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.

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.

By Lucy Craymer and Lewis Jackson WELLINGTON (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of New Zealanders rallied before parliament on Tuesday in one of the country's largest ever protests to oppose a bill that opponents say seeks to dilute the rights of Maori and threatens to set race relations back decades.