Everyone does have those rights.
Basically, back in the day, when the Europeans arrived in New Zealand and wanted to set up shop, they signed a treaty with the Māori that the Europeans would govern the Europeans and the Māori would govern the Māori. This is called co-governance. At this time, Māori vastly outnumbered the colonists.
The Europeans promptly ignored the treaty and became so large in numbers that they formed the government. There is a Māori section of government that is focused on Māori issues. This bill would essentially get rid of that and let the European-formed government decide what is best for Māori.
It’s a slap in the face to say “hey, you can govern yourselves. Oh wait now we outnumber you, you shouldn’t be allowed to speak your language and also you have to follow our laws. Oh also you’re not allowed to govern your own people anymore, you have to follow our colonial way of doing things. K thx”
The “special rights” that David Seymour is talking about is basically anything specifically laid out to help Māori, so a form of affirmative action. I understand the initial distaste towards race-based solutions to problems, but it’s the only way to fix problems that were caused by race-based policies in the first place. Colour-blind equality won’t fix issues caused by systemic racism.
This is my current understanding at least. I’m a Kiwi and I attended this hīkoi (march).
It’s because the protests worked!!1! they won!! Without their hard work, we would have still been stuck inside. /s