“The ACT Party can’t be bothered putting an MP on one of the Justice subcommittees hearing submissions on their own Treaty Principles Bill,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said.

“It is bad enough that ACT has put New Zealand through the expense and anguish of this doomed Bill, but to then refuse to hear oral submissions is utterly disrespectful, lazy, and it shows that this is all just a stunt by David Seymour.

“It is outrageous that $6 million of the taxpayer’s money is being misused to promote ACT Party ideology, while Christopher Luxon stands idly by. For the ACT Party to refuse to send an MP to hear 30 of the 80 hours of submissions just adds insult to injury.

“Thousands of New Zealanders have spent hours carefully preparing their submissions and some have been invited to submit to the select committee. Those submitters deserve to have the ACT Party listen to what they have to say. The ACT Party’s suggestion that they have more important things to do is insulting and disingenuous,” Duncan Webb said.

Notes:

• Standing order 214(4) provides that “one member from any party not represented in the membership of a committee may participate in the proceedings of the committee.”
• The ACT Party’s response to an invitation sent to a member to the subcommittee was that “we’d like to have an additional MP to cover subcommittee B, but so far this hasn’t been workable. As you know we only have six non-ministerial MPs and we’re already stretched by our current committee obligations.”
• The subcommittee met on February 7 and 14. No other committees met on those days. It is scheduled to meet on February 25, 27 and 28 which are all non-sitting days for Parliament.

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