The Nation's Voice Heard: Analysing 292,527 submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill

Project scoping and planning - we agreed project scope, reporting requirements and risk pathways with the Ministry at the outset. Our dedicated Relationship Manager had twice-weekly check-ins during the peak coding phase, with milestones and team capacity tracked in real time using Salesforce. 

Triaging, coding and analysis - every one of the over 300,000 submission files was individually read and categorised. A prioritised sample of 3,000 submissions was identified and then coded by our team against a thematic framework co-developed with the Ministry. Coding of submissions was managed via NVivo, specialised software for qualitative data analysis. Submissions were also entered into Leximancer, a text analytics tools that uses algorithms to map key themes in large text samples. This provided an independent cross-check that our team had captured all the key themes. 

Reporting - senior team members reviewed every theme before it was finalised and included in reporting. The final report delivered clear sentiment analysis and identified 13 themes of opposition and 4 themes of support of the Bill. Our team also completed a clause-by-clause analysis which was tailored directly to assist with the Select Committee's decision-making requirements. 

The sheer volume of the submissions required a scalable team, with real-time capacity monitoring, and quality assurance from start to finish. 

Te reo Māori submissions were interpreted by capable Māori speakers, with original text and interpretation published together for full transparency. 

Form submissions were counted in the sentiment analysis but excluded from the comprehensive analysis, ensuring that the thematic analysis reflected genuine submitter reasoning rather than campaign volume. 

We worked with the Ministry to built and test our coding framework before analysis began and kept refining it as new themes emerged. This meant we could be confident that we had captured all the different themes that were emerging. 

The Ministry needed to be kept informed, with clear escalation pathways and proactive communication about any risks and what was achievable in the timeframes. 

292,527 submissions were read and categorised - giving the Committee reliable sentiment data. 90% of submissions opposed the Bill, with 8% in support and 2% unclear or unstated. 

2,704 submissions in te reo Māori were fully included - both the original text and interpretation were published in the report, ensuring that these voices were genuinely and transparently represented. 

17 themes were captured and confirmed - providing the Committee with evidence-based analysis on why people supported or opposed the Bill. Analysis in Leximancer provided independent verification that all significant themes had been captured.