Ngira Simmonds, a key advisor to New Zealand’s Maori Queen, told news agency AFP: “It’s not the best way to have a conversation.

“We will not accept unilateral change to a treaty that involves two parties. There is a better way.”

David Seymour, the author of the bill and leader of the libertarian ACT Party, has long rallied against affirmative action policies designed to help Maori people, who remain far more likely to die early, live in poverty or wind up in prison.

His legislation aims to wind back these so-called “special rights”.

The bill, which has dominated debate in New Zealand for months, passed its first reading last week, but is highly unlikely to garner enough support to pass into law.

Christopher Luxon, New Zealand’s prime minister, has voiced opposition to Mr Seymour’s proposals.

Jenny Shipley, the former conservative prime minister, said just putting it forward threatened to “divide New Zealand in a way that I haven’t lived through in my adult life”.