from the Waitangi Action Committee, the New Zealand Māori Council, the Māori Women's Welfare League and the Kīngitanga, the number of marchers grew to 2000 people. Growing protests led to confrontations between police and protesters, sometimes resulting in dozens of arrests. When the treaty gained greater official recognition in the mid-1980s, emphasis switched back to calls to honour it, and protesters generally returned to the aim of raising awareness of it and what they saw as its neglect by the state. In 1990, a young Māori woman threw a wet black t-shirt at Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Waitangi, in an effort to "galvanize the country’s attention toward Maori problems" and "get justice under the Treaty of Waitangi." In 1995, the threat of protests was so intense that security could not be assured and the ceremony was preempted. Some New Zealand politicians and commentators, such as Paul Holmes, have felt that Waitangi Day is too controversial to be a national day and have sought to replace it with Anzac Day. Others, for example the United Future Party's Peter Dunne, have suggested that the name be changed back to New Zealand Day. Recent activism Waitangi Day celebrations have long been an opportunity for Māori to highlight issues important to Māori, including breaches of the treaty, persistent inequality, high Māori incarceration rates, and advocating for constitutional change which entrench the Treaty of Waitangi. In the past, attempts to vandalise the flagstaff have been an objective of these protests, carrying on a tradition that dates from the 19th century when Hone Heke chopped down the British flagstaff in nearby Russell. In 2004, protesters succeeded in flying the national Māori flag (known as the flag, referring to Māori sovereignty) above the other flags on the flagstaff by flying it from the top of a nearby tree. Because of the level of protest activity that had previously occurred at Waitangi, Prime Minister Helen Clark did not attend in 2000. The official commemorations were shifted from Waitangi to Wellington for 2001. Some Māori felt that this was an insult to them and to the treaty. In 2003 and 2004, the anniversary was again officially commemorated at the treaty grounds at Waitangi. In 2004, Leader of the Opposition Don Brash was hit with mud as he entered the marae as a response to his controversial Orewa Speech that year. On 5 February 2009, the day