New Zealand's indigenous community is rallying against a proposed bill that could strangle state support and stoke anti-Maori rhetoric, opponents say.

New Zealand’s Parliament was temporarily suspended on Thursday as Māori lawmakers performed a haka, a traditional group dance, demonstrating their community’s anger and fear over a bill that aims to reinterpret the country’s founding treaty with its Indigenous people.

The Treaty Principles Bill seeks to revise New Zealand’s foundational agreement with Maori people and is hugely unpopular, with even the prime minister deriding it.