Politicians in New Zealand broke out in celebratory song on Thursday after the controversial Treaty Principles Bill was voted down by all but one party.
The bill was one of the most contentious proposals in the nation’s recent history, seeking to reinterpret New Zealand’s founding treaty.
On its second reading on Thursday, the bill failed with 112 votes against and just 11 for it. When the bill was voted down, the chamber broke out in celebration and Māori song.
The bill had sparked widespread protests across New Zealand and received over 300,000 public submissions.
The debate over the bill made international headlines last year when a video of the parliament’s youngest MP, Hana-Rāwihti Maipi-Clarke, tore the bill in two and lead a haka in parliament.
First signed in 1840 between the British Crown and more than 500 Māori chiefs, the Treaty of Waitangi lays down how the two parties agreed to govern. It’s interpretation still guides legislation and policy today. A junior partner in the ruling centre-right coalition, the Act Party, proposed the Treaty Principles Bill, arguing that Māori people have been afforded different political and legal rights and privileges compared with non-Māori, because of the way the treaty has been interpreted.
Opponents of the bill feared it would erode hard-fought for Indigenous rights and be detrimental to social cohesion.
After the bill’s defeat on Thursday, Gana-Rāwihti Maipi-Clarke said: “This bill hasn’t been stopped, this bill has been absolutely annihilated.”
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was absent for the reading of the bill. The government’s Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the bill was “a crude way to deal with a very sensitive topic”.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins labelled it a “grubby little bill” and said it “had a colossal impact on the fabric of our nation, and this bill will for ever be a stain on our country.”
The controversial bill was only allowed to pass through to a second reading stage because the Act Party had made it a condition of its coalition deal with the ruling National Party to form government. The other party in the coalition, New Zealand First, never agreed to support the bill beyond the select committee stage.
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