The deadline for submissions on the controversial Treaty Principles Bill has been extended after a record number of responses crashed Parliament’s online portal, officials said today.
Submissions on ACT Party leader David Seymour’s bill were originally due by 11.59pm Tuesday but the huge volume lodged online as the cut-off approached overwhelmed the system.
The Justice Select Committee said early indications showed the bill attracted more than 300,000 submissions, 150,000 of them on Tuesday.
While that number may fall as submissions are assessed, it is still well above the previous record set in 2022 when Parliament was debating, and eventually passed, legislation banning gay conversion therapy.
Labour, the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori had all called for an extension of the submission deadline, saying public views on the bill needed to be heard.
At an urgent meeting held this morning, the justice committee agreed, pushing out the deadline to 1pm on Tuesday January 14.
“The committee’s intention is to ensure that everyone who tried to make a submission but was unable will have the opportunity to do so,” it said.
The bill seeks to define the principles underpinning the Treaty of Waitangi (Ti Tiriti o Waitangi), which Seymour says should be determined by Parliament, not the courts or public service.
National and NZ First agreed to support the bill to first reading and select committee examination as part of the coalition agreement to form government, but both intend to vote it down at its second reading.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has described the bill as “divisive” and said there’s nothing about it he likes, but the intense debate it has stirred threatened to overshadow his first term agenda of economic reform and public service cuts.
Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke made global headlines during the bill’s first reading in Parliament in November when she led a haka on the floor of the house.
That was followed by a hikoi that culminated in one of New Zealand’s largest protests, attracting more than 40,000 people in a march through the streets of central Wellington to the Beehive.
The Justice Select Committee, chaired by National MP for Rangitata James Meager, has recognised high passions around the issue in its call for public submissions.
In an unusual move, it warns: “The committee is conscious that the bill is controversial and intends to facilitate a measured debate,” adding that submissions containing offensive language will not be accepted.
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