It was barely a few days ago that I commented on the Treaty Principles Bill and whether we were mature enough to have the debate - whether it was going to be an informed conversation or just a lot of shouting. 

I thought that would be the last I'd have to say about it for a while, but it's a bit like the commentator's curse.

Because now, as we've seen, on the very last day of submissions, there were problems with the website - the cause of which is yet to be determined.

But there is the suggestion perhaps it was running a little slowly because a whole lot of people decided to turn their homework in at the very last minute. 

That's led to calls to reopen submissions and extend the deadline by two weeks. 

But it is kind of ironic, isn't it - that the very people who can't stand the bill, who want to see the end of it... those are the ones who want to prolong the process a bit more, when frankly, if they'd had their act together they would have been well ahead of the game. 

Incidentally on the website itself, I understand there was the option to send an email. 

And likely what's happening now is that various interest groups or political parties are churning out lots of copy and paste template submissions for their followers to send in and swamp the process with submissions. 

Submissions which I have doubt will add little if anything to the argument. 

It's simply a political move to stack the numbers as if the process itself is a referendum and the same submission will be sent again and again and again. 

I understand the committee will be meeting at 9am today to determine whether they re-open submissions and for how long. 

Look, if there were folk who, on the last day, were prevented from submitting, then in all fairness there probably should be an extension for them. If it turns out there were lots of people affected, in order to get the word out, the extension will have to be for more than a day.

But it could also turn out that very few people were affected. 

But I reckon that - for all those parties that say they can't stand the bill - secretly, they LOVE it. 

It's Christmas all over again for them to rile up their followers to make political capital and sow a few more seeds of division. 

And again, it'll have bugger all to do with the substance of what the bill is about.

As I have said before, I would wager that a significant majority of those submitting couldn't tell you the gist of any of the three clauses in the bill. 

But there we go - the political game continues. Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows. 

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