Why the Regulatory Standards Bill is such a dangerous piece of legislation
Regulatory Standards Bill passes first reading
The Regulatory Standards Bill has passed its first reading in Parliament.
The bill is part of the National and ACT party’s coalition agreement and would establish a benchmark for what the Act Party calls “good regulation” through a set of regulatory principles that legislation would be measured against.
Minister for Regulation David Seymour said the bill will help New Zealand get its mojo back.
“This bill is a crucial piece of legislation for improving the long term quality of regulation in our country and ultimately allowing New Zealanders to live longer, happier, healthier and wealthier lives.”
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!
Submitters oppose David Seymour’s regulation law. Why he’s charging forward anyway
David Seymour is intending to turn “up the heat on bad lawmaking” with a new piece of legislation outlining principles of good regulatory practice and establishing a board to keep politicians accountable for any red tape they impose.
A discussion document on the proposal drew significant attention over summer, pulling in more than 20,000 submissions. It coincided, however, with Seymour’scontentious Treaty Principles Bill also being out for public feedback, itself receiving a record number of submissions.
A just-released summary of that feedback found 88% of submitters opposed the bill, with just 0.33% supporting or partially supporting it. The rest didn’t have a clear position.
…only .3% supported out because it is such an egregious abuse of democratic power in favour of corporate power!
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).
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!
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?
Get off your knees to corporations Kiwi!
We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to corporations.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
a hand-picked regulatory board to ensure that law-making complies
We elect people in a democracy. Seymour obviously doesn’t care for that principle.
paaaart maaari Dave Seymour always denigrates people that oppose him he uses this method as a gotcha moment like he did when Mihi Forbes was asking him serious questions about his connection with the Atlas Network and Canadian far-right figures that he quotes and admires in his book
If Hipkins doesn’t commit to repealing the RSB and Fast Track on Day 1 and punishing anyone who took advantage of either, he is being an open coward.
Yep. And he is, so he won`t.
We didn’t but they don’t get to regulate all legislation. What Seymour is proposing is that our elected representatives in parliament are subservieznt to unelected appointees.
I’m pretty sure Steven Joyce created MBIE, and so I doubt the reason was to regulate anything. Perhaps your paragraph should read something like;
“ACT and National have gutted MBIE because MBIE employs the people who gave the appearance of regulating New Zealand’s poorly policed and under regulated capitalism, and now they simply don’t give a toss about appearances because they have declared outright war on those who are not sorted.”
Is this the clause where the parliament can’t indulge in wealth redistribution because the benefits of a tax won’t accrue to the payers of the tax?
“legislation should impose, or authorise the imposition of, a levy to fund an objective or a function only if the amount of the levy is reasonable in relation to both—
(i)
the benefits that the class of payers is likely to derive, or the risks attributable to the class, in connection with the objective or function; and
(ii)
the costs of efficiently achieving the objective or providing the function”