New Zealand’s parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday after Maori members staged a haka to disrupt the vote on a contentious bill that would reinterpret a 184-year-old treaty between the British and Indigenous Maori.

Thousands joined a march toward New Zealand's national capital on November 15 after a contentious Indigenous treaty bill. Several rallies protesting against the Treaties Bill are being staged in towns across the country as a nine-day march.

Introduced by New Zealand's centre-right government last week, the Treaty Principles Bill, would enshrine a narrower interpretation of the treaty in law. Decades of interpretation by the courts and a separate Maori tribunal have tended to expand Maori rights and privileges.