Doublespeak is alive and well in Aotearoa NZ in 2025 and so are double standards. It is deeply ironic and dishonest to claim that your project is an attempt to setup principles that would result in better design of laws while at the same time trashing the actual lawmaking process.
Despite what it claims – the RSB project is an attempt at libertarian gate keeping and it sets up a super ministry run by Seymour and Wilkinson and their appointed friends. It’s a back door anti democratic attack on the NZ parliament disguised as something else. Most of New Zealand is not fooled at all.
This Last week there were a series of select committee hearings on the Regulatory Standards Bill at parliament. Individuals had 5 minutes to present in support (or against) and organisations get 10 minutes each. Submissions are overwhelmingly against the bill. I’ve even seen a couple of supporters who have a problem they think the bill will solve but they are not really supporters in the true sense of the word.
The irony of a parliamentary process using urgency to steam roller through a major constitutional change during a recess to pretend to be offering a way to make “better quality” laws and regulations is quite bizarre. This is double speak at work. The bill has major constitutional implications and will slow down and complicate all future lawmaking as well as be used to review all previous laws and regulations.
Sidebar: RNZ has a background story on the bill although it has to be said that it reads more like a government PR piece than as actual analysis by a media organisation who should be speaking truth to power. RNZ is however completely reliant on public funding. That has been reduced recently and has been subject to various threats by politicians on funding. The result is obvious. Seymour and Peters say it is a warning to them.
“Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour said the Government’s decision to cut $18 million from RNZ’s budget would have sent “a message” to the state broadcaster about its journalism.” Luxon says this is not true but whom do you think staff at RNZ believe?
I mention the media funding issue because it is one of the ways we have helped to preserve democracy in the past. With weakened media scrutiny as part of the context there is a real risk that the bill in its 4th version will get through and be sold as something else – to the public.
Back in November ’24 there was an 8 week period for public consultation on the latest draft version. In the view of many this was a cynical attempt to navigate a contentious set of changes through parliament over the Christmas break when regular people are busy or on holiday. Like many I submitted back in January and again a few weeks ago on the latest two stages of the process.
As Eddie Clark says in a quote from a story at Newsroom titled “Thousands of Regulatory Standards Bill submissions not read by ministry” they are not even bothering to read the submissions.
There was an impact statement that came out of that process.
“Final Regulatory Impact Statement
A quality assurance panel with members from the Ministry for Regulation, Ministry of Justice, Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment and the Treasury has reviewed the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS): Proposed Regulatory Standards Bill produced by the Ministry for Regulation. The QA panel considers that it “partially meets” the Quality Assurance criteria.
The RIS notes that the scope of the options has been limited by the Coalition agreement and Ministerial direction and as a result, alternative approaches to the proposal have not been explored in detail. However, the RIS clearly outlines the assumptions, limitations, and Ministerial objectives in a way that enables transparency and clarity about the differing views and considerations.
The information in the RIS suggests that the specific legislative changes sought in this Cabinet paper are unlikely to be the most efficient approach to pursuing the stated objectives. It highlights that, if the recommendations are agreed, regulating in the public interest may be more costly, with an uncertain impact on the underlying behavioural incentives and on the information problems that drive poor regulatory outcomes. The panel notes that the scope of consistency reviews was included after public consultation, and the RIS has limited analysis of impacts, including on local government. This additional requirement has significant estimated costs and potential for crowding out other regulatory maintenance and stewardship activity.
The Ministry for Regulation has expressed a preference for an alternative approach…”
When your own team says this you are on the wrong track
There is much more in the statement but this paragraph is also a good summary of the process so far.
There are 76 pages in the Impact statement.
It very much looks like the government and the ACT party in particular are manipulating the legislative process to get the results they want in the face of overwhelming opposition to the bill. In simple terms the bill proposes a new super ministry that can over rule the courts and all other ministers in the government.
The person in charge would be Seymour and the board – his hand picked friends who support the same libertarian and authoritarian ideals that he has. It is completely outrageous that NZ First and the National Party support even a fraction of any of this. It is the kind of anti-democratic behaviour and partisan action that should disqualify elected politicians. They are elected for the public good.
Here is video of a submission against the bill by a former Green MP – Kevin Hague. It summarises many of my own thoughts. The embedding process doesn’t work. It may have been disabled. To watch click play and fast forward to 64minutes and 45 seconds in for Kevin’s submission. (1 hr 4 minutes and 45 seconds)
Emeritus Professor Jane Kelsey of the University of Auckland was another very informed person who made a submission against the bill. She was obviously very angry at not just the contents of the bill but the abuse of process during the various stages so far. Having a select committee to review the bill ticks a box for due process but not in the way it is being done. It is a travesty to pretend that a major constitutional change can be managed in such a bad faith way.
Here is Janes submission ( 1hr 24 minutes and 7 seconds in) Embedding doesn’t appear to work.
The video archives for the 4 days of submissions should stay on the public record but it would be great to have downloads of these clips too. There is a Vimeo page for NZ Parliament that has doesn’t seem to display. Hopefully I will be able to add edited clips or embedded clips at the timestamps at a future time.
I love that everyone from Transpower to a Marist youth club had their say. And one of those kids – (about 15) said “we are coming for your vote. “The backlash is creating a generation of activists. These are unintended consequences.
It seems like all of the submissions are in good faith and well researched. These are just a small fraction of the total. There are 4 days of these submissions. Almost all of them are against the bill. That should count for something.
What should happen is that if this was a true select committee process that there would be longer submissions and changes and amendments would result. Typically when there is this much opposition the government would not support the bill any further. This country is being held to ransom by a party that got just under 8% of the vote.
It is a double speak to pretend this is about some technical law changes when it is the opposite of that.
