MPs sing as bill attacking Maori rights is ‘annihilated'

A controversial bill that sparked New Zealand’s largest-ever Maori rights protest was heavily defeated in parliament yesterday.

- SHWETA SHARMA

The Treaty Principles Bill died in its second reading – voted down by 112 to 11 – in a crushing defeat that had been widely anticipated. Politicians on the floor and in the gallery broke into song as they celebrated, while the speaker, Gerry Brownlee, tried to maintain control and even removed one man from the gallery.

The proposed law sought to redefine the terms of the nation’s founding treaty between Maori tribes and the British crown signed 180 years ago.

Massive protests against it saw tens of thousands of New Zealanders gather outside the parliament on 19 November last year. It gained wider attention after a video of the nation’s youngest legislator, Maori member Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, tearing up a copy of the proposed legislation and leading a haka dance in parliament went viral.

“This bill hasn’t been stopped, this bill has been absolutely annihilated,” Ms Maipi-Clarke said yesterday. “We had two choices: to live or to die. We chose to live.”