Property Rights over Human Rights – Only .3% of submitters supported ACTs Regulatory Standards Bill
Just so we are clear. The Consultation time for a law as enormous as Regulatory Standards Bill has 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!
Why on earth is this even being considered?
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!
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.
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Only .3%? Even 1%ers couldnt be bothered getting their Lawyers to write submissions? This really is niche legislation.
A minimum principle for any left-wing party going into the next election should be a full reversal of not just the Regulatory Standards Act (because it will be passed), but its effects.
Not just the removal of the Act under urgency, but:
* immediate reversal of any decisions made by the public service under the act
* retrospective application of the most stringent rule that might otherwise have been applied had the act not been passed
* the prosecution of Tim Jago associate David Seymour for high treason for pushing it forward