For the first time, a Parliamentary Select Committee is blocking members of the public from emailing submissions on a Bill before Parliament to MPs.

Nearly 10,000 individual New Zealanders have used the submission tool at OpenTheBooks.nz to ask the Parliament Bill Committee to remove the secrecy provisions that protect MPs from transparency on how they spend taxpayers money on themselves and their offices.

Ministerial expenses are already subject to the Official Information Act, and the Taxpayers’ Union argues that the same should apply to opposition MPs, backbenchers, and Party Leader’s Budgets.

“Blocking Kiwis from contacting their MPs to demand transparency is nothing short of arrogant self entitlement” says Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union.

“We’ve in the past seen Select Committees try to treat thousands of emailed submissions as just one, or even try to ignore them entirely, but never have we had literally thousands of members of the public actually be blocked from contacting MPs.”

“Online submission builders are a common occurrence on both sides of the political divide all around the world. They make it easy for the public to ‘have their say’ and increase the accessibility of the political process.”

"For the avoidance of doubt, this isn't some petition or spam tool. Every submission sent is able to be edited, and is manually sent by a member of the public."

“We knew that many backbenchers and opposition MPs would be annoyed we are highlighting their precious secrecy and carve out of freedom of information law.  But to actually go as far as to block New Zealanders from sending emails to MPs is disgraceful.”

Submissions on the Parliament Bill close this Wednesday night. Regardless of whether the email block is lifted, the Taxpayers’ Union will print all submissions made at www.OpenTheBooks.nz and deliver them to Parliament.

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