Neil Sands
A parliamentary committee will begin public hearings on the Treaty Principles Bill this month after receiving a record number of submissions about ACT Party leader David Seymour’s controversial proposed legislation.
The Justice Select Committee plans to hold a mammoth 80 hours of public hearings on the bill, starting on 27 January and finishing by the end of February.
While the exact number of submissions is yet to be finalised, it is estimated at more than 300,000, smashing the previous record of 107,000 submitted on a 2022 bill banning gay conversion therapy.
The volume of submissions crashed Parliament’s online portal at one point, forcing an extension to the delivery deadline and interest in addressing the hearings is so high that the Justice Committee has divided itself into two sub-committees to help handle them.
Committee chair, National MP James Meager, will oversee one sub-committee and Labour’s Duncan Webb the other.
Submitters for the first week of hearings will be nominated by committee members from each political party.
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.
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.
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