A couple of years ago Parliament ran a trial on electronic submissions to select committees. The trial was successful, at least from my POV - it saved me from having to run down to the post office at the last minute to send a clumsy hardcopy, not to mention the hassle of printing multiple (at one stage twenty) copies). But it was wound up over a year ago, pending its introduction to all committees.
Now, that has finally happened:
Members of the public can lodge online submissions to select committees following the successful launch of the new ‘eCommittee’ system.And indeed, if you go to the call for submissions on the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill, there is now a nice button labelled "Make an online submission". Please do. If you're not sure what to say, then Fickle Cycle has one here. Which reminds me: I should get mine done. Something to do in a slow news week...Visitors to www.parliament.nz can now make online submissions on the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill or on the Inquiry into the tobacco industry in Aotearoa and the consequences of tobacco use for Maori. Pre-prepared submissions can be uploaded, or submitters can type a brief submission in the form provided. All future calls for submissions will include the ability for submissions to be made online.
[...]
The eCommittee system aims to make the select committee process more efficient and effective. All of Parliament’s subject select committees will be working with the eCommittee system by the end of 2009, which will bring their processes up-to-date through the use of modern information management practices.