By Lucy Craymer and Lewis Jackson WELLINGTON (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of New Zealanders rallied before parliament on Tuesday in one of the country's largest ever protests to oppose a bill that opponents say seeks to dilute the rights of Maori and threatens to set race relations back decades.

Thousands of people are marching the length of New Zealand in protest of a proposed law that would redefine the country’s founding agreement between Indigenous Māori and the British Crown.

Booming Indigenous Maori "haka" chants rang out across New Zealand's capital on Tuesday, as tens of thousands rallied against a conservative push to redefine the nation's founding treaty. Protests have been swelling throughout New Zealand after a minor party in the conservative coalition government drafted a bill to redefine the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.