Other New Zealanders believe the march has gone too far.
“They (Maori) seem to want more and more and more,” said Barbara Lecomte, who lives in a coastal suburb north of Wellington. “Now there is a whole cosmopolitan mix of different nationalities. We are all New Zealanders. I think we should work together and have equal rights.”
But equality is still a long way off, says Te Pāti Māori (Māori Party) co-leader Debbie Ngareva-Packer.
“We cannot live equally when we have one people who are indigenous people living ‘less than,'” she argued. What the coalition government is doing is “an absolute attempt to split a progressive country and it’s really embarrassing”.
New Zealand’s parliament was temporarily suspended last week after MPs performed a haka, or traditional dance, in opposition to the bill. Footage of the incident became popular.
“To see this in parliament, in the upper house in Aotearoa, it was a real surprise and I think a disappointment and a sadness that in 2024, when we see Trump’s policies and extremes, this is what Māori have to put up with,” Debbie Ngareva said. – Packer. “It’s humiliating for the government because we (New Zealanders) are generally seen as punching above our weight in all the finer things in life.”
Organizers of Monday’s protest taught participants the words and movements of the haki rally, which is themed Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi). Those present enthusiastically repeated the words written on a large white sheet, trying to absorb as many words as possible ahead of the rally.
“This is no ordinary hikoi – it’s a hikoi for everyone,” grandmother Rose Roharuhi Spicer said, explaining that they were calling on non-Maori, Pacific Islanders and the wider New Zealand population to support them.
This was the fourth hīkoi Rose had been on. She hails from New Zealand’s northernmost settlement, Te Hapua, just above Auckland. This is the same village from which in 1975 the most famous hikoi who protested against land rights left.
This time she brought her children and grandchildren.
“This is our grandchildren’s legacy,” she said. “It’s not just one person or one party – and to change (it) is wrong.”
