Parliament's law-making watchdog warns against Regulatory Standards Bill
A group of high-level public servants and private sector lawyers tasked with ensuring the government of the day creates good legislation has voiced concerns over David Seymour's Regulatory Standards Bill.
The Legislative Design and Advisory Committee wrote in a submission on the Act leader's so-called good lawmaking bill that although it agreed there was much that could – and should – be done to improve legislative quality, the committee had 'misgivings about the capacity of this bill to offer improvement'.
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Te Pti Mori says it will continue to stand its ground as three MPs begin their record suspensions. , Political Reporter Te Pāti Māori says it will continue to stand its ground as three MPs begin their record suspensions. On Thursday night, Parliament dealt its harshest ever punishment by suspending co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer for 21 days, and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke for seven. The trio were sanctioned for their actions during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill in November. Parliament's privileges committee deemed the haka the MPs performed could have 'intimidated' others. Government parties supported the recommended suspension. Labour agreed they should face some sanction, but disagreed with the length of time the committee had landed on. Speaking to media after their suspension was handed down, the MPs said they planned to use their time away from the House to organise. 'We're going to go home and show that we stood our ground,' Ngarewa-Packer said. The party now has the Regulatory Standards Bill in its sights, and will use its time away to encourage supporters to make submissions against it. Party president John Tamihere told Midday Report the party was feeling 'very chipper' and the co-leaders would embark on a national tour. 'What we've got to do is just get out on our streets, in all our pā up and down the country, activate, organise and that's where we're going now.' Accusing Parliament of being a 'very unhealthy place' for Māori, Tamihere said the MPs would apologise once it was made clear what they would be apologising for. 'If you're saying we should apologise for bringing the tikanga that displays our reo, which is the haka, into the House… see, we're not here to just appear for tourists. We're not here to start a rugby game, you know? 'We are here to display and practice who we are and what we are. We do that 24/7, and we don't do it because somebody says, 'No, when you walk in that Parliament you've got to stop being a Māori,' for goodness sake.' Waititi said there were 'many tools in the tikanga basket' when it came to opposing further legislation. 'It will be deemed, and probably sanctioned, by tipuna who guide us in our wairua, in our ngākau, and the people who guide us outside. They sent us in to be the unapologetic Māori voice. Māori voice means that everything that we have in our kete kōrero will be used.' He said Thursday's debate got 'pretty ugly and sad', referencing Winston Peters' 'scribble' jab at his mataora. 'I would be ashamed,' Waititi said. 'If I was his mokopuna, to look over those clips and to hear him denigrate not only something that was handed down by his ancestors, but also him as a future ancestor the legacy he will leave for his tamariki-mokopuna. I'm saddened by that, but also I feel ashamed that his family have to wear that legacy.' Peters agreed the debate was sad, though for different reasons – telling Morning Report Te Pāti Māori's behaviour was unprecedented and unforgivable. Disappointed by inevitable – former leader Te Ururoa Flavell, Te Pāti Māori co-leader from 2013 to 2018, said he was disappointed at the outcome, but it was inevitable. 'Māori and haka, that is part of who we are and what we do, as an expression of a message. No different to giving a speech in the House and pointing the finger at people. You sort of think, where's the consistency here?' he asked. 'Our people understand the protocols that go with various places. Our marae are run by tikanga and protocols about what you can and can't do. And we also know that there are consequences of actions, both for better or for worse. 'That's never an issue – the issue here is when you line it all up, you'd say that the three MPs were dealt with very, very harshly and unfairly.' Flavell said Parliament had come a long way from the days where MPs could not speak te reo in the House, but even that was hard fought for. He said Parliament allowed waiata and even Christmas carols, despite not being in the rules, but with an acceptance they were in the spirit of the occasion. 'Really, can we get to a point in time to accept that Māori are tangata whenua of this land? Can we not get to a time and have a conversation about actually accepting that kaupapa Māori is okay in this land and in the halls of Parliament, for goodness sake, and to allow it to happen on appropriate occasions?' Flavell said a debate about tikanga in the House was long overdue, but said any debate must run alongside education. 'I hope that we learn from the history and allow the debate to happen, but let's do it fairly, not in the sense of allowing every party to have their vehicle. That will move nothing, it will not move the dial, and we saw that yesterday, but allow actually, a debate to inform. 'Hopefully, the committee that's digging into the whole issue of the Treaty of Waitangi will raise some of those issues. But let's have the debate. Let's allow a discussion on kaupapa Māori within the halls of Parliament, and that, I believe, will go a long way to settle some of these grievances that will not only have come up in the past, but are likely to come up in the future.'
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Te Pāti Māori says it will continue to stand its ground as three MPs begin their record suspensions. On Thursday night, Parliament dealt its harshest ever punishment by suspending co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer for 21 days, and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke for seven. The trio were sanctioned for their actions during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill in November. Parliament's privileges committee deemed the haka the MPs performed could have "intimidated" others. Government parties supported the recommended suspension. Labour agreed they should face some sanction, but disagreed with the length of time the committee had landed on. Speaking to media after their suspension was handed down, the MPs said they planned to use their time away from the House to organise. "We're going to go home and show that we stood our ground," Ngarewa-Packer said. The party now has the Regulatory Standards Bill in its sights, and will use its time away to encourage supporters to make submissions against it. Party president John Tamihere told Midday Report the party was feeling "very chipper" and the co-leaders would embark on a national tour. "What we've got to do is just get out on our streets, in all our pā up and down the country, activate, organise and that's where we're going now." Accusing Parliament of being a "very unhealthy place" for Māori, Tamihere said the MPs would apologise once it was made clear what they would be apologising for. "If you're saying we should apologise for bringing the tikanga that displays our reo, which is the haka, into the House... see, we're not here to just appear for tourists. We're not here to start a rugby game, you know? "We are here to display and practice who we are and what we are. We do that 24/7, and we don't do it because somebody says, 'No, when you walk in that Parliament you've got to stop being a Māori,' for goodness sake." Waititi said there were "many tools in the tikanga basket" when it came to opposing further legislation. "It will be deemed, and probably sanctioned, by tipuna who guide us in our wairua, in our ngākau, and the people who guide us outside. They sent us in to be the unapologetic Māori voice. Māori voice means that everything that we have in our kete kōrero will be used." He said Thursday's debate got "pretty ugly and sad", referencing Winston Peters' "scribble" jab at his mataora. "I would be ashamed," Waititi said. "If I was his mokopuna, to look over those clips and to hear him denigrate not only something that was handed down by his ancestors, but also him as a future ancestor the legacy he will leave for his tamariki-mokopuna. I'm saddened by that, but also I feel ashamed that his family have to wear that legacy." Peters agreed the debate was sad, though for different reasons - telling Morning Report Te Pāti Māori's behaviour was unprecedented and unforgivable. Disappointed by inevitable - former leader Te Ururoa Flavell, Te Pāti Māori co-leader from 2013 to 2018, said he was disappointed at the outcome, but it was inevitable. "Māori and haka, that is part of who we are and what we do, as an expression of a message. No different to giving a speech in the House and pointing the finger at people. You sort of think, where's the consistency here?" he asked. "Our people understand the protocols that go with various places. Our marae are run by tikanga and protocols about what you can and can't do. And we also know that there are consequences of actions, both for better or for worse. "That's never an issue - the issue here is when you line it all up, you'd say that the three MPs were dealt with very, very harshly and unfairly." Flavell said Parliament had come a long way from the days where MPs could not speak te reo in the House, but even that was hard fought for. He said Parliament allowed waiata and even Christmas carols, despite not being in the rules, but with an acceptance they were in the spirit of the occasion. "Really, can we get to a point in time to accept that Māori are tangata whenua of this land? Can we not get to a time and have a conversation about actually accepting that kaupapa Māori is okay in this land and in the halls of Parliament, for goodness sake, and to allow it to happen on appropriate occasions?" Flavell said a debate about tikanga in the House was long overdue, but said any debate must run alongside education. "I hope that we learn from the history and allow the debate to happen, but let's do it fairly, not in the sense of allowing every party to have their vehicle. That will move nothing, it will not move the dial, and we saw that yesterday, but allow actually, a debate to inform. "Hopefully, the committee that's digging into the whole issue of the Treaty of Waitangi will raise some of those issues. But let's have the debate. Let's allow a discussion on kaupapa Māori within the halls of Parliament, and that, I believe, will go a long way to settle some of these grievances that will not only have come up in the past, but are likely to come up in the future."
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The David Seymour ‘Bots' Debate: Do Online Submission Tools Help Or Hurt Democracy?
Article – RNZ The ACT leader's comments raise questions about how forms are changing the way people engage with politics. , (Ngāpuhi, Te Māhurehure, Ngāti Manu) Longform Journalist, Te Ao Māori A discussion document on a Regulatory Standards Bill is not, on the face of it, the sort of thing that might have been expected to prompt 23,000 responses. But in an age of digital democracy, the Ministry for Regulation was probably expecting it. The bill, led by ACT Party leader David Seymour, is controversial. It sparked a response from activists, who used online tools to help people make their opposition known. Of the 23,000 submissions, 88 percent were opposed. Seymour this week told RNZ's 'bots' generating 'fake' submissions. He did not provide evidence for the claim and later explained he wasn't referring to literal bots but to 'online campaigns' that generate 'non-representative samples' that don't reflect public opinion. Seymour has previous experience with this sort of thing. The Treaty Principles Bill got a record 300,000 submissions when it was considered by the Justice Committee earlier this year. Is Seymour right to have raised concerns about how these tools are affecting public debate? Or are they a boon for democracy? Submission tools used across the political spectrum Submission tools are commonly used by advocacy groups to mobilise public input during the select committee process. The online tools often offer a template for users to fill out or suggested wording that can be edited or submitted as is. Each submission is usually still sent by the individual. Taxpayers' Union spokesperson Jordan Williams said submitting to Parliament used to be 'pretty difficult'. 'You'd have to write a letter and things like that. What the tools do allow is for people to very easily and quickly make their voice heard.' The tools being used now are part of sophisticated marketing campaigns, Williams said. 'You do get pressure groups that take particular interest, and it blows out the numbers, but that doesn't mean that officials should be ruling them out or refusing to engage or read submissions.' The Taxpayers' Union has created submission tools in the past, but Williams said he isn't in favour of tools that don't allow the submitter to alter the submission. He has encouraged supporters to change the contents of the submission to ensure it is original. 'The ones that we are pretty suspicious of is when it doesn't allow the end user to actually change the submission, and in effect, it just operates like a petition, which I don't think quite has the same democratic value.' Clerk of the House of Representatives David Wilson said campaigns that see thousands of similar submissions on proposed legislation are not new, they've just taken a different form. 'It's happened for many, many years. It used to be photocopied forms. Now, often it's things online that you can fill out. And there's nothing wrong with doing that. It's a legitimate submission.' However, Wilson pointed out that identical responses would likely be grouped by the select committee and treated as one submission. 'The purpose of the select committee calling for public submissions is so that the members of the committee can better inform themselves about the issues. They're looking at the bill, thinking about whether it needs to be amended or whether it should pass. So if they receive the same view from hundreds of people, they will know that.' But that isn't to say those submissions are discredited, Wilson said. 'For example, the committee staff would say, you've received 10,000 submissions that all look exactly like this. So members will know how many there were and what they said. But I don't know if there's any point in all of the members individually reading the same thing that many times.' But Williams said there were risks in treating similar submissions created using 'tools' as one submission. 'Treating those ones as if they are all identical is not just wrong, it's actually undemocratic,' he said. 'It's been really concerning that, under the current parliament, they are trying to carte blanche, reject people's submissions, because a lot of them are similar.' AI should be used to analyse submissions and identify the unique points. 'Because if people are going to take the time and make a submission to Parliament, at the very least, the officials should be reading them or having them summarised,' Williams said. 'Every single case on its merits' Labour MP Duncan Webb is a member of the Justice Committee and sat in on oral submissions for the Treaty Principles Bill. He said he attempted to read as many submissions as possible. 'When you get a stock submission, which is a body of text that is identical and it's just been clicked and dragged, then you don't have to read them all, because you just know that there are 500 people who think exactly the same thing,' he said. 'But when you get 500 postcards, which each have three handwritten sentences on them, they may all have the same theme, they may all be from a particular organisation, but the individual thoughts that have been individually expressed. So you can't kind of categorise it as just one size fits all. You've got to take every single case on its merits.' Webb said he takes the select committee process very seriously. 'The thing that struck me was, sure, you read a lot [of submissions] which are repetitive, but then all of a sudden you come across one which actually changes the way you think about the problem in front of you. 'To kind of dismiss that as just one of a pile from this organisation is actually denying someone who's got an important point to make, their voice in the democratic process.'
