Thousands of people are gathering to take the final steps in a march on New Zealand’s parliament to demonstrate against a controversial bill seeking to overhaul the country's founding document between British colonisers and Māori people.

A proposed law that would redefine New Zealand’s founding treaty between the British Crown and Māori chiefs has triggered political turmoil in the country.The bill is never expected to become law. But it has become a flashpoint on race relations and a critical moment in the fraught 180-year-old conversation about how New Zealand should honor its promises to Indigenous people when the country was colonized.

Thousands of people are marching the length of New Zealand in protest of a proposed law that would redefine the country’s founding agreement between Indigenous Māori and the British Crown.