It’s “likely” anyone unable to submit their feedback on the Treaty Principles Bill by Tuesday will get another chance to do so, the chair of Parliament’s justice committee James Meager says.
Pressure was mounting to extend the deadline for public submissions, after technical problems with Parliament’s website prevented many people from giving feedback.
RNZ has confirmed the justice select committee will meet at 9am Thursday to make a decision on late submissions.
“Likely anybody who was unable to make a submission yesterday due to website issues will have the opportunity to do so but I can’t pre-empt the Committee’s decisions,” Meager said.
Technical problems plagued Parliament’s website over the past couple of days, causing some to miss Tuesday night’s deadline.
The legislation’s key proponent, ACT leader David Seymour, posted on Instagram on Tuesday night, asking those unable to make a submission to email Parliament and ask for an extension.
Both Labour and Te Paati Māori have also called on the Justice Committee to extend the submission deadline in light of the technical issues.
RNZ has heard from many people who did not get their submission in by the deadline because the website wasn’t working properly.
One of them – Hamilton woman Myra Williamson – said she tried to submit her feedback at 11.30pm on Tuesday but could not.
“To begin with the submission page wouldn’t load so I was just patient and waited. When the page did load it took a while but I managed to fill in the fields and then when I went to click submit nothing happened. The page was unresponsive. I waited a while and tried clicking again but still nothing happened.
“After I’d waited a while I tried another browser in the meantime and then the page just came back and said you’ve exceeded your attempts to submit because you haven’t answered the capture verification three times but I hadn’t seen it at all.
“It hadn’t come up on the page. The page had gone to white and was unresponsive and when it did reload it said I had failed the verification so I would have to empty the cache or try again later.”
Williamson said she kept trying until the deadline passed but was ultimately unsuccessful.
“It was very frustrating. It was obviously my fault for leaving it to the last minute, I accept that, but it was in a really strange time 6 and 7 of January.
“I hadn’t had time to do it in December in the lead up to the end of the year and I thought, ‘oh well I’ll just get it done and get in it’ but wasn’t able too. I’m quite disappointed really because I spent quite a long time writing it.”
She said she has since emailed the Justice Committee explaining what happened and asking for an extension.
While online submissions are now closed, the public still has until 5pm today to deliver submissions to Parliament either by post or in hard copy form.
Labour’s spokesperson for Māori development, Willie Jackson, had been at the funeral of Tariana Turia on Tuesday, and he said even there he had heard reports of people encountering problems with the portal.
He said there had been a massive push in the final hour to get people to submit their views.
“This is the most substantial kaupapa that we’ve had to deal with – the most anti-Māori kaupapa we’ve had to deal with – in the last generation, since Foreshore and Seabed.”
He told Morning Report potentially thousands of people would not have the opportunity to submit and extending it by at least a week would be the right thing to do.
rnz.co.nz
