Property Rights over Human Rights – ACT gain massive win for Corporate power with Regulatory Standards Bill

Cabinet signs off on proposal for Regulatory Standards Bill

ACT leader David Seymour says the Regulatory Standards Bill will “help New Zealand get its mojo back”, as Cabinet signs off on a “detailed proposal” for the legislation he says will shine a light on bad lawmaking.

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

Firstly, setting submission dates on controversial legislation during summer break is an abuse of power which is ironic because the Regulatory Standards Bill is a ferocious abuse of power and flies in the face of what a functioning Democracy values.

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. It is a brake pedal for corporate interests and a gag for democratically elected change.

We require regulated capitalism not free market fantasies.

This is a blatant power grab by those fearful climate change will provoke electoral demands they don’t want to pay for!

Why on earth are we placing democratic break peddles on legislation the people have mandated by popular vote?

The Regulatory Standards Bill is an ideological vanity project that will have the real world impact of strangling off the popular will of the people!

Why on earth is this even being considered?

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.

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).

My recommendation is that this Bill be dumped immediately and reset to broaden the values beyond corporate and wealth interests…

NZs crony under regulated capitalism is forever being deregulated by donors to the Political Right (and at times the Left).

The dominant position the Supermarket Duopoly has built ensures they control the market and that the power of competition doesn’t allow for consumers to enjoy the fruits of capitalism. Their ability to introduce mass surveillance into their stores so they can exploit it highlights their total dominance.

Meanwhile migrant labour is being exploited and the lack of policing the existing rules by the Government is laid bare…

‘The system is f…..’: Immigration staff say bosses knew visa system didn’t work, and ignored it

…we can’t keep having under regulated capitalism fuelled by exploiting migrant labour that creates duopolies, monopolies and oligopolies!

We aren’t asking for sweeping new powers or over the top communism here, all we are looking for is the industry as it currently exists being properly policed!

Supermarket duopolies shouldn’t be screwing us because of a lack of competition, Migrant workers shouldn’t be getting exploited and the cost of housing should be brought down by increasing competition in the drainage industry!

There are basic solutions to all these issues, I’m not looking for socialism from the NZ Government, just basic regulated capitalism!

ACT and National have gutted MBIE because MBIE employs the people who regulate New Zealand’s poorly policed and under regulated capitalism!

We see this time and time and time again, State regulators who are supposedly policing the under regulated markets with barely enough staff to look into anything at all!

Max Rashbrooke highlighted the horror of NZs under regulated market…

The bad news is that, to investigate 200,000-300,000 terrible rentals, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has employed a frontline inspectorate numbering … 37. Each inspector will have to check somewhere between 5000 and 8000 rentals.

ACT and National’s bullshit dismantling of Capitalism’s police while expanding Corporate power tells you all you need to know about the deregulated hellscape a National/ACT monstrosity would birth into this world!

We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to corporations.

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