New Zealand's parliament on Thursday began a heated debate on a contentious bill aimed at reinterpreting the country's founding agreement as hundreds of protesters continued their march toward the country's capital.

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.

Thousands of people have joined a nine-day march to New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, to protest a contentious bill that redefines the country’s founding agreement between the British and the Indigenous Maori people,