New Zealand’s parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday (November 14) 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.

Parliamentarian Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke started the haka protest in the House, tearing up the new bill.

The ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the country’s centre-right coalition government, last week unveiled a bill to enshrine a narrower interpretation of the Waitangi treaty in law.

First signed in 1840 between the British Crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, it lays down how the two parties agreed to govern. The interpretation of clauses in the document still guides legislation and policy today.

The proposed bill passed its first reading on Thursday and will now be sent to a select committee. The controversial legislation, however, is seen by many Maori and their supporters as undermining the rights of the country’s Indigenous people, who make up around 20% of the population of 5.3 million.