Waitangi Tribunal calls for 'immediate halt' to Regulatory Standards Bill
By Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira of RNZ
The Waitangi Tribunal has recommended the Crown immediately halt the advancement of the Regulatory Standards Bill to allow for meaningful consultation with Māori.
The recommendation comes from the Tribunal's interim report into the bill, which follows a one-day urgent hearing earlier this week.
Māori rights group Toitū te Tiriti have warned the introduction of the bill into law would diminish the Crown's obligations to the Treaty of Waitangi.
Around 18,000 people signed their online petition.
The bill is part of the National and ACT party's coalition agreement to pass a Regulatory Standards Act to 'improve the quality of regulation' and introduce principles of 'good law-making' that future and past legislation would need to be measured against.
In its report the Tribunal said the Crown accepted that the bill was created with no occurred targeted engagement, which is a violation of it's partnership obligations to consult with Māori in good faith.
That is despite it being "inherently relevant" to Māori, as it would chance the way Parliament makes laws, the report said.
The report found if the Regulatory Standards Act were enacted without meaningful consultation with Māori, it would constitute a breach of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi - specifically the principles of partnership and active protection.
The Crown would also be in breach of Treaty principles if it were to introduce the bill to Parliament without more consultation with Māori.
Without a full draft of the proposed bill, or more information on how the legislative principles would be applied, The Tribunal could not say what prejudice would likely arise from the bill's enactment in terms of changes to government law-making practice.
The Crown should meaningfully engage with Māori on whether the proposed legislation is necessary, what further exemptions in the bill may be required to protect Māori rights and interests, and the potential impact of the proposed 'rule of law' principle on government measures in place to pursue equitable outcomes for Māori, the report found.
In a statement, ACT leader David Seymour said the bill was ultimately about transparent lawmaking, less red tape and better lives.
"The Regulatory Standards Bill will help New Zealand get its mojo back. It requires politicians and officials to ask and answer certain questions before they place restrictions on citizens' freedoms."
"The Tribunal's main objection is that the Bill requires 'equality before the law', which is mentioned repeatedly in the document.
"What it doesn't understand is that equality before the law is fundamental to a functioning democracy. We can address New Zealand's problems without racial discrimination."
The Waitangi Tribunal was not a parallel government elected by New Zealanders, even if it acted like it was, Seymour said.
"The Tribunal's claims are incorrect. This law increases the transparency of bad lawmaking so New Zealanders face less red tape and regulation and can live better lives. There's not a single point in their report that disagrees with this. As their report accepts, no Treaty settlements will ever be affected by the bill."
"The Tribunal complains there was a lack of consultation with Māori. But consultation on the proposed Bill was open for nearly two months, with 23,000 submissions from the public, including 114 on behalf of iwi/hapū. And everyone, including Māori, will have another chance to submit at select committee."
The government has announced it will review the Waitangi Tribunal to refocus the "scope, purpose and nature" of the Tribunal's inquiries back to its "original intent".
Māori health leader Lady Tureiti Moxon welcomed the 33-page report and said it warned of a serious constitutional threat to Māori rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
"The Waitangi Tribunal has confirmed what many of us have been saying: that this coalition government is using its unbridled power to the detriment of our nation.
"It has calculatingly sidelined Māori, purposely ignored its Treaty obligations, and is pushing forward with legislation that could undermine areas from health equity to tino rangatiratanga."
Lady Moxon said the ACT's focus on 'equality before the law' was a dangerous oversimplification that failed to account for the impacts of colonisation.
"Equality assumes a level playing field - but for Māori, the field has been tilted against us for generations. This Bill promotes a version of fairness that ignores our history, overlooks injustice, and threatens the very laws and policies designed to address those harms that currently exist."
She said the government has treated Te Tiriti like an optional "nice-to-do", not a foundational responsibility.
"That is unacceptable. Damage to the Crown-Māori relationship is already being felt, and it will only get worse if this Bill goes ahead in its current form."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scoop
an hour ago
- Scoop
On Why The Regulatory Standards Bill Should Be Dumped
If you blinked on a recent Friday afternoon, you might have missed the passing under urgency of the first reading of the Regulatory Standards Bill. The Bill purports to be a kind of legislative WOF test that all of us should welcome, right? Not really. Instead, shouldn't we all be feeling a bit worried by the fact that – if this Bill gets passed – then nearly all of our existing laws and nearly everything that future governments might want to do will henceforth need to be vetted by ACT Party leader Davd Seymour and the members of his hand-picked, un-elected Regulatory Standards Board? Meaning: the aims and the effects of this Bill seem to be fundamentally un-democratic. That concern, however, was only one of the points raised by submitters during a two month consultation period timed by the government to coincide with the Christmas/New Year holidays, when people were otherwise occupied. Even so, 23,000 submissions were received and reportedly, 88% of them were opposed to the Bill. Besides the affront to democracy, the other objections cited by submitters were that the Bill is a solution to a non-existent problem, that it will duplicate existing review mechanisms and will make law-making more complex, more costly, less timely and less efficient by adding a needless extra layer of bureaucracy. Submitters were particularly concerned about the lack of recognition of any Treaty of Waitangi rights and interests, or of human rights concerns, or of the competing social, environmental and economic interests that should also (surely) be considered fundamental to the process of making good law. If it gets passed, the Bill will come into effect on 1 January next year. Courting trouble One of the prime concerns with this Bill is that it seems to bestow on corporations (whose 'property 'has been taken or suffered 'impairment' as a result of government law or regulation) the power to sue for compensation. Problem being, the word ' property' in this context means not simply the taking of land or buildings, but 'impairment' of profit expectations as well. Alarmingly, this compensation would be sought first from the prime beneficiaries of the relevant laws or regulations. Inevitably, this possibility would have a chilling effect on the activities of, for example, iwi or environmental groups. Ultimately, the aggrieved 'owner' could also sue the government for compensation. The text of the Regulatory Standards Bill can be found here. The section to do with 'owners' and 'impairment' and the right to compensation is set out at Part 2, Subpart 1, clauses 8c (i) (ii )and (iii). As background: the justification for treating corporates as having the same legal rights as human beings is recognised by the Companies Act 1993, and is based on something called the Salomon Principle. This yardstick was derived from an 1897 case that's widely regarded as the foundation stone of modern company law. So keep all that in mind when you read those 8c clauses that essentially seek to prohibit legislation that takes or impairs 'property' without the owner's consent unless 'fair compensation for the taking or impairment is provided to the owner; and compensation is provided, to the extent practicable, by or on behalf of the persons who obtain the benefit of the taking or impairment.' So to repeat: if say, the law or regulation primarily benefits an iwi, or Greenpeace or a local community group, the disgruntled investor can go after them first – and since the Bill is spectacularly silent on Treaty obligations, the iwi in question would be in the firing line without a leg to stand on. Especially since the Bill is vocal about an 'equality' that takes no account of privilege, historical injustice or any other socio- environmental factors. Only private property, widely defined, is treated as sacrosanct. True, the same section of the Bill does say there has to be 'good justification' for the taking or the impairment – but ultimately, who will get to decide whether regulatory actions are 'good' and /or are 'justified' ? Why... that would be the handpicked, un-elected Regulatory Standards Board. Not for the first time, justice will be a flat circle. Thankfully, plenty of people are becoming aware of this risk. Last week, Waikato University academic Ryan Ward published on Newsroom a concise, well argued account of the risks posed by the 'takings' aspect of the Bill. Ward's article is entitled 'How the Regulatory Standards Bill Could Leave Taxpayers On The Hook.' Exactly. Back to the MAI This is not a fresh concern. The ACT Party has tried (and failed) to get much the same legislation across the line in 2006, 2011, and 2021. Before, ACT had tried to give the courts the power to declare legislation to be out of sync with its own regulatory preferences, but the new version hands these same powers to the appointed Board. In fact, the history of this gambit dates back even further than 2006. The attempt to provide foreign investors with the ability to sue, intimidate and restrict sovereign governments goes back at least as far as 1997. That was when a draft version of the Multilateral Agreement On Investment (MAI) being secretly negotiated by the OECD got leaked to the public. The subsequent global protest movement ended in the defeat and withdrawal of the MAI. A few years later, the same toxic MAI provisions re-surfaced in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP, now CPTPP), and again, these provisions sparked widespread protests. Nearly 30 years ago, I wrote two articles outlining the threat to sovereign goverments posed by the similar MAI provisions now being enshrined in the Regulatory Standards Bill: ...The MAI gives foreign investors one important advantage. They will be able, under stated procedures, to sue governments for compensation if the government enacts policies that the foreign investor feels will affect it unfairly. Under almost all international treaties - the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is the other exception - only states can sue each other. Under the MAI, however, multinationals can bring actions against governments. Even the threat of litigation from a multinational with deep pockets, as the British Columbia submission points out, may be enough to deter some governments or local bodies. Such disputes then go to a panel of unelected experts, for binding arbitration. Footnote: Interestingly in the light of the current government's willingness to roll back the Crown's Treaty of Waitangi obligations, I had written in the same 1997 article how the 'stand-still' and 'rollback' provisions of the MAI ( ie. no new laws and regulations, and a phased reduction in current investment restrictions over time) might enable future governments to amend the Treaty of Waitangi. On the reservation for the Treaty of Waitangi..., for instance, [then MFAT chief Richard ]Nottage says, it is "just about inconceivable" that we would roll this back. Inconceivable? Well, could a future Act/National government conceivably desire to limit some rights currently enjoyed under the Treaty of Waitangi? If so, the MAI rollback proviso gives an excellent rationale - because it amounts to a promise to the world that we will do so. Footnote Two: In the late 2000s, I also recall arguing with then-ACT leader Rodney Hide about the Colorado precedents that Hide was seeking to implement here – like, for example, his attempt to try and impose a sinking lid on local government spending. This legal stratagem would have involved imposing a spending cap on local councils, largely based on their previous year's expenditure, and with any excess revenue having to be returned to ratepayers as an annual rebate. This Colorado-style spending cap-and-rebate scheme that ACT tried – and failed – to get accepted into law here 20 years ago would have essentially stopped councils from addressing extra social needs, fixing core infrastructure or diverting more than 1% of their annual revenue to meet emergencies. This isn't (entirely) ancient history. It forms a key part of the whakapapa of the same political party pushing the Regulatory Standards Bill, and is entirely consistent with it. Famously, these Colorado libertarian experiments in fiscal self-starvation came to a climax in the deeply conservative city of Colorado Springs, which the Politico website wrote about in 2017, in an article called 'The Short Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise.' In that case, the city's local government spending was cut back so harshly that citizens eventually had to club together to adopt and fund the street lights in their neighbourhoods, were forced to cut the grass in public parks themselves, and had to go out and hire sufficient police and firefighters. After three years of this, Colorado Springs saw the errors of its libertarian ways, and the public voted to increase taxes. Point being: the same ACT Party that thought the above disaster was an experiment worth repeating here is now trying to impose on us the Regulatory Standards Bill – which, on the face of it, would give investors the power to sue for compensation if their profit margins are affected when we exercise our right to make laws that primarily benefit us, and not them. Muddled messages True, the Bill does claim ( Subpart 5, clause 24 (1) that it 'does not confer a legal right or impose a legal obligation on any person that is enforceable in a court of law.' Yet the 'Principles' section of the Bill says ' Most of the Bill does not confer or impose any legal right or obligation on any person that is enforceable in a court of law.' [My emphasis.] There is – for starters - a legally enforceable duty on state agencies to supply information on request to Seymour's Regulatory Standards Ministry. Meaning: under this Bill, 'commercial sensitivity' seems to be a one way street by which aggrieved investors who have the ear of the Regulations Ministry can hope to gain access to information relevant to their commercial activities. Hopefully, the select committee hearings will clarify the terms of disclosure for the commercially valuable information that liable state agencies will -apparently – be legally required to hand over to Seymour's Ministry. If we're very lucky, the select committee hearings will also clarify whether the Regulatory Standards reports will be enforceable. Or will it be possible for Parliament to blithely ignore them, just as Parliament does when it ignores reports on the incompatibility of some of its laws with the Bill of Rights. (Denying prisoners the right to vote breaches their human rights. So what? Parliament says.) Currently, that's the main muddled message being conveyed by the Regulatory Standards Bill. If it is enforceable, the Bill poses a serious threat to democracy. If it isn't, and is mere virtue signalling by the ACT Party to its corporate masters, then it is an expensive and redundant waste of taxpayer time and money. What sort of beast is it? Retrospective, Much? Finally, the Bill isn't supposed to be a retrospective piece of legislation. Yet plainly it is. Part 3 (2c) (i) empowers the Regulatory Standards Board to: ...Inquire into whether existing [my emphasis] legislation is consistent with the principles of responsible regulation; Likewise, Part 2 (b) (ii) provides for — the review of the consistency of proposed and existing legislation with the principles of responsible regulation; and (ii) the disclosure of the reasons for any identified inconsistencies; What to do? On the evidence to date, the Regulatory Standards Bill should be rejected outright. Fat chance. National seems committed to this Bill, unlike its prior stance on the Treaty Principles Bill. It is also probably too much to hope that the fish-hooks in this dangerous piece of ideological dogma will be remedied at select committee. It would be an uphill fight. In the name of a bogus ' equality' before the law, the coalition government continues to act as if Māori have no special rights as indigenous people, and that the Crown has no special duties towards them. The Treaty, and customary law, say otherwise. Even the Regulations Ministry itself (at clause seven in its heavily-redacted impact report on the Bill) baulks at this glaring omission: Of significance is that the proposals do not include a principle related to the Treaty/te Tiriti and its role as part of good law-making, meaning that the Bill is effectively silent about how the Crown will meet its duties under the Treaty/te Tiriti in this space. While this does not prohibit the Crown from complying with the Bill in a manner consistent with the Treaty/te Tiriti, we anticipate that the absence of this explicit reference may be seen as politically significant for Māori and could be perceived as an attempt by the Crown to limit the established role of the Treaty/te Tiriti as part of law-making.
Scoop
an hour ago
- Scoop
Rights Aotearoa Demands Urgent Re-evaluation Of Regulatory Standards Bill's Human Rights Impact
WELLINGTON, 4 June 2025 – Rights Aotearoa, New Zealand's leading NGO devoted to promoting and defending universal human rights, today called on Attorney-General Judith Collins KC to urgently instruct the Ministry of Justice to comprehensively re-evaluate its advice on the Regulatory Standards Bill's consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The Ministry's advice concluded that the Bill "appears to be consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed in the Bill of Rights Act." Rights Aotearoa has delivered a detailed letter to the Attorney-General demonstrating that this conclusion represents a grave failure of constitutional analysis that ignores the Bill's fundamental threat to human rights, democracy, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. "The Ministry of Justice has failed in its constitutional duty to assess this Bill's impact on human rights properly," said Paul Thistoll, CEO of Rights Aotearoa. "Their analysis acknowledges that the Bill departs from how rights and freedoms are expressed in the Bill of Rights Act, yet inexplicably concludes it has no impact on those rights. This is constitutionally incoherent." Rights Aotearoa's analysis identifies multiple critical failures in the Ministry's assessment. The Ministry examined only one right superficially—freedom of expression—while ignoring clear conflicts with electoral rights, freedom from discrimination, minority rights, and the right to life. The advice fails entirely to consider how the Bill's mechanisms will create "regulatory chill," deterring future governments from enacting essential protections. Advertisement - scroll to continue reading Of particular concern is the Ministry's failure to analyse the Bill's complete exclusion of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, despite the Waitangi Tribunal's findings that the Crown breached Treaty principles through inadequate consultation with Māori and its recommendation for an "immediate halt" to the Bill's progress. The organisation highlighted how the Bill's emphasis on property rights and narrow economic efficiency will systematically undermine anti-discrimination protections. Essential measures like disability accommodations, pay equity legislation, and protections against discrimination could be challenged as "impairing" property rights. "This Bill creates a competing quasi-constitutional framework that elevates property rights above all other human rights," the letter states. "It attempts to lock in a narrow ideological worldview that will bind future Parliaments." Rights Aotearoa has committed to filing an action in the High Court, should the Bill pass in its current form, seeking a declaration that it is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. The organisation calls on the Attorney-General to instruct the Ministry of Justice to conduct a comprehensive re-evaluation that accurately analyses the Bill's downstream effects on all rights, considers its practical operation, examines the constitutional implications of creating a parallel rights framework, evaluates the exclusion of Te Tiriti, and assesses the impacts on anti-discrimination protections. "At this critical constitutional moment, New Zealanders deserve rigorous, honest analysis of how this Bill will affect their fundamental rights," said Thistoll. "The current advice is not merely inadequate—it's dangerously misleading." About Rights Aotearoa Rights Aotearoa is Aotearoa New Zealand's leading non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting and defending universal human rights. Although we have a focus on transgender, non-binary and intersex rights, we work to ensure that all people in New Zealand enjoy the full range of human rights and fundamental freedoms recognised in domestic and international law.
NZ Herald
4 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Act leader David Seymour suggested ‘bots' drove ‘fake submissions' against his Regulatory Standards Bill
David Seymour claims 99.5% of submissions were created using bots. Photo / Mark Mitchell RNZ Act leader David Seymour has claimed 99.5% of the submissions received on the Regulatory Standards Bill were created using 'bots'. The Ministry for Regulation received approximately 23,000 submissions regarding a discussion document about the bill in January. In summarising the feedback,
