By Louis Collins
The hikoi against the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill reaches Parliament. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
During the recent sitting break Parliament was quieter than usual, but not empty. Cruise ship passengers and tourists filled the corridors rather than MPs. While its physical domain wasn't humming with activity, its virtual one certainly was.
More than 300,000 submissions were made via Parliament's website on the highly contentious and widely followed Treaty Principles Bill. You've likely seen the reporting on this, but to put these numbers in perspective, the bill smashed the previous record for submissions on a single day (7 January).
This scale of engagement is even more remarkable when you consider that submissions historically total much humbler numbers, with only a handful of bills garnering a five-digit number.
Photo: Office of the Clerk
The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill received 21,533 submissions in 2013; the End of Life Choice Bill received 39,159 submissions in 2019; and the previous record holder - the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill - received 107,000 submissions in 2021. These were all astonishing numbers at the time, and measured the trend of increased engagement with the select committee process.
More New Zealanders engaging in Parliamentary process is certainly a win for the democratic process, and in theory, more voices being heard through submissions ultimately helps lawmakers (MPs) gauge a wider range of perspectives on a bill.
The uptake in people wanting to have their say on a bill can be attributed to a number of causes. One of the key drivers is likely the ease of accessibility in submitting online. In recent Parliaments, people have been able to upload submissions (rather than mailing them).
It's a relatively straightforward task to click your way through to a submission. Interested stakeholders make it even easier, providing templates that people can fill out to support a certain stance on a bill. These are referred to as form submissions, and though they are counted they don't add any fresh ideas to the debate.
Managing record breaking submissions
The people responsible for dealing with all these submissions are the Select Committee Services division of Parliament's Office of the Clerk.
Gabor Hellyer is a principal clerk at Parliament, and has been leading the team processing the 300,000 or so submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill. The House recently sat down with Hellyer to hear how the record breaking number of submissions is actually dealt with.
It's probably useful to understand what processing actually means here. Hellyer explains that in the context of submissions, processing is pretty much synonymous with vetting. A submission must be consistent with Parliamentary and committee rules and decisions in order to be considered further.
Each select committee can choose how to manage submissions on their bills. When vetting these submissions, Hellyer and his team are "looking for consistency with a number of different rules, but also committee decisions around swear words, racist language, abusive comments towards MPs and things like that."
When it comes to the treatment of form or template submissions, Hellyer says "each committee has their own approach". The Justice Committee decided that all submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill made via Parliament's website would be counted as individual submissions, whether form submission or otherwise.
Vetted, then what?
Once a submission has been vetted, the next step involves considering what the submitter has to say.
"We usually do this in batches," Hellyer says. "Particularly when we have such a high volume, we will provide advice to the committee about submissions that we've identified and that we think require some consideration by the members, and then the committee will go through its decision-making process to decide what it will accept and what it will return."
The ministry assigned to the bill (Ministry of Justice in this case), also has a part to play in this.
"[Ministerial officials will] generally be appointed to advise the select committee, and their job really is to analyse the content of submissions for substantive analysis of the issues. So [the Office of the Clerk is] really looking at Parliamentary rules and consistency with those. The officials from the ministry are looking at what people have said, how many people support the bill, how many people are opposed, and what sort of themes they're raising. The committee can ask officials for other types of analysis, but that tends to be the main things that they're looking for."
Ultimately the committee calls the shots on which submissions are most relevant and should be forwarded to MPs for further consideration. As for who gets the chance to speak to the committee about their submission, that's decided by the committee. With over 16,000 requests to make an oral submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill, it would be unrealistic to hear everyone.
Accordingly, the Justice Committee have said that each party will be able to nominate 100 names, with those nominations collated and given to the committee chairperson and opposition member, Duncan Webb, who together produce a list of people to invite to the hearings.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Hellyer has been a clerk through this trend of surging submission volumes. He thinks the increased engagement is a great thing, but is not without its challenges.
"I think it's fair to say that the public engagement process at Parliament is really a digitised version of what has existed for a very long time, with individual people making individual submissions to a select committee. In my personal view, I think that the system's groaning a little bit under the weight of hundreds of thousands of submissions, which practically can't be treated the same as when the volume was a few hundred or a few thousand.
"Parliament needs to be resourced to deal with that kind of volume, And I think [Parliament], at some stage, will end up having a conversation about how it does engage with the public and whether that's all fit for purpose in the 21st century."
Those kinds of conversations are most likely to take place during the regular review of standing orders - Parliament's own rules and procedures.
One thing that the Standing Orders Committee has looked at in the past is the different ways people engage. Unlike petitions, where the scale of engagement can have a political impact, select committee submissions have a different purpose and their sheer quantity has less impact. If people are sending submissions rather than signing a petition they are using the wrong tool.
The submission process is at its best when MPs hear from individuals who have a profound perspective (whether from expertise or personal experience). This can spur MPs to reconsider the way a bill is written or even what it is attempting to achieve.
If the growth trend continues these crucial perspectives are at risk of being lost in the deluge.
Parliament and the Beehive. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson
Behind the scenes
I asked Hellyer what it's been like presiding over the massive increase in engagement. The word 'busy' quickly came to mind.
"We have about 35 staff members in the Select Committee Office and we do a range of different things, not just reading submissions. We would have dealt with about 200,000 [submissions] over a three-year period, and here we're dealing with 300,000 and in a much shorter period of time."
If you've made a submission and are still waiting to hear back, Hellyer says bear with them.
"We do get a lot of correspondence from the public with questions about the process and about what's happening with their submission. We really take our job of working with the public and responding to queries really seriously. Sometimes we can't get back to people as quickly as we'd like, but it's not for a lack of spirit or intention. So if you haven't heard back from us, hopefully you will soon."
RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk.
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