The ins and outs of what is in, and out, of the Standards Bill

Otago Daily Times

4 days ago

On Thursday, as Act New Zealand leader David Seymour was touring Dunedin, back in Wellington a somewhat surreal select committee process of keen interest to him was drawing to a close.
The finance and expenditure select committee — or at least a Covid lockdown-reminiscent Zoom version of it — spent all week considering submissions on Mr Seymour's trophy legislation, the Regulatory Standards Bill.
Predictably, given the avalanche of criticism the Bill has received in the leadup to the hearings, the vast majority of submitters were implacably opposed to it, for a wide variety of reasons.
This, somewhat disingenuously, mystifies Mr Seymour, who professes the Bill — which he has tried and failed to pass in previous parliaments — is nothing more than an attempt to improve the law-making process in New Zealand.
This would be done by each piece of proposed regulation and legislation being reviewed through the lens of a set of regulatory principles ... and therein lies the fundamental issue critics have with the Bill.
Put simply, what makes a good law is a contestable idea, and what Mr Seymour thinks should underpin responsible and responsive legislation is not a universally shared concept.
The Bill does have a proposed safeguard in place — a committee to oversee its function — but many submitters also doubted it would, or could, be a truly independent watchdog.
Some things in the regulatory principles are non-contentious: few would argue with laws being consistent with existing legislation, effective, having heed of the rule of law and not impinging unnecessarily on rights.
But opposition to the Bill revolves, generally, around two things: what has been put in the Bill and what has been left out.
What has been put in are things like guarantees of property rights and personal freedoms, and what has been left out is any consideration of the place and role of the Treaty of Waitangi or environmental protections.
Bill supporters have been reassuring on this front, arguing that the principle that the public interest be considered when drafting laws and regulations covers a multitude of concerns; opponents, however, lack faith that those who will determine what the public interest actually is will truly reflect their concerns.
A variety of southerners appeared before the committee this week. The first salvo from the region was one of the few in favour of the Bill, Queenstown's Basil Walker (once briefly an Act candidate) arguing that New Zealand could not increase economic growth, and hence income from business taxation, without the sort of better governance reforms the draft legislation proposed.
Much more scepticism was evinced soon after by the Dunedin City Council, whose chief in-house lawyer Karilyn Canton said that the council was concerned the Bill was neither necessary or desirable, and overly narrow in some parts and over-simplified in others.
She said the council felt the Bill ran counter to existing Local Government Act requirements concerning consideration of Treaty of Waitangi issues and environmental concerns. It also felt that it would be required to review bylaws and plans for their compliance to the Bill's principles — ironically adding to compliance costs when the Bill purported to reduce red tape.
Speaking of the DCC, Tuesday featured a blast from the past when former mayor Aaron Hawkins (who was quite the juxtaposition to his preceding submitter, the Taxpayers Union) got his five minutes of fame.
Mr Hawkins did not hold back, rejecting the Bill in its entirety — "no amount of tinkering can save this Bill from itself" — and saying he was appalled by Mr Seymour's attacks on opponents of the legislation.
"Ultimately Mr Seymour's attacks leave me confused because either this Bill is necessary to shape all of our legislation coming through the House, as he says, or it's nothing to be worried about, as he also says, because it cannot be both."
University of Otago Wellington public health academics Calvin Cochran and Amanda D'Souza did not have the same high-flying rhetoric but each had deep concerns over the Bill, which they felt posed unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and Maori/Crown relations. The law change could stymie future legislation on tobacco and vaping control, a potential sugar tax on junk food and drinks and controls on alcohol abuse.
Mr Cochrane, a research fellow, further noted that health positive legislation — specifically the smokefree environment laws — might never have been passed had they first had to clear a scrutiny of their infringement on property rights.
That afternoon the Otago University Students Association wheeled out its representative (and Labour-backed council candidate) Jett Groshinski. OUSA, in the manner of Mr Hawkins earlier, was not pulling any punches either, calling the Bill not just flawed, but dangerous.
"Let's not sugarcoat it, this is a calculated attempt to rewrite how we make laws in this country, shifting power away from the public and towards an ideology that puts profits before people."
Completing a local body candidate-packed lineup of southern submissions, on Thursday the Green Party opted for the party's Dunedin mayoral candidate Mickey Treadwell as the frontman for its organisational submission in opposition to the Bill.
The Greens, unsurprisingly, highlighted the Bill's "egregious omission" of any reference to the Treaty, the environment and the Bill of Rights Act.
More locally, Mr Treadwell felt it would create legal ambiguity for local bylaws, plans, liquor bans and freedom camping rules.
Finally, and even more locally, he raised the spectre of residents in South Dunedin, from where he was zooming in, being ankle-deep in climate change-fuelled flooding, and asked rhetorically what the Bill's claimed improving of regulatory standards might do for them.
Well, perhaps all the paper the Bill has generated this week might be used to build bulwarks and other defences?
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