By Russell Palmer of RNZ
The Regulatory Standards Bill has passed with the backing of the coalition parties.
National and New Zealand First agreed to pass the bill into law as part of their coalition agreements with ACT.
The bill has faced fierce pushback from the public, with more than 98% of public submissions opposed.
The legislation sets down principles for law-making which would not be enforceable in court but – if a piece of law would breach them – politicians would need to explain.
It also sets up a Regulatory Standards Board to assess current laws for their adherence to the principles.
Critics say the principles are ideological, could favour big corporations and would add delays and cost to law-making.
Changes were made to the bill after the select committee stage. But constitutional experts have warned the changes do little to address the bill’s failings and the ideological way it is written means it is unlikely to have lasting impact.
The bill’s primary champion, David Seymour, argued in his speech at the final reading in Parliament that the legislation was about avoiding putting the costs of law changes on regular people.
“If you want to pursue some cause, then you need to be open about whether it is going to impact people’s value that they get from their property and the value they get from their time.”
“The costs of the restrictions are immense and they are felt throughout our society,” he said, giving the examples of teachers who he said complained they only ended up filling out forms and complying with bureaucracy, or builders who complained it took longer to get permission to build something than to actually build it.
“Where this bill leads us is a more respectful and more civilised society.”
He said the bill’s critics “have been many, but in my view poorly informed”, arguing principles missing from the bill could still be pursued “through collective action”.
“The point of the Regulatory Standards Act and its principles is to identify the costs of those laws and those collective projects on individuals.”
Repeal guaranteed – Labour
Labour’s justice spokesperson Duncan Webb promised Labour would repeal it within 100 days if it won next year’s general election.
He said the bill’s critics were “overwhelming” rather than “many”. The bill was wasteful and unnecessarily duplicated existing processes.
“It seeks to put in place a set of far-right values that come out of a theory of economics which basically says the most important right is the right to private property – it throws aside every other right we hold dear.
“What it amounts to is baking in a libertarian set of values into our law-making process. Yes, we can do it better – we can do better regulatory impact statements, we can do better departmental disclosure statements – but what we don’t need is another piece of paper … that public servants have to go and undertake.”
He argued the bill would mean hand-picked public servants second-guessing the work of Parliament.
“This is the place for deliberation, this is the place for scrutiny, this is the place for examination – and to say that there is another group of people who you have no control over, unelected people, it’s fundamentally undemocratic.”
The final irony of the bill, he said, was that it did not follow the proper rules for law-making, with “deeply flawed and skewed” public consultation, a failure to consult Māori, and had a regulatory impact statement that fell short of Treasury’s requirements.
“The idea that he stands up and says ‘I’ve got this great piece of legislation about regulatory quality’ when he doesn’t follow his own rules about regulatory quality is outrageous.”
Another Labour MP, Deborah Russell, said it was “odious” and again promised to repeal it within 100 days of the next Labour government.
Cockroaches and rats – Greens
Green MP Tamatha Paul said the bill was like a cockroach – “we keep stamping it out but it just won’t die”.
“They tried this three times before … and every single time it failed. They tried it again with the Treaty Principles Bill and what happened with that … it got chucked in the bin.
“The danger in this bill is not actually in how damaging it will be … the danger of this bill is how eye-wateringly boring and technical it is so that most of the general public aren’t necessarily paying attention to the consequences.
“That’s how a cockroach lives, isn’t it – in the dark, in the night, not in broad daylight being clear about the intentions of what they hope to achieve.
“Or maybe it’s like a rat … you see one, you think that’s it, there’s 20 more where that came from.”
She said the bill’s intention was erasing the Treaty of Waitangi, ransacking the environment, and putting corporate greed over the public good.
Paul harked back to a time in New Zealand when everyone could get good healthcare, a public education was available to all, university-level training was free, and parents could stay home and raise their children.
Māori Development Minister ‘didn’t know it was happening today’
Heading into the debating chamber, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka said he was unaware the bill’s third reading was set down for later in the day.
“Didn’t know it was happening today but it was foreshadowed through a coalition agreement, it’s happening today and I’m sure Minister Seymour will carry it through.”
He acknowledged it was a big deal for Māori, but it was among “a lot of confronting challenges in front of us right now, and the most important of which is the cost of living and the economic challenges”.
He said he hoped the passing of the bill would lead to improved regulatory oversight without being overbearing – but asked if he expected that would be the case, said he did and that’s what it had been set up to do.
“And if it isn’t, well, we’re going to have to look at it again.”
Asked if he welcomed the bill, he said: “Oh, no, I support the coalition agreement and this has come out of the coalition agreement and I stand by Minister Seymour and others as a result of that”.
Pushed on whether that meant he supported it, he only said: “I’m willing to say that this is a bill the coalition agrees to, I’m part of the coalition, I’m part of the National Party, and we support this agreement.
