Treaty Principles Bill submissions reopen after website issues

• The public now has until January 14 to submit on the Treaty Principles Bill.
• Parliament’s justice select committee reopened submissions after problems prevented some people from submitting by the original deadline.
• More than 300,000 online submissions were received, surpassing the previous record for the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill.

By Anneke Smith of RNZ

The public will now have until next week to make submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill.

Parliament’s justice select committee has agreed to reopen submissions from 1pm Thursday to 1pm Tuesday, January 14, after technical issues.

RNZ understands there were more than 300,000 online submissions, roughly half of which were received on the last day.

It easily surpasses the previous record of about 107,000 on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill in 2021.

Parliament’s justice select committee has agreed to reopen submissions from 1pm Thursday to 1pm Tuesday after technical issues. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill that were emailed between Monday and Thursday morning will also be accepted.

Those who were unable to submit would now be able to do so over the next few days.

Problems with the website meant people were not able to make a submission by the original deadline of 11.59pm on Tuesday, January 7.

RNZ was contacted by dozens of people who couldn’t get their submission in and one case where the feedback was altered.

The committee met on Thursday to decide whether an extension was merited.

Tech consultant Louisa Taylor said the errors she observed on the website could be caused by low server capacity or an attack.

“If a nefarious actor sent a lot of traffic to the site, they could actually take it down,” she said.

It’s not clear how many people were affected by technical problems but RNZ has seen evidence they could date back to late November 2024.

Then, a submitter emailed feedback to Parliament, flagging problems with the official submissions’ portal.

– RNZ