Tens of thousands of people have marched on the New Zealand parliament in Wellington to protest against a bill that critics say strikes at the core of the country’s founding principles and dilutes the rights of Māori people.

Protesters dressed in traditional Māori attire performed hakas while marching alongside tens of thousands of people through the streets of the nation’s capital, Wellington, on Tuesday.

As tens of thousands of marchers thronged the streets in New Zealand’s capital Wellington, the column of people, flags aloft, had the air of a festival or a parade rather than a protest.