Regulatory Standards Bill will stop lawmakers considering broader public health, warns cancer specialist
The Bill is part of ACT Party leader David Seymour's coalition agreement.
Photo:
RNZ Graphic / Nik Dirga
The
Regulatory Standards Bill
will stop lawmakers from taking broader public health considerations into account, warns a leading cancer specialist.
ACT Party leader David Seymour said the Bill - part of its coalition agreement with the National Party and New Zealand First - was about requiring governments to be more "transparent" about the financial impact of legislation.
However, Auckland University associate professor George Laking, a medical oncologist and clinical Māori director in the Centre for Cancer Research, said the real intent seemed to make economic factors the only measure.
"We already have transparency around lawmaking - that's why we have regulatory impact reports," he said. "This seems more like an attempt to narrow the frame for what's considered to count as being relevant in that type of decision."
He joined other public health and legal experts, who have
criticised the bill
(in its current form) as allowing tobacco, alcohol industries or environmental polluters to seek compensation, if future legislation costs them profit.
Associate professor George Laking from Auckland University.
Photo:
Supplied
"You wouldn't want your surgeon to operate with a blunt instrument, but that's exactly the approach the Regulatory Standards Bill takes to the health needs of our society," Laking said.
"I acknowledge ACT's faith in market-based solutions, but it is well known that markets fail. That's why the government should be very careful about market deregulation, when human health is at stake."
The Bill also appeared to be a covert attack on the principles and articles of te Tiriti o Waitangi, he said.
"The situation we have is quite inequitable in terms of distribution of wealth and power in society, and that's a big reason why government needs to be able to take into account a wider set of principles, than rather just the narrow, market-based, productivity-based ones that ACT likes to focus on.
"The definition of 'liberty' begs the question of whose liberty - the ability to pollute the environment, to get people hooked on addictive substances, that's one side of the liberty coin.
"The pursuit of short term economic gain is not necessarily the recipe for an harmonious society."
Public submissions on the Regulatory Standards Bill close at 1pm Monday, 23 June 2025.
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