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The 1,000 km walk began nine days ago in the far north of the country.
Thousands of people gather to complete the final stages of a march outside New Zealand's parliament to demonstrate against a controversial bill to revise the country's founding document between British colonizers and the Maori people.
Hotels are full in the capital Wellington: up to 30,000 people are expected at Tuesday's rally in front of Parliament.
The protest marks the end of a nine-day hikoi, or peaceful protest, spanning the country.
The hikoi brings together Māori activists and their supporters who oppose the bill introduced by a junior member of the government coalition.
Watch: Moment MP leads haka to disrupt New Zealand parliament
New Zealand is often seen as a world leader in supporting indigenous rights – but under Christopher Luxon's centre-right government, many fear these rights are now under threat.
“They're trying to take away our rights,” says Stan Lingman, who is of Maori and Swedish ancestry and plans to attend the rally. “(The hikoi is) for all New Zealanders – white, yellow, pink, blue. We will fight this bill.
Stan's wife Pamela says she walks for her “mokos”, which means grandchildren in the Maori language.
The Treaty of Waitangi of 1840 is considered fundamental to the country's race relations.
But under the Luxon government there are fears that the rights won by the Māori community could be eroded. The bill introduced by the Act political party argues that New Zealand should legally define the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Party leader David Seymour says that over time, the treaty's core values have led to racial divisions, not unity.
“My Treaty Principles Bill says that like everyone else, whether their ancestors came here a thousand years ago, like some of mine did, or whether they just came down from the plane into Auckland International Airport this morning to begin their journey as a New Zealander, I have the same basic rights and dignity,” says Seymour, who is of Māori heritage.
“Your starting point is to take a human being and ask them, what is your ancestry? What kind of human are you? This is what we used to call prejudice. It used to be called bigotry. This used to be called profiling and discrimination. Now you try to make a virtue of it. I think this is a big mistake.
He has been criticized for wasting time and creating political divisions by introducing a bill that is not even expected to pass. Prime Minister Luxon called the bill “divisive” – despite being part of the same coalition.
Despite the differences, many supporters believe the march has gone too far.
“They (the Maoris) seem to want more and more,” says Barbara Lecomte, who lives in the coastal suburbs north of Wellington. “There is now quite a 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 Ngarewa-Packer.
“We cannot live equally if we have just one indigenous people living ‘less than’,” she says. What the coalition government is doing is “an absolute attempt to divide an otherwise progressive country and it is truly embarrassing”.
“It’s not just any normal hikoi: it’s everyone’s hikoi,” says Rose Raharuhi Spicer.
Such is the strength of feeling that New Zealand's Parliament was temporarily paralyzed last week by MPs performing a haka, or traditional dance, in opposition to the bill. The video went viral.
“Seeing him in Parliament, in the highest house of Aotearoa, there was a real state of surprise and I think it's a disappointment and a sadness that in 2024 when we see the politics and the extremes of Trump, this is what Māori are having to endure,” says Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “It’s humiliating for the government because we are normally seen as punching above our weight in all the big things in life.”
For those looking at New Zealand and wanting to see more hakas, this rally will not disappoint. On Monday, organizers taught participants the words and movements of the gathering's haka, the subject of which is Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi). Spectators enthusiastically repeated the words written on a large white sheet, trying to absorb as many of the words as possible before the gathering.
“It's not just any normal hikoi: it's everyone's hikoi,” says grandmother Rose Raharuhi Spicer, explaining that they called non-Māori, Pacific Islanders and New Zealand population as a whole to support them.
This is hikoi Rose's fourth participation. She comes from Te Hāpua, New Zealand's northernmost settlement, just above Auckland. It is from the same village that the most famous hikoi left, in 1975, to protest against land rights.
This time, she is accompanied by her children and grandchildren.
“It’s our grandchildren’s legacy,” she said. “It’s not just about one person or one party – and changing it is wrong.”
On the grass nearby, Leah Land, a 26-year-old from Whangarei, puts the finishing touches on a sign for the rally that reads “Honor it, don't change it.”
“I am here because I believe that as a Pākehā (non-Māori), without these sacred documents, I have no right to live and be on this land, so that is why I can be here in this beautiful country. she said, adding that the proposed bill was terrifying.
“The sad thing is, I'll be fine because I'm white – but my best friends are Māori and I want Aotearoa New Zealand to be a safe space for them to exist.”
