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.

As parliamentarians gathered for a preliminary vote on the bill on Thursday, Te Pāti Māori MPs physically tore a copy of the bill, stood and began a haka.

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.