Likely changes to compensation clause in Regulatory Standards Bill
The coalition’s Regulatory Standards Bill, championed by the Act Party, is full steam ahead despite almost 99 percent of 159,000 submitters opposing the ‘good lawmaking’ legislation
The parliamentary committee tasked with scrutinising David Seymour’s controversial Regulatory Standards Bill has recommended owners only be compensated if they suffer “severe impairment” to their property at the hands of the state.
Meanwhile, the committee – at the request of NZ First – called for members of the Regulatory Standards Board to be appointed by the Governor-General (rather than the minister) to increase independence.
On Friday, Parliament’s finance and expenditure committee reported back to the House on the bill, with the majority of the committee recommending the legislation proceed. However, Labour and the Greens put forward differing views in opposition to the bill, and all three opposition parties voted against the law moving ahead.
The Regulatory Standards Bill represents the greatest trojan horse for corporate power in NZ Political history and will be the greatest victory for Corporations in NZ history since Rogernomics.
It will allow corporations to vet legislation using a very narrow libertarian interpretation of property rights over human rights.
It is dangerous and would have an immediate strangulation on democracy.
The extreme right want these powers to stop environmental legislation from catching up to their climate changing crimes.
Just so we are clear.
The Consultation time for a law as enormous as the Regulatory Standards Bill had a tiny window open over the holidays, and of the 20 000 submissions, barely .3% agreed with it!
It is Property Rights over Human Rights!
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!
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).
NZs crony under regulated capitalism is forever being deregulated by donors to the Political Right (and at times the Left).
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!
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!
Creating a Board of Corporate Warlords to vet all legislation to ensure it doesn’t impact their property rights is so crazy, why would you allow this to happen Kiwi?
Why must you squirm on the ground like a worm for corporate interests?
How much did you hate Jacinda to allow corporations to take over like this?
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“At the end of the day we are putting critical principles into lawmaking. We know bureaucrats don’t like this law. For New Zealanders that’s a good thing.”(David Seymour)
Translation from ACT speak.
‘Critical principles’ means the ability of Corporations to rape and pillage but legally.
‘Bureaucrats’ means any public servant that Seymour does not like or cannot be bought.
‘New Zealanders’ means ACT voters, supporters and donors.
‘Good thing’ means it keeps poor people poor and makes greedy rich people richer with more wealth than they can ever possibly need.
RESTORE STATE SOCIALISM IN AOTEAROA! DESTROY CAPITALISM!