New Zealand lawmakers reject proposed law to redefine the country’s founding Treaty of Waitangi

New Zealand lawmakers dealt an overwhelming defeat Thursday to a controversial proposed law seeking to redefine the country’s founding treaty between Māori tribes and the British Crown.

The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi bill was rejected by Parliament in a 112 to 11 vote in Wellington, halting its progress to a third and final vote. Cheers and applause erupted before lawmakers and the public sang a waiata — a traditional Māori song — after the result was announced.

The sweeping reinterpretation of the 1840 treaty signed by British representatives and 500 Māori chiefs during New Zealand’s colonization was never expected to become law. But the measures provoked a fraught debate about Indigenous rights and last November prompted the biggest race relations protest in the country’s history.

But its defeat did not spell the end for scrutiny of Māori rights in New Zealand law.

The Treaty guides the relationship between the government and Māori, with its meaning established through decades of legislation and court rulings. It promised tribes broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British.

The bill sought to end the 185-year conversation about the Treaty’s meaning by enacting in law particular definitions for each clause and specifying that any rights should apply to all New Zealanders.

The Treaty of Waitangi “is not about racial privilege or racial superiority,” said opposition lawmaker Willie Jackson. “It is and always has been about legal rights Māori have in their contract with the Crown.”