Standing Orders — Sessional

I move, That the House adopt the following sessional order:

ELECTRONIC PETITIONS WITH HIGHLY DISCRIMINATORY CONTENT

Electronic petitions with highly discriminatory content

The Clerk may refuse to host an electronic petition on the Parliament website if they are satisfied that the content of the petition is highly discriminatory.

Before refusing to host a petition under paragraph (1), the Clerk must—

take account of whether the content of the petition is threatening, abusive, or insulting to a group of people by reason of any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Human Rights Act 1993, and

consult the Petitions Committee.

Standing Order 371 is read accordingly.

Functions of Petitions Committee

The functions of the Petitions Committee include responding to consultation by the Clerk under Rule 1, or by the Speaker under Standing Order 372(2).

Standing Order 378 is read accordingly.

Application to electronic petitions already hosted on Parliament website

Rule 1 applies to electronic petitions already hosted on the Parliament website when this sessional order is adopted.

Expiry

This sessional order expires 6 months after the date on which it is adopted.

This sessional order has come from a submission from the Petitions Committee that they made to the Standing Orders Committee regarding petitions with highly discriminatory content, which currently must be uploaded to the Parliament website, even without the requisite number of signatures needed to be presented to the House. There was unanimous agreement on the Standing Orders Committee that this was a matter which should be addressed. A sessional order was drafted so that we can get on with it, and then the proper changes will be made during the usual Standing Orders process.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I did think it’s appropriate to make some comments on this. The difficulty or the problem which is being addressed here is the fact that a petition that is open for signatures is almost automatically placed on the Parliament website. And there have been instances where the petitions that have been put on the Parliament website—which gives it the appearance of being approved in some way by this House—have had racist overtones or misogynistic overtones or something of that nature.

This sessional order now gives the Clerk the ability to not post those petitions on the website. In fact, those petitions could still occur on a paper form by doing the rounds in the kind of old-fashioned way. But that doesn't give it the appearance of this Parliament approving, as in any way legitimate, petitions which are outright offensive.

There is a reference in there to the prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Human Rights Act as a guiding light, but not the sole basis for refusing a petition, and this will be in place for six months, I suspect, that it will be seen as a useful innovation, and I hope will become a permanent feature of our Standing Orders, but that's not for today. But a good addressing of an issue to make sure that the processes of this House, which are open to all New Zealanders, aren't inappropriately abused.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to support this sessional order. I think this has been a debate that has gone on for a few months in relation to the realities of having a much more accessible Parliament where petitions can be hosted electronically, and, personally, I really support the fact that we have an electronic platform where people can host their petitions. It’s super accessible, it makes incredibly clear to people the instructions they have to follow, and that is amazing. But it then puts the question back to us about the nature of the petitions we’re able to host on that electronic platform.

I think the solution that we’re going to trial for the next six months is, as others have said, innovative, and I think it should allow us to explore whether we can continue with it later down the line. When I think about the realities of some petitions that definitely have been highly discriminatory, and that are less about free speech and more about just causing genuine harm, I think this is an important step.

This will not prevent paper petitions of that nature from going out in the community; I don’t think, therefore, that anyone could argue that this is about restricting people’s ability to canvass petitions in their communities. This is simply about what gets hosted on the website and what gets platformed, and, I think that giving the Clerk the ability to refuse to host an electronic petition if they’re satisfied that the content is highly discriminatory, within some pretty tight guidelines, also takes it away from partisan politics. I think that’s also a really important consideration, because I want to make sure that the public is given the certainty that partisan politics will not be coming into play in the six-month trial that we’re about to, hopefully, undergo.

Once again, the Green Party supports this, and we encourage members of our communities who care deeply about issues happening in this country to use these tools that they have at their disposal—in this case, petitions—to canvass their communities and to bring forward important issues. In some cases, this has led to legislative policy changes in Government. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.