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.

New Zealand's parliament was brought to a temporary halt by MPs performing a haka, amid anger over a controversial bill seeking to reinterpret the country's founding treaty with Māori people.

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