This article was first published by RNZ.
Parliament’s justice committee will find out tomorrow how many submissions were made on the Treaty Principles Bill after the deadline was extended by nearly a week after website issues.
Committee chair and National MP James Meager said as of Tuesday evening, the committee had not yet received an update on the number of submissions sent in since it met last week, and that information would be provided when it met again this Thursday.
The select committee unanimously agreed to re-open submissions to 1pm on Tuesday 14 January after technical issues.
RNZ reported there had been 300,000 online submissions before the initial deadline, half of which were received on the last day - easily surpassing the previous record of about 107,000 on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill in 2021.
Meager said the clerk’s staff and departmental officials were now tasked with processing and analysing the rest of the submissions.
It was already clear they had received more requests for oral submissions than they would be able to accommodate, so only a small proportion would get a chance to speak.
Decisions would need to be made about who was invited to give an oral submission, and they still intended to wrap up oral hearings by the end of February.
All submissions that met the criteria would be tabled and released as soon as possible, he said.
Any that did not meet the criteria - including duplicates, those made under only a first name, a first name and initial, initials only, or a clear and obvious pseudonym - would not be considered.
By Kate Green of RNZ.
