Why the Regulatory Referendum Bill is Class War in action

Let’s be very clear, the Regulatory Referendum Bill is Class War in action…

The Origins: ACT’s Neoliberal Dream

To understand the Regulatory Standards Bill, we must start with ACT. Founded in the 1990s as the ideological successor to Roger Douglas’s Rogernomics project, the ACT Party exists to finish what the Fourth Labour Government started: the total commodification of public life. With its roots in Chicago School economics, ACT idolises the free market, loathes the state (except when protecting capital), and views regulation as an obstacle to “freedom” — defined narrowly as consumer and investor liberty.

In 2009, the National-ACT confidence and supply agreement commissioned a taskforce led by arch-neoliberal Graham Scott to look into “regulatory responsibility.” Its conclusion: regulation should conform to a strict set of principles designed to prevent the state from interfering too much with market activity. This taskforce gave birth to the Regulatory Standards Bill.

Rodney Hide introduced the first version in 2011. It was met with scepticism, even from centrist legal scholars, who warned that the bill would judicialise politics and constitutionalise neoliberalism. While the bill didn’t pass, its zombie-like persistence over the years shows how committed the New Zealand right remains to embedding capitalist ideology in law.

What the Bill Proposes: Rights for Capital, Not People

At first glance, the RSB reads like a list of nice-sounding principles: laws should not be retrospective, should respect property rights, should avoid creating unnecessary costs, and should be clear and accessible. But a closer look reveals its insidiousness.

1. “Property Rights” as Sacred

One of the central tenets of the bill is that laws should not “take or impair property” unless justified. This may sound reasonable, but in practice, it elevates private property above public interest. It would give courts — not the people — the power to decide whether environmental protections, housing controls, or land use laws unduly infringe on property rights. It shifts power from democratically accountable institutions to unelected judges, many of whom are steeped in commercial law and capitalist ideology.

This is a direct threat to mana whenua struggles for land justice. Imagine if land reform legislation, urban rent controls, or even a future law to nationalise fossil fuel companies were struck down because they infringed on “property rights.” The bill constitutionalises the most reactionary legal principle of all: that the right to own and profit from land or capital is inviolable.

2. “No More Than Necessary”

Another clause says that regulation should not impose “obligations, costs, or risks” that are more than “reasonably necessary.” But who decides what’s “necessary”? Under capitalism, this often means what’s necessary for profit. Environmental laws, workplace protections, or rent freezes could all be challenged for being “too costly” to business. The bill invites judicial activism — not in the progressive sense, but as a means of protecting capitalist interests from redistributive policies.

3. Parliamentary Veto in Disguise

The bill would require that every new law be accompanied by a “certification” that it complies with these principles. If it doesn’t, it must be justified — and could be challenged in court. This sets up a system where legislation is no longer judged on its social merit, but on how well it conforms to market logic.

In essence, it’s a regulatory veto wrapped in legal procedure. The aim is to make it politically and legally risky for any future government to pass redistributive or transformative laws.

Embedding Capitalist Ideology into Law

What makes the RSB especially dangerous is not just its content, but its method. It doesn’t ban socialism outright. Instead, it sets up legal roadblocks that make any move toward economic democracy more difficult, expensive, or outright unconstitutional.

This is classic capitalist strategy: not just win political battles, but rig the rules. It’s the same logic behind investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses in trade agreements, which allow corporations to sue states for regulating in the public interest. It’s the logic behind independent central banks, which remove monetary policy from democratic control. And it’s the logic behind “fiscal responsibility” laws that force governments to prioritise debt repayment over social investment.

The RSB is part of this neoliberal constitutionalism. It transforms what should be political questions – Who owns the land? Should rent be controlled? Should fossil fuels be nationalised? – into legal technicalities. It makes revolution, or even reform, illegal by stealth.

Aotearoa’s Class War by Other Means

The Regulatory Standards Bill must be understood in the context of Aotearoa’s broader class structure. We live in a settler-colonial capitalist state where wealth is concentrated among a small elite – disproportionately Pākehā – while working-class, Māori, and Pasifika communities struggle under the weight of exploitation, housing precarity, and intergenerational poverty.

In such a context, regulation is one of the few remaining tools communities have to fight back. Whether it’s tenant protections, limits on corporate land use, environmental regulations, or worker rights, regulation is one of the few levers available within capitalist democracy to redistribute power and resources.

The RSB seeks to destroy that lever. It cloaks itself in legal neutrality, but in reality, it is a ruling class weapon designed to foreclose collective action. It represents the judicialisation of class war. One where the capitalist class doesn’t need tanks or cops to crush resistance, just well-written legislation and friendly judges.

The Limits of Parliamentary Critique

It’s important to note that opposition to the RSB has come not just from the left, but from mainstream legal figures and centrists worried about the erosion of parliamentary sovereignty. The New Zealand Law Society, in a rare political statement, warned that the bill would shift power from Parliament to the judiciary, undermining democratic accountability.

But for anarcho-communists, the issue goes deeper than defending Parliament. Parliamentary democracy in a capitalist state is already limited, corrupt, and structurally skewed toward the ruling class. Our concern is not that the RSB undermines Parliament per se, but that it further consolidates capitalist power within the state, making radical transformation through any legal means even harder.

In this sense, the RSB is not an aberration but a logical outcome of a capitalist democracy reaching its authoritarian phase. As global inequality deepens and ecological collapse accelerates, capitalist states are preemptively locking in protections for the wealthy – insulating themselves from the possibility of revolt.

…the Regulatory Referendum Bill is Class War in action!

Firstly, 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!

David has responded to this by attempting to claim a ‘Bot Army’ had falsified the real numbers…

ACT leader David Seymour suggested ‘bots’ drove ‘fake submissions’ against his Regulatory Standards Bill

ACT leader David Seymour has claimed 99.5 percent of the submissions received on the Regulatory Standards Bill were created using “bots”.

The Ministry for Regulation received approximately 23,000 submissions regarding a discussion document about the bill in January.

Submissions on the bill itself are open until June 23

In summarising the feedback, it found 88 percent of submitters opposed the proposed regulations, and 0.33 percent supported or partially supported them.

But in an interview on this week’s episode of 30 with Guyon Espiner, the newly-appointed deputy prime minister claimed most of the opposing submissions weren’t valid.

“You’re smart enough to know that those 23,000 submissions, 99.5 percent of them, were because somebody figured out how to make a bot make fake submissions that inflated the numbers,” Seymour said.

The figures quoted were “meaningless” and represented nothing more than somebody “running a smart campaign with a bot”.

When asked what evidence Seymour had that the submissions were fake, he said it’s because “we’ve looked at them. Because we know what the contents of them is”.

In a subsequent written statement to RNZ, Seymour said he was referring to “online campaigns” that generate “non-representative samples” that don’t reflect public opinion.

“Any decent journalist would know the online campaigns I was referring to, I suspect the general public certainly will. Any decent journalist would also know that presenting non-representative samples as reflecting public opinion is breaching basic standards of journalism,” the statement said.

“Thankfully I think most Kiwis see right through this, which might reflect RNZ’s declining listenership.”

…ummmm. I submitted against this terrible Bill and I’m not a Bot.

What evidence does David have that Bots were creating fake submissions because using Bot Farms would be incredibly dishonest and an affront to the democratic process…

In a statement, Ministry for Regulation deputy chief executive policy Andrew Royle would not address Seymour’s claims about bots directly.

Royle said the ministry undertook a “robust process” to analyse all of the submissions received.

“Our approach was carefully designed to reflect all submissions in the final analysis, noting there were many similar points made across most of the submissions,” he said.

The ministry’s summary shows its process included a “qualitative” analysis of about 1000 individual submissions. Group submissions and submissions over 10,000 words were read separately. The rest were summarised using AI.

There was nothing in the report about bots or other interference in the submissions process.

…so David has no evidence?

Maybe he should talk to his mates at the Taxpayers’ Union, because they seem to have the details on Bot Farms.

Interestingly…

…hmmmm.

The Regulatory Referendum Bill is Class War in action!

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.

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!

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.