New Zealand / Election 2008

Tight timeframe for TPP late submissions

14:40 pm on 4 March 2016

Photo: 123rf

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has rejected a bid to have the deadline for public submissions extended by a month to 11 April.

Labour MP David Clark said the TPP text was lengthy and complicated and people should have more time to consider it. He put a motion to the committee to extend it.

The text was 6000 pages long, and people needed the time to read it, he said.

But the committee's chair, National MP Mark Mitchell, said the deadline had already been extended once.

Late submissions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

"We have a report-back date of 31 May so I guess our timeframe in terms of being able to accept late substantive submissions will relate directly to us being able to get through our work and report back to the 31st of May."