Hearings begin on Regulatory Standards Bill
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RNZ News
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Capping rates rises would make things 'worse not better'
Finance Minister Nicola Willis Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Capping local council rates would make the problem of paying for pipes and other infrastructure "worse not better", Labour leader Chris Hipkins says. Cabinet will year consider options to control rate rises, including capping, later this year. Finance Minister Nicola Willis told Morning Report on Monday the government wanted councils to stick to the basics and not waste ratepayers money. "We are concerned that the rates bill is a big part of the cost of living for many households, and rates have been going up very fast and are set to keep going up very fast across many councils," she said. "Councils don't always do a great job of spending your money like you would spend it. There are wasteful projects - there is evidence of that. "We want councils focusing on the things people expect them to do, which is the rubbish, the roads, the pipes, the basics - and not all the fanciful projects. "There will be pushback because when you take candy away from kids in a candy store, they don't really like it. But at the same time, we are on the side of ratepayers." Willis said councils should also look at making greater use of other funding and financing tools to pay for infrastructure. Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the reason rates were going up at the rate they was because the government abolished reforms. "The biggest contributor to rates going up around the country is the fact that our water infrastructure is in such a state of disrepair, capping the rates, in order to say well we want you to not do water infrastructure, just pushes the problem further into the future," he told Morning Report on Tuesday. "If you look at my area, Wellington .... basically in the summer you can walk around and see all the leaky pipes because it's the only green spots on the grass at the side of the road. "Simply saying 'well just don't spend money on that' is going to make that problem worse not better." Hipkins was asked if he agreed with Willis, who likened a restriction on rates to taking candy away from kids, saying there was wasteful and fanciful spending going on in councils. He said this was patronising. "Having created a situation where councils are being forced to put up the rates to pay for things like water infrastructure, the government's now trying to blame them for doing something that they really don't have a choice but to do. "Ultimately if the government don't want councils to increase rates, they've got to find another way of funding the water infrastructure that we need." Local Government New Zealand president and Selwyn District mayor Sam Broughton said rates capping could be "disastrous for communities" and leave councils without the means to fund essential infrastructure. He said international examples showed the policy that "sounds cool and might win some votes" had unintended consequences on pipes and roads. "My council, we spend 80 percent of our capital on roads and pipes. On top of that, you add in the rubbish, you add in the parks, you add in the pools that kids learn to swim in - all those things add up and are expensive." In the past three years there had been a 38 percent increase in the cost of maintaining bridges, he said. He said communities did need to look at borrowing, but also needed other tools such as the return of mineral royalties, congestion charging, road tolling, the return of a portion of GST on new builds in the district. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Watch live: Unions, former MPs, lawyers speak at Regulatory Standards Bill hearings
We will be livestreaming the day two of the submissions at the top of this page. The second day of hearings on the proposed Regulatory Standards Bill has begun at Parliament. The first day saw a wave of opposition to the bill , but the Regulation Minister was dismissing concerns. While he had not watched all of the submissions from the first day, David Seymour said finding constructive criticism of the bill was like searching "for a needle in a haystack". Groups submitting on the second day of hearings will include Toitū te Tiriti, the Taxpayers' Union, the Council of Trade Unions, Business NZ and the Law Society. ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Individuals include former ACT MP Donna Awatere Huata, former Green MPs Kevin Hague and Eugenie Sage, lawyer Tania Waikato and retired judge David Harvey. Much of the criticism on the first day was on the principles in the bill, which critics said elevated ACT ideology above health or environmental concerns. The bill lists principles that Seymour believes should guide all law-making. These include: Ministers introducing new laws would have to declare whether they meet these standards, and justify those that do not. A new Regulatory Standards Board, appointed by the Minister for Regulation, could also review older laws and make non-binding recommendations. "This Regulatory Standards Bill does not prevent a government or a Parliament from making a law or regulation. What it does do is create transparency so that the people can actually watch and understand what their representatives are doing," Seymour said. But Sophie Bond, associate professor of geography from the University of Otago, said the principles would embed "libertarian ideology" at a constitutional level. "The bill would not withstand an evaluation under even its own narrow terms. It's ill conceived, poorly drafted and undemocratic," she said. Similarly, Kirsty Fong from Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga said it would "embed the ACT Party values and principles that are rooted in libertarian ideology that elevates individualism and profit at the expense of wellbeing". Criticism was also directed at what was not in the bill: there is no mention of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This led Rahui Papa from Pou Tangata National Iwi Chairs Forum to compare it to the Treaty Principles Bill, which was voted down at its second reading earlier this year. "We think this is a relitigation of the Treaty Principles Bill under another korowai, under another cover. So we say the attacks keep on coming." Unlike the Treaty Principles Bill, the Regulatory Standards Bill has more chance of success. National's coalition agreement with ACT contains a commitment to pass the bill through into law. Natalie Coates from the Māori Law Society said Te Tiriti could not be "unstitched" from lawmaking. "Its absence isn't, of course, a drafting oversight, but a deliberate omission that bucks a clear break from constitutional best practice and our treaty obligations." She doubted, however, whether adding a treaty clause would fix the rest of the "fundamental problems" she saw in the bill. Seymour said he was yet to hear an argument about why Te Tiriti should be included. "If you can find any person that would give me a practical example of how putting the Treaty into Regulatory Standards Bill would change the outcome in a way that's better for all New Zealanders, then I'm open minded. I have been the whole time," he said. "But so far, not a single person who's mindlessly said 'oh but it's our founding document, it should be there' can practically explain how it makes the boat go faster." He acknowledged there were existing tools like Regulatory Impact Statements and the Regulations Review Committee, but questioned whether they were effective. "What we're doing is taking things that the government already does in different ways, and we're putting them together in one black letter law that governments must follow so New Zealanders have some rights. There's nothing really new here," he said. While the majority of submitters were opposed to the legislation, Ananish Chaudhuri, professor of Experimental Economics at the University of Auckland spoke in favour. "It puts ideas of effiency and a careful weighing of the costs and benefits of proposed regulation at the heart of the legislative process," he said. Former Prime Minister and constitutional lawyer Sir Geoffrey Palmer was among the first speakers on Monday - arguing it's a bizarre and strange piece of legislation. "It is absolutely the most curious bill I've ever seen, but it's got a long history, you have to remember that this is the fourth occasion that this bill has been before Parliament," he told Morning Report. "I first encountered it in 2010 when I was president of the Law Commission and chair of the Legislation Advisory Committee. "We opposed it then and it didn't go any further then ... the thing about it is it is very divisive, the number of submissions against it is extraordinary, it challenges the numbers that came out against the minister's Treaty Principles Bill." Palmer said the Regulatory Standards Bill is just as unsound as that was. He said the bill upsets the way Parliament currently operates and that is based on the ability to interfere with the present legislative process "by putting a supremo minister over the top of it". The bill takes away the capacity of portfolio ministers to be responsible for the regulatory features of bills that they design, introduce and administer, Palmer said. "That in turn, reduces the accountability of those ministers and splits it between them and this other supremo minister and it is going to be a complete shambles. "It is going to make the job of the Parliament much more difficult than it is now." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Jacinda Ardern requested to appear for Covid response inquiry
politics covid-19 26 minutes ago The Royal Commission into the country's Covid-19 response has requested former prime minister Jacinda Ardern to appear for questions. Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins spoke to Melissa Chan-Green.
