Now the Treaty Principles Referendum has been defeated, we must unite to fight the Regulatory Standards Bill

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
25
1228

Comrades, The Treaty Principles Referendum was the distraction, but the Regulatory Standards Bill is the real win for the Neoliberal Right…

The long neoliberal con

While all the media and popular coverage seems to have been directed towards the Treaty Principles Bill, David Seymour and Act are poised to achieve another substantive victory that has been over 20 years in the making.

The Regulatory Standards Bill, first introduced to Parliament in 2006 and reintroduced last year by Seymour in his role as the Minister for Regulation, is under the public consultation phase (quietly started on the day of the arrival of the hikoi in Wellington).

It will be taken up by parliament in early 2025.

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As detailed by Melanie Nelson, the passage of this bill (an agreement in the coalition Government’s negotiations) will help Act to realise a longstanding goal of their neoliberal policy agenda, which is to enshrine the rights of individuals, particularly property holders and business owners, over the collective good of all New Zealanders.

“The focus on the Treaty Principles Bill risks overshadowing its dull but dangerous cousin, the Regulatory Standards Bill, which is currently open for consultation,” she writes. “The Regulatory Standards Bill is the brainchild of the Business Roundtable (now the New Zealand Initiative) and has been attempted three times previously by the Act Party.”

If passed, the bill will establish a hand-picked regulatory board to ensure that law-making complies with its regulatory “principles” and to deal with complaints of violations (the public can even call in their complaints via a newly established tip line).

…ACT have tailored an economic straight jacket that will make it impossible to counter corporate interests ever again.

If this passes, Corporations will be able to stop any environmental or taxation policy they don’t like.

The radical nature of this should terrify every New Zealander.

What is most concerning is that this legislation is the Atlas Network playbook…

And who, in turn, are the junktanks? Many refuse to divulge who funds them, but as information has trickled out we have discovered that the Atlas Network itself and many of its members have taken money from funding networks set up by the Koch brothers and other rightwing billionaires, and from oil, coal and tobacco companiesand other life-defying interests. The junktanks are merely the intermediaries. They go into battle on behalf of their donors, in the class war waged by the rich against the poor. When a government responds to the demands of the network, it responds, in reality, to the money that funds it.

…Oil, coal, tobacco, right wing billionaires, the fucking Koch brothers, dark money influencing our political system so much so that we see the exact same agenda being rolled out here!

I didn’t believe most Kiwis voting National, NZF or ACT had much idea what exactly they were voting for and I don’t think the vast majority of Kiwis have any comprehension just how far right this Government actually is.

Setting up a legislative body dominated by corporate interests to test future laws against would be the end of NZ as a functioning democracy.

Sure it would be Government elected by the people, but it be run by law decided by corporations…

This regulatory board would have sweeping oversight over all proposed government regulations, with the ability to make non-binding recommendations.

Furthermore, all proposed legislation or ministerial statutes (with a compliance review of all existing laws within 10 years) would fall under the purview of the new regulatory board, severely curtailing the ability of the government to regulate harmful business practices or corporate exploitation, even if such regulation is in the public interest.

More seriously the current version of the bill has removed any role of the courts to provide regulatory oversight or interpretation; a move that seems to be explicitly targeted at blocking any incorporation of Te Tiriti into the regulatory discussion.

…so the Courts would be effectively bypassed by this new regulatory board.

At some stage New Zealand, you are going to have to either resist this slide to corporate fascism or you are merely going to be puppets to them.

 

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25 COMMENTS

    • That, and they were close conned that this iteration of National is anything like the Key years. That’s not exactly a high bar, but this lot,save a few, are f’ing useless (sorry Maureen)

    • @ – nathan-
      ‘Labour’ isn’t that. Labour is merely a roger douglas neoliberal logical fallacy. Let me be clear. There is no labour. At all.
      There is only one politic here and that’s called fascism.
      This, is a fantastic article by the ever fabulous George Monbiot and is essential reading for everyone IMO. Know your enemy. I’m fucking serious. Know. Your. Enemy. Are you you’re own worst enemy? Yes, you are.
      The Guardian
      “Rightwing populists will keep winning until we grasp this truth about human nature”
      George Monbiot
      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/13/trump-populists-human-nature-economic-growth
      “Economic inequality breeds resentment and a desire to get even. That’s what fuels support for even incompetent regimes.”
      “There is strong evidence of a causal association between growing inequality and the rise of populist authoritarian movements. A paper in the Journal of European Public Policy found that a one-unit rise in the Gini coefficient (a standard measure of inequality) increases support for demagogues by 1%.”

  2. Look past the Rights meaningless “anti-woke” smokescreen.

    As soon as you examine their economic plans, you realise the betrayal hidden behind austerity and privatisation.

  3. Tanya Waikato a Maori lawyer submission on the TPB revealed which she probably gained insight from Maureen Nelson that the TPB was a distraction from the RSB. She has been working tirelessly on SM like Fakebook, tiktok, Instagram etc.. encouraging people to submit on the RSB & to date it received ova 30,000+ submissions that closed a week after the TPB which is a lot considering that the bill hasn’t been widely public acknowledge and the process of making a submission on the parliamentary website is fraught with difficulty in how to answer the questions so instead an email to the Select Committee is sufficient which probably most have done.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7GqHS9wQOk&t=317s&pp=ygUNdGFueWEgd2Fpa2F0b9IHCQl-CQGHKiGM7w%3D%3D

  4. Also, btw and etc.
    A book by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison
    The Invisible Doctrine
    The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life)
    https://guardianbookshop.com/the-invisible-doctrine-9781802062694/
    “How can you fight something if you don’t know it exists?”
    “We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental wellbeing; the planet we inhabit – the very air we breathe. So pervasive has it become that, for most people, it has no name. It seems unavoidable, like a natural law.
    But trace it back to its roots, and we discover that it is neither inevitable nor immutable. It was conceived, propagated, and then concealed by the powerful few. Our task is to bring it into the light—and to build a new system that is worth fighting for.
    Neoliberalism. Do you know what it is? ”
    When douglas slithered out from up Labour with his ideas about privatisation and of selling our taxes paid for stuff and things to private corporations and individuals now nearly forty years ago I freaked the fuck out. I knew what the little shit was up to and I was right.
    Unless you pull your fingers out and fix our political/economic shambles up you’re going to hand your kids lives over to monsters who will be their ruination.

  5. ‘I didn’t believe most Kiwis voting National, NZF or ACT had much idea what exactly they were voting for ‘
    Martyn that could stop at ‘much idea’.
    People voting National -‘ Me not happy Labour. Keep me alive during pandemic but me not rich and Jacinda young woman(not old man). Trevor say National better at money stuff. Me vote national, see if better (if not me vote Labour again’).
    People voting ACT, ‘Gotta stop the natives taking everything away from us and forcing us to learn their language. Gotta make rich people richer so more wealth can trickle down. David Seymour pretty boy. Not silly young woman with baby!”
    People voting NZF – ‘Winston Peters got us the Gold Card. We owe it to him to keep voting NZF.’

    • Na mate National only good at taking from the middle and working class and giving to the corporate elite . Labour has always since Muldoon handed back books in better condition than National gave them to them it’s a fallacy that Labour is not good with money they just spend it on the middle and poor . The housing crisis was caused by National and no Capital gains tax . What people call the Jacinda tax was an attempt to cool the home ownership market by getting wealthy investor out and it was working, National borrowed money to replace that tax and give it back to landlords so they won’t sell the houses now ! Labour is much better at managing the economy fairly for the average person

  6. A vote for the Right at the next election is the right thing to do.
    The last Labour Government demonstrated their inability to manage our country.
    It’s that simple.

    • That’s horseshit based on what we have seen. How have they managed the economy better? Would that be higher unemployment? Wasting crap loads cancelling things and, in the case of the ferry’s, going ahead anyway? No answers on water infrastructure, no answers on electricity security, wasting time and money on trying to cancel one of our founding documents when the majority of these douche bags didn’t support the principals bill anyway. Present an actual argument Bob.

    • That’s horseshit based on what we have seen. How have they managed the economy better? Would that be higher unemployment? Wasting crap loads cancelling things and, in the case of the ferry’s, going ahead anyway? No answers on water infrastructure, no answers on electricity security, wasting time and money on trying to cancel one of our founding documents when the majority of these douche bags didn’t support the principals bill anyway. Present an actual argument Bob.

    • ‘I had another quick read of the essence of that bill. ‘
      How about a slow read and actually thinking about it.
      ‘It’s the best thing since sliced bread!’
      If people need their bread sliced for them it means they cannot be trusted with knives.

    • Act ,Greens ,TPM,are the parties that fit with a small percentage of voters so will not go up or down by much . NZF voters can be drawn by main the main parties and as Winston ages his personal votes will slide .National and Labour votes are based on their leaders likeableity then on their policies. This is why NZ does not do well .

  9. I worry that so much effort was put towards “defeating”??? the treaty bill that the usual suspects are a little punched out right now to fight a real battle. Which, i suspect, was the plan all along.

    • This was easy work. There’s plenty of fight left in the dog. Look co defining treaty principals as in creating a set of kiwi traditions takes time, effort. We have to earn the right to be called organised. It’s far more preferable fighting for what we believe in than gaining rights and traditions the easy way by just lying good.

  10. National should be stopping David Seymour causing all this racism he had no right to change the Treaty of Waitangi it was only between the Maori and the Crown.
    His trying to change the narrative is absolutely disgusting and ridiculous his twisting it with lies has caused so much hatred.
    He should be stood down because of the racism he has caused

  11. So next time the left is in power can it not trump the regulatory standards bill with the socialist cooperative principles standards bill?

    If the nz companies office and the IRD and the US IRS via the local banks can demand to know who are the beneficial owners of a company why can’t the NZ govt/public regulate a demand to know the source of funds for the junktanks and lobbyists. Who are the beneficial influencers? Like you know … ‘Transparency’.

  12. I wager there won’t be a hikoi to Wellington to stop this rotten dangerous piece of law from passing. Yet for Māori and many Pakeha this bill is just as disastrous as its predecessor the Treaty principles bill. This attack on the treaty and its principles is worse because its being quietly managed through Parliament and supported by National and NZF allowing Seymour and his Atlas /NZ Initiative to destroy our democracy. This finally is a step to far and is the result of what happens when you allow Vampire Capitalism and plutocracy to run riot with no one standing against it. So far I have heard no alarm raised , no serious debate or anyone not tainted by neo liberal outcomes and policies coming out and saying NO !

    While the CTU talks about a vision for a more equitable country and policies to support the many who feel they have no influence or rights is going to mean nothing ever again if this bill passes. I read nothing by Wagstaff warning of the danger.

    The current political and benign environment is a perfect time for Seymour to pass this into law.

    We really are in serious trouble here.

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