Wellington - New Zealand celebrates 169 years of partnership between its indigenous Maori people and European settlers Friday with relations between the races in a better state than they have been for years.

The development comes despite an attack Thursday on Prime Minister John Key by two dissidents waving a Maori sovereignty flag as he arrived at a meeting house at historic Waitangi in the Bay of Islands for celebrations on the eve of the country's national day.

The protestors claimed that the government was not doing enough for the near-600,000 Maoris, who comprise about 15 per cent of the population, but Key dubbed them "glory seekers" and said, "They were out of step with what the majority of people think."

He said Friday's anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi by Maori chiefs and representatives of Britain's Queen Victoria on February 6, 1840, would be a day of celebration and "dialogue and understanding each others' points of view, not thumping each other."

Key, who was shaken but unhurt, was grabbed around the chest and neck at the Te Tii Marae, Waitangi, which has long been a hotbed of protest by Maori militants who claim successive governments in the former British colony have failed to honour promises to safeguard the indigenous people's rights, land, language and culture.

Key's visit to the marae was the first by a prime minister since his predecessor Helen Clark was jostled and heckled by demonstrators in 2004. She continued to attend official celebrations on the treaty grounds on Waitangi Day, which is a national holiday, but refused to return to the marae, a sacred and ceremonial meeting place for Maoris.

Maoris traditionally supported Clark's Labour Party, but relations soured during her 9-year leadership and a minister defected to form the Maori Party, which now has five seats in parliament.

Clark never made her peace with the defector, but Key made a power-sharing deal with the Maoris after winning November's election and took their two co-leaders into his government.

One, Pita Sharples, was made minister of Maori affairs, a major breakthrough for the minority party and a signal to Maoris that they were valued by the government, Sharples said.

Of Waitangi Day, which has long been a focus for Maori dissent and protest, he said: "This is the day we celebrate the partnership that founded our nation, and we make known to each other how we think the relationship is going. Right now, I think it's looking good."

Clark consistently refused permission for the Maori sovereignty flag - a graphic symbol of protest - to be flown from public buildings. Key defused that, saying it may be flown next year - if all Maoris agree.

The tribes have never been united since the days they fought each other and the victors put the vanquished in their cooking pots. Currently, they do not agree on an alternative to the national flag, which has four stars depicting the Southern Cross constellation and Britain's Union Jack.

Some tribes have refused to go to Waitangi for the annual national day celebrations for years because they did not want to be involved in anti-government protests.

They included the Tainui, who had not been represented since King Tuheitia's mother, the late queen, visited at the same time as Britain's Queen Elizabeth II 19 years ago.

On that occasion, a Maori protestor hurled a black T-shirt in the face of the British monarch as she drove past.

But Tuheitia did go to the Te Tii Marae Wednesday and almost every other tribe was also there, including elders who had long boycotted the place because of the volatile atmosphere.

"I think we've come of age in terms of our relationships with other iwi [tribes]," Hone Sadler, an elder of the Ngaphui tribe, told the New Zealand Herald this week.

"We're all looking for unity." (dpa)