Watch live: Opponents of Regulatory Standards Bill dominate first morning of hearings
Opponents of
the Regulatory Standards Bill
are saying it is unconstitutional, ignores Te Tiriti o Waitangi and will do the opposite of what it claims.
The bill is facing scrutiny
at select committee this week
, with about 30 hours of hearings packed into four days. ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour says it aims to improve lawmaking and regulation, but its critics - who make up the majority of submitters - argue it does the opposite.
None of the MPs who make up the committee actually showed up in person - all appearing via teleconferencing - so it was just submitters, media and staff from the clerk's office actually in the room on Monday morning.
Submitters were given five minutes for individuals and 10 minutes for groups, leaving little time for questions. Chair Ryan Hamilton said that was standard practice, but has received some pushback from some of the submitters.
ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour.
Photo:
VNP/Phil Smith
Multiple submitters on Monday called the bill "constitutionally unsound". Māori lawyer and legal academic Ani Mikaere said it had nothing to do with its proclaimed objective of improving regulation, and "its true goal is to further embed neoliberalism".
She said it would create a default non-compliance with Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the Regulatory Standards Board it created would be "unqualified, unrepresentative, and unaccountable" - serving the interests of corporate elites.
She said ACT had gained disproportionate influence over the government, and National and New Zealand First lacked a backbone and were being completely upstaged and "reduced to the role of chorus line in the ACT pantomime".
She also targeted Seymour's claim made in an RNZ interview that
bots were behind the overwhelming opposition in submissions
, calling it a "frankly childish tirade" with no evidence to back it up.
Former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer told the committee the bill was "the strangest piece of New Zealand legislation I have ever seen".
Former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer.
Photo:
VNP / Phil Smith
"It is quite bizarre, and it will not work," he told MPs. "And the idea that anything good could come from it is idle."
Sir Geoffrey said the legislation would produce "a terrific amount of extra work" and hinder ministers' objectives, all based on an "unproven ideology" that the country was over-regulated.
Appearing for the Iwi Chairs Forum, Rahui Papa said the bill amounted to a "power grab for the few, a power grab that will support the old boys' network". He said the bill had intentionally sidelined Te Tiriti o Waitangi and was "all about money over manaakitanga".
He argued the bill would negatively affect environmental and social protections.
Natalie Coates spoke for the Māori law society Te Hunga Rōia Māori o Aotearoa, and opposed it in its entirety, saying it should be "thrown in the bin, or at the very least gutted and completely rebuilt from scratch".
Natalie Coates.
Photo:
supplied
She said it was constitutionally unsound, flagrantly breached and ignored Te Tiriti o Waitangi, prioritised neoliberal values and economic liberty over collective wellbeing, and - if passed - would proceed despite significant public opposition and against official advice.
"That is not good lawmaking built with the whole country in mind. It is a minor party pushing their political waka against the tide, blind to the current beneath. Strengthening our regulatory system is of course a good aim, but the bill as currently framed doesn't do that and in fact would destabilise it - privileging some interests, sidelining others that have been longstanding legal tradition in Aotearoa."
People appearing in support of the bill were relatively few and far between by comparison. Seymour himself did not make a submission, but argued the bill was all about supporting better lawmaking and limiting the amount of poor regulation - ultimately saving the government, and therefore the taxpayer, money.
He said it forced the government to explain where it had breached principles of the bill, though critics said those principles were narrow and in support of a neoliberal viewpoint. Seymour argued opposition to the bill was just alarmism grounded in misinformation, and that its
opponents did not really understand it
.
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