Parliament Journalist Phil Smith has a crack at making a submission to MPs. Here is why you should bother, how you do it, how you really shouldn't, and how his went.
Note: Since this article was published Parliament has extended the deadline for submissons to the Standing Orders Review until February 5th. This is specifically for submissions "on the House's rules and principles relating to proposals for entrenchment". This follows the kerfuffle over the Green Party amendment to entrench an aspect of recent Three Waters legislation.
...And now for the advertised programme:
Parliament is reviewing its rules, as it does before every election, and has asked the public for advice.
They call giving advice 'submitting' - thankfully, it doesn't involve bowing or begging.
When our Parliament show The House first discussed this rules review, I said I would make a submission myself; partly for the experience of it, and partly so I could share what I learned.
Listen to the radio version of this story
The Standing Orders Committee run this review, looking for improvements in how the MPs pass laws, run select committees, and scrutinise government.
It is a weird and wonderful aspect of New Zealand's Parliament that select committees regularly ask the rest of us if we have any helpful ideas on pretty much everything. Not every country does this.
As principal clerk Gabor Hellyer (who is administering the rules review) says: "It is ultimately the people's house. It's the house-of-representatives-of-the-people, and so it's important that the public has an opportunity to have a say on how Parliament works".
I made a submission and will describe the experience. (Spoiler: I loved it - can I go again?)
More usefully, this article has tips on how to make a written or oral submission, and how not to. But first, why submit at all?
What are submissions for anyway?
Parliament's select committees (small groups of MPs that focus on a subject area like Health or Finance) hear submissions on a range of things: on petitions, on proposed laws (called bills), and on inquiries they can decide to hold.
Submissions for each of those purposes vary, but have the basics in common. Most submissions (by far) are on bills - the laws being improved and approved by Parliament.
So let's focus on submissions on bills.
It's worth remembering that most bills that reach a select committee (especially government bills) are going to become law. Committees don't decide whether to kill a bill, but whether to amend it.
Drowning MPs in thousands of identical submissions doesn't really achieve anything beyond offering some dodgy stats to a political speech. …