The Aotearoa New Zealand Climate and Health Council, OraTaiao, condemns the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s recommendation that the Government’s anti-democratic Regulatory Standards Bill be passed. The recommendation was made public today with the release of the Committee’s report on the Bill.
“The Regulatory Standards Bill threatens to undermine our collective well-being, our people’s health, our work to respond to climate change and will worsen inequities by eroding the democratic and social fabric of Aotearoa New Zealand,” says OraTaiao Convenor Dr Summer Wright.
“The process of the Bill’s development and subsequent consultation have been cynical and disgraceful.”
“And now the Coalition members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee have essentially ignored the vast majority of the public, including more than 150,000 submitters, who oppose this anti-democratic bill and sought to make themselves heard by the Government.”
“This appalling process included the National Party signing the country up in its coalition agreement to a dramatically anti-democratic law that had been rejected by National and Labour-led Governments multiple times in the past and included the ACT Party targeting individual New Zealanders who spoke in opposition to the Bill with online ridicule.”
OraTaiao says the Bill is the cornerstone of this Coalition Government’s ongoing efforts to concentrate power and wealth through the prioritisation of private, commercial interests over the rights and needs of the public. The same approach has been seen in the Fast-Track Approvals Act, the Treaty Principles Bill, and other rushed law changes, where the Coalition has sought to limit the people’s voice and the ability of local and central governments to regulate commercial interests to protect the public.
“OraTaiao condemns this Bill and condemns this decision by the Select Committee. Their recommended amendments are not enough to stop the harm to democracy and to the public inherent in this Bill. The Bill should never have got to this stage, given its consequences for our democracy and people, and the level of public opposition.”
“The Regulatory Standards Bill should be abandoned and OraTaiao, and many others, will continue to oppose it.”