On the 182nd anniversary of the signing of Aotearoa New Zealand’s founding document, the Waitangi Treaty grounds – usually thronging with tens of thousands of people – were quiet and cloaked in a gloss of rain, a sign, or tohu, to some that it is a Waitangi Day like no other.
National events were cancelled this year, and ceremonies, speeches and reflections moved online, as the country teeters on the edge of a widespread Omicron outbreak.
