Booming Indigenous Maori "haka" chants rang out across New Zealand's capital on Tuesday, as tens of thousands rallied against a conservative push to redefine the nation's founding treaty. Protests have been swelling throughout New Zealand after a minor party in the conservative coalition government drafted a bill to redefine the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

A vote on the bill was suspended when opposition parties and people in the public gallery joined in the haka, led by Patri Maori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who also ripped up a copy of the bill.

Parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday after Maori members performed a haka — a traditional ceremonial group dance — to disrupt the vote on a controversial bill.