But I can now see there is more to the issue. Racism is classically believing one (your) race is better than another, and the implication of "race-based" X is the favour one race based one that belief.
Trying to correct historical inequalities isn't an obvious case of "racism".
There are Maori people who want to favor their own race based on the belief that they have more rights than other races due to their ancestry. They call themselves "people of the land" to distinguish themselves from "people of the treaty" - or people whose ancestors signed up for those rights instead of inheriting them. This is a widely popular belief. So even by your definition, that's racist. It doesn't just stop being racist when there are also people of other races believing the same thing.
Trying to correct historical inequalities isn't an obvious case of "racism".