracas for security and oil.
Trump said Cuba’s fate is now directly tied to Maduro’s ouster and the collapse of Venezuela’s ability to bankroll allies in the region.
Asked if he was considering U.S. action in Cuba, Trump replied: “I think it’s just going to fall. I don’t think we need any action. Looks like it’s going down. It’s going down for the count.”
The president’s comments during a press gaggle with reporters aboard Air Force One come after Saturday’s capture of Maduro and his wife on charges tied to a narco-terrorism conspiracy. The audacious operation has sent shockwaves through allied governments in the region, with Cuban officials calling for rallies in support of Venezuela and accusing the U.S. of violating sovereignty.
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President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, as returning to Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
U.S. officials say Cuban security forces played a central role in keeping Maduro in power. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Cuban operatives effectively ran Venezuela’s internal intelligence and security operations – including personally guarding Maduro and monitoring loyalty inside his government.
Protestors rally outside the White House, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Washington, after the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a military operation. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.”
Cuba’s government acknowledged Sunday that 32 Cuban military and police officers were killed during the American operation in Venezuela, marking the first official death toll released by Havana. Cuban state media said the officers had been deployed at the request of Caracas and announced two days of national mourning.
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Trump confirmed Cuban casualties while traveling back to Washington.
“A lot of Cubans were killed yesterday,” he said. “There was a lot of death on the other side. No death on our side.”
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores face ‘worst case scenario’ in U.S. custody, according to expert, with federal indictments on drug and weapons charges. ( Juan BARRETO / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump also took aim at neighboring Colombia, accusing its leadership of fueling drug trafficking into the U.S.
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“Colombia is very sick, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” Trump said, adding that the country, “is not going to be doing it for a very long time.”
President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro speaks during a military ceremony commemorating the 200th anniversary of the presentation of the ‘Sword of Peru’ to Venezuelan independence hero Simón Bolívar on November 25, 2025, in Caracas, Venezuela. (Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)
He suggested the U.S. was prepared to act against narco-trafficking networks operating by land and sea, citing recent interdictions.
Trump also revived his long-standing focus on Greenland, arguing the Arctic territory is critical to U.S. security amid growing Russian and Chinese activity.
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“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” Trump said. “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”
Trump has framed Saturday’s operation as part of a broader effort to reassert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, invoking the Monroe Doctrine and warning that hostile regimes can no longer rely on one another for survival.
Maduro is set to be arraigned in federal court in New York on Monday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Washington, DC – Hours after the United States announced the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Israeli politician Yair Lapid issued a warning to Tehran: “The regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela.”
The forcible removal of Maduro from power came less than a week after US President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and threatened to launch new strikes against Iran.
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Although Washington’s tensions with Caracas and Tehran have different roots and dynamics, analysts say Trump’s move against Maduro raises the prospects of war with Iran.
“A new lawlessness makes everything less stable and war more likely,” said Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).
“Whether Trump becomes enamoured with ‘surgical’ regime change, or gives Netanyahu a US imprimatur for similar actions, it’s hard not to see how this gives momentum for the many actors pushing for renewed war with Iran.”
He added that Maduro’s abduction could prompt Iran “to do something that triggers military action”, including developing its own military deterrence or preempting US or Israeli strikes.
Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, also said the US actions in Venezuela show Trump’s maximalist aims, further dimming the chances of diplomacy.
“What I see and hear from Tehran is that they are not interested in negotiating with the Trump administration the way this administration signals that they want total surrender,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera.
“So, not much chance for diplomacy at the moment, which then opens the path to the opposite road, that is conflict. Right now, Israel, Iran and the US are on a path to potential conflict.”
Abdi echoed that assessment. “This action reinforces every doubt and suspicion about US intentions, and gives more credence to those in Iran who say engaging the US is useless and [that] developing a nuclear deterrent is vital,” he told Al Jazeera.
Iran-Venezuela alliance
The US raid that abducted Maduro and brought him to the US came after months of intensifying rhetoric from Trump against the Venezuelan government.
US officials have accused Maduro of leading a drug organisation, and Trump and his aides have been increasingly arguing that Washington is entitled to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also been emphasising Maduro’s ties to Iran, accusing Caracas, without evidence, of providing the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
Maduro is a close ally of Iran, and the two heavily sanctioned countries have been pushing to deepen their trade ties, which are estimated to be in the billions of dollars.
So, with Maduro gone, Iran’s small network of allies may shrink further, after the fall of leader Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Iranian government was quick to condemn the US attack on Venezuela, calling on the United Nations to intervene and halt the “unlawful aggression”.
“The US military aggression against an independent state that is a member of the UN represents a grave breach of regional and international peace and security,” the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
“Its consequences affect the entire international system and will further expose the UN Charter-based order to erosion and destruction.”
On Saturday, Rubio suggested that Maduro’s abduction carried a message to all of Washington’s rivals in the Trump era.
“When he tells you that he’s going to do something, when he tells you he’s going to address a problem, he means it,” the top US diplomat told reporters.
But Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei doubled down on his defiant rhetoric after the US raid in Caracas.
“We will not give in to the enemy,” Khamenei wrote in a social media post. “We will bring the enemy to its knees.”
Trump’s threats
Last week, Trump hosted Netanyahu in Florida and threatened to bomb Iran again if the country rebuilds its missile or nuclear programmes.
“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down,” Trump said. “We’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them.”
Israel launched a war against Iran in June, killing the country’s top military commanders, several nuclear scientists and hundreds of civilians.
The US joined in the attack, bombing Iran’s three main nuclear sites.
While Trump has often reiterated that the US strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme and celebrated the war as a success, the Iranian governing system survived the assault.
Tehran responded with barrages of hundreds of rockets against Israel, dozens of which penetrated the country’s multi-layered air defences, and Iranian forces were able to keep firing until the final moments of the war, before the ceasefire came into effect.
Some critics argue that regime change was and remains Israel’s goal in Iran, and Trump appears to be increasingly buying into that objective.
On Friday, Trump warned that the US is “locked and loaded” and ready to attack Iran if the Iranian government kills protesters amid the ongoing but sporadic antigovernment demonstrations across the country.
He renewed the same threat late on Sunday. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” the US president said.
So, could the US carry out a Venezuela-style government decapitation in Iran?
NIAC’s Abdi noted that Israel has already tried to kill the country’s top leaders, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, in June.
Trump also repeatedly threatened Khamenei with assassination, and Israeli officials confirmed that they sought to “eliminate” the supreme leader during the war.
“Iranian officials have said they accordingly have plans in place so that killing or removing senior leaders does not paralyse or topple the regime,” Abdi said.
“It would be far messier to run a ‘snatch and grab’ operation on Iran, given their ability to retaliate against US interests and personnel.”
Venezuela without Maduro
Even in Venezuela, removing Maduro has not translated into a regime collapse, at least for now.
On Sunday, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, now Venezuela’s acting president, stressed that Maduro remains the country’s only leader and condemned the US attack.
She also suggested that Israel was involved in the abduction of Maduro, a vocal critic of the US ally.
“Governments around the world are shocked that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has become the victim and target of an attack of this nature, which undoubtedly has Zionist undertones,” Rodriguez said.
Trump responded by threatening the acting Venezuelan president, telling The Atlantic magazine that she would pay a “very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she did not acquiesce to US demands.
So, the US president’s plans for “running” Venezuela and taking its oil are not complete yet, and will likely require more military action.
“I doubt Venezuela can be a ‘one and done’ or a quick ‘in and out’ situation, which is Trump’s favourite model. His brand is that he engages in quick shows of force, not forever wars,” Mortazavi said.
She cited swift operations that Trump has ordered, including the killing of ISIL (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019, the assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, and the attack on Iran’s nuclear sites in June.
“Most Americans are tired of forever wars, especially in the Middle East, so the Trump administration knows they can’t sell more forever wars to Americans,” Mortazavi said.
But Trump has already floated the prospect of a ground invasion of Venezuela.
“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” he said. “We don’t mind saying it, but we’re going to make sure that that country is run properly. We’re not doing this in vain.”
Abdi said that a long-term US involvement in Venezuela could indirectly stave off war with Iran.
“There is also the possibility that the US gets bogged down in ‘running’ Venezuela and doesn’t have the bandwidth to wage, or to support Israel launching, the next Iran war,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Iran was next on the menu after the US invaded Iraq in 2003, and we know what happened there, and Trump may not want to pronounce ‘mission accomplished’ just yet.”
The oil question
Still, some critics – including Republican US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – have argued that if the US succeeds in controlling Venezuela’s oil resources, it will be able to offset energy market disruptions from a possible war with Iran.
“The next obvious observation is that, by removing Maduro, this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran,” Greene wrote on X on Saturday.
About 20 percent of the world’s oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran may push to shut down in the case of an all-out war.
Abdi said that Venezuelan oil “could theoretically provide some cushion” to the loss of exports from the Gulf region.
“But this would mean a lot of things going right for the US in Venezuela, and it is probably far too soon to make that judgement,” he said.
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