Treaty Principles Bill smashes submissions record

Tuesday, 14 January 2025

Treaty Principles Bill submissions close; now debate begins

The Treaty Principles Bill received over 300,000 submissions, an unprecedented number.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has promised to 'spike' and 'kill' the bill after public submissions are considered.

The bill's submission deadline was extended after Parliament's website crashed due to overwhelming traffic.

The Treaty Principles Bill has broken records.

When the deadline for submissions passed on Tuesday, Parliament had received more than 300,000 written submissions. That is at least three times more feedback than any other bill has received.

The bill’s sponsor, associate justice minister David Seymour, said the unprecedented public response to his bill was a good thing.

“Even people who don’t support my bill appear to be supporting the idea of mass participation in what the Treaty means in 2025. I think that is very, very exciting,” he told Stuff on Tuesday, as submissions closed that afternoon.

ACT Leader David Seymour is the architect of the Treaty Principles Bill.

The original deadline for submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill had been last week, but then Parliament’s website crashed.

Parliament’s Chief Clerk, David Wilson, said the sudden onslaught of submissions on deadline day - January 7 - had overwhelmed the system. As a result, he said more than 10,000 hard copy submissions were delivered to Parliament.

“We expected the bill to have a lot of submissions - but it was even more than we expected, so they really overloaded it and caused it to shut down. It’s great so many people wanted to have a say - but it was just a bit too much,” he said.

As a result, Parliament’s Justice Committee - which is tasked with hearing and reading these submissions - extended the deadline to 1pm on January 14.

Wilson said there had been no evidence that the submissions were the result of “bots” or nefarious actors. He said the Office of the Clerk had taken on extra staff and was dedicating every resource it could find to sort through the 300,000 submissions.

While Seymour said it was heartening to see such engaged debate, Labour’s Willie Jackson told Stuff this bill was not something to celebrate.

“We’re talking dangerous legislation here. This is dangerous legislation. He can pat himself on the back as much he likes, but people are worried. People are feeling threatened by this legislation,” Jackson said.

From both sides, political groups from Te Pāti Māori to Hobson’s Pledge have been urging their supporters to flood Parliament with submissions. As of Tuesday, while it was clear there had been a huge response it was unclear what that response actually said.

Both Jackson and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said they expected a clear voice from Māori and non-Māori opposing this bill.

“No matter how many submissions there are, it is extremely important kaupapa for us in Aotearoa - to be able to protect Te Tiriti. That shows with the record number of submitters,” Ngarewa-Packer said.

Crowds spilled out around Parliament as a hikoi protesting David Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill reached Wellington, with thousands of people making their voices heard loud and clear. Jenna Lynch reports.

She said there had been everything from online submissions workshops to “flat whites for Treaty rights” sessions to boost the number of submissions.

Asked if he would change his mind about the bill if submissions showed overwhelming opposition to his bill, Seymour said he would not.

“It’s really up to the committee to analyse this. What I do know is that the numbers, at the end of the day, aren’t really what matters,” he said.

“When I did the End of Life Choice Bill, the submission were 90% opposed. Then, when we had a referendum on End of Life Choice, we won the referendum by a ratio of two to one,” he said.

As well as the 300,000 submissions, the Treaty Principles Bill was the subject of the Hīkoi Mō Te Tiriti last year. That hīkoi presented the largest protest Parliament.

Next week, politicians - albeit not Seymour - will be at Rātana Pā. That is their first chance this year to sit kanohi ki te kanohi with te iwi Māori.

Then Waitangi Day is right around the corner, at about the same time that a six-month in-person submissions process starts at Parliament for the Treaty Principles Bill.

The Justice Committee, led by National’s James Meager, would need to decide who it wanted to hear from. MPs on that committee said there would likely be more people wanting to speak about the bill than the committee had time to hear from.

And once that whole process concludes, National is promising to vote down the bill when it returns to Parliament.

In a brief conversation with members of the public, posted to social media over summer, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon promised to “spike it” and “kill it”.