New Zealand has traditionally been considered an egalitarian society, where the emphasis is on equality in social, political, and economic affairs. Democracy is thought of as "power of the people", a way of governing which depends on the will of the people.
The Regulatory Standards Bill is not compatible with an egalitarian society or democracy, and therefore I oppose it.
Prof Jane Kelsey has described this proposed Bill as being a straight jacket on what governments could do. It limits how parliament can make laws, putting constraints and rules around what laws Parliament could make. It requires all laws to be viewed and presented with a libertarian lens, when not all parties who make up the current or future governments are libertarian.
This Bill has already failed to be passed by Parliament three or four times since 2006, because it is a bad piece of law making. The Treasury has panned this law previously. The new Ministry of Regulation even calls it a bad piece of law. None of the laws passed since this coalition came into government have actually even used this proposed law on the legislation they have passed.
I looked into the ACT 2023 Manifesto to see if this proposed Bill had been campaigned on. It has, and here is the text from the Manifesto:
ACT is proposing a higher standard for new laws and regulation through the introduction of the Regulatory Standards Bill. The Bill, if enacted, would lift the standard of lawmaking by requiring the government of the day to ensure all new laws and regulations are consistent with core principles of good lawmaking. It would require politicians and civil servants ask and answer the right questions when making a law or regulation.
Questions like:
What is this law for?
Does another law already address the problem?
Have the relevant people been consulted?
Do the benefits of the law outweigh the costs?
Who pays the costs, and who gets the benefits?
Are private property rights impaired, and, if so, what is the justification?
What happens if lawmakers don’t comply?
If any group or individual feels a law or regulation has been made without adhering to these principles, they can get a declaration in court that the law was made in a way that’s inconsistent with good lawmaking. That doesn’t cancel the law, but it changes the incentives for politicians and bureaucrats. It says, if you want to make knee-jerk, populist laws without regard for the rights of people they effect, you’re going to rack up a lot of hostile declarations.
How will the Bill be passed?
The Bill as it is written won’t just be passed by a majority of Parliament. The Bill is about improving lawmaking for all New Zealanders so it is important that they have their say to pass it. Like the End of Life Choice Act, it will only become law if the majority of voters vote for it to become law in a referendum. It is the people demanding better standards of lawmaking. It is quasi-constitutional reform designed to honour the inherent dignity of each person, to allow people to do business, and build their farms and their firms to provide for the families and their friends.
ACT’s rationale is this will enable good law making. Yet, as already stated earlier, the questions ACT uses in their manifesto were not applied to any law making since the coalition was formed, and existing expectations, such as advice from Ministry officials, Treasury, the Attorney General, the Bill of Rights, the Waitangi Tribunal, scientific and academic research, etc also were ignored when drafting and putting through most if not all of the legislation since November 2023.
The sentence in the manifesto about this Bill being a disincentive for politicians making knee-jerk and populist laws is hilarious considering much of this legislation already passed and proposed falls into this definition.
In ACT’s manifesto, it states the Regulatory Standards Bills will only become law if they majority of voters vote for it to become law in a referendum. Yet when I went to the National - ACT Coalition Agreement, a referendum for the Regulatory Standards Bill is not mentioned. In the Agreement it says: Legislate to improve the quality of regulation, ensuring that regulatory decisions are based on principles of good law-making and economic efficiency, by passing the Regulatory Standards Act as soon as practicable. The Coalition Agreement fails to mention a referendum.
ACT is proposing to completely change the way this government and future governments of New Zealand based on the fact they got 8.64% of the votes in the 2023 General Election. That means 91.36% of the votes did not vote for this change of how our government makes laws. As New Zealand’s Parliament is a representative institution, this is bad law making to pass a law based on one of the smallest party’s manifestos.
This Bill favours property rights and individual rights, based on libertarian ideology, ignoring society and the collective responsibilities it has. It neuters Te Tiriti o Waitangi and mutes the Bill of Rights. Indigenous rights and environmental protections would be bulldozed by the Regulatory Standards Bill.
It would bring power to the Ministry of Regulation over all other Ministries and their Ministers and work, making the Minister of Regulation, currently David Seymour, the most powerful person in New Zealand’s government. It nullifies the role of parliamentarians in being able to debate and make good law. This is completely at odds with New Zealand’s egalitarian values and opens up the possibility of corruption.
I am alarmed by the goal of the Regulatory Standards Bill to negate many hard fought for and valid laws and regulations made over many decades. We have health and safety laws, for example, so that people can be safe in their homes, work places, places of recreation, places of education and more.
Simple regulations like monitoring what a small child eats at a daycare centre are there in case of allergies or choking. We have regulations in mining and forestry because of the high toll of injury and death in those sectors. We have the regulations we have for building products because the last time our government loosened those regulations we ended up with thousands of homes, schools, hospitals and places of work with leaky building syndrome, because we have seen the dire consequences of a fire ripping through a department store, home or guest house, because we have lived the results of a number of earthquakes and floods.
We need our government to be free to make good, sensible laws to protect people and to ensure they are enabled to lead good lives, because ultimately governments are about people, people who elect governments, who make our economy grow, who pay taxes, who politicians are ultimately answerable to.
I oppose this law in any form. There are other pieces of legislation and Parliamentary process that could improve how law making is done.
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