New Zealand’s parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday 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.

Māori lawmakers performed a traditional haka dance to protest a New Zealand bill that could redefine the country's relationship with Indigenous people.

Introduced by New Zealand's centre-right government last week, the Treaty Principles Bill, would enshrine a narrower interpretation of the treaty in law. Decades of interpretation by the courts and a separate Maori tribunal have tended to expand Maori rights and privileges.