The parliamentary select committee submission process has been labelled "unfair", after a select committee accepted late submissions on a controversial Bill to reverse reserve land status in Oamaru.
Two public submissions on the controversial Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, which seeks to change the reserve status of land at Forrester Heights in Oamaru, have been accepted by the local government and environment select committee after the official closing date.
But Waitaki Ratepayers Association chairman Warren Crawford said the official closing date of July 26 should have been extended.
"I don't understand and people don't understand why they put a closing date in the paper.
"Three weeks later they were still accepting submissions, and to me that's not on. The council doesn't do that, no-one else does it, and yet they can do it.
"There's no way they can convince me that it is fair."
The fact that the two late submissions were both in favour of passing the Bill raised further questions surrounding the fairness of the process, he said.
House of Representatives select committees clerk-assistant David Wilson said the decision to accept late submissions could be made at the "discretion" of the select committee.
"In order to enable people to have input into the select committee process and to ensure they gather as much information as possible, committees may agree to receive submissions sent after the closing date. Doing so is at the discretion of the committee and there is no guarantee that a late submission will be accepted."
Two late submissions, and nine supplementary submissions, including one from Mr Crawford, had been accepted after the submission closing date, he said.
