Use your voice and make a submission against the Regulatory Standards Bill!   

Our vision is for an Aotearoa where our law-makers honour te Tiriti o Waitangi, protect te taiao, and make decisions that put people over profit. Aotearoa was able to unite against the Treaty Principles Bill last year, now we are asking you to do it again for our mokopuna and the future they deserve!   
 
The Regulatory Standards is all part of the Government’s plan to undermine te Tiriti and the protection it provides us all, making it easier for big corporations to exploit our communities and destroy our environment. Now is the time to take action!  

Submissions have now closed.
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What is the Regulatory Standards Bill?  

This Bill requires the Government to ensure their legislation and regulation meet a set of ACT Party principles.

These principles prioritise private property and individual rights over the collective goods we all care about – like a thriving taiao, clean freshwater, worker protection and the collective rights afforded to us all by te Tiriti o Waitangi.

This bill creates a Regulatory Standards Board, a group of officials appointed by the minister for regulation - anyone can raise a claim with this board that any law or regulation, new or old, infringes on the set of principles ACT has set out.

Why does this matter?  

While future Governments will still be able to pass legislation and regulation, Ministers will have to make a public statement to explain why their legislation does not meet the principles in the Bill.

This Bill is designed to be a political obstacle to future Governments trying to pass laws and regulations that protect the common good – our freshwater, our environment, and Māori-specific rights under te Tiriti o Waitangi.

The people of Aotearoa have made it clear on three previous occasions that we do not want this Bill. ACT tried to introduce something similar to this three times before, and it has failed to pass each time.  

When submissions were opened on the policy proposal in December, 22,000 of you submitted on this consultation and only 0.33% were in favour.

The Government should have abandoned this Bill then. But they’re taking it to select committee. So, we need to show this Government once again, that we reject the ACT Party’s agenda to trample on te Tiriti and concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few.

Key things this bill does: 

  • Establishes a set of ACT Party principles to be upheld by public sector agencies and departments, and the Ministers responsible for that legislation and regulation.  
  • Requires the responsible Minister to issue a statement of how the legislation does or does not adhere to the regulatory principles and why. 
  • Distracts the public service from core work by requiring regular review of existing legislation for its adherence to the regulatory principles in the Bill. 
  • Establishes a Regulatory Standards Board, appointed by the Minister for Regulation. 
  • Burdens public services and NGOs with intrusive requirements to gather data and information.  
 

Make a submission

Submissions have now closed. 

Tips: 

  • Your own words and point of view are enough. Your submission can be as long or as short as you like – it can just be a sentence saying you oppose the Bill.
  • Try to use your own words as much as possible and tell the Government to abandon the Bill.
  • If you want to go into more detail, below is a basic structure your submission could follow, and we’ve linked more information below.

1. Start your submission 

[I oppose the Regulatory Standards Bill] and ask the Select Committee and government to abandon this Bill. 

2. Make your recommendation  

Tell the Select Committee why you OPPOSE the Regulatory Standards Bill. We recommend putting this in your own words and making it your own.

You can start by saying who you are, what you do (for example “I am a parent, I am a teacher…”), and what you value about living in Aotearoa New Zealand (Te Tiriti, environment, looking after one another)

Then you could say for example:  

  • The Regulatory Standards Bill attempts to undermine te Tiriti o Waitangi by excluding it from principles of good law-making practice. This is constitutionally incompatible with the Crown’s obligations to te Tiriti o Waitangi.
  • The Regulatory Standards Bill will disproportionately benefit those individuals and corporations who own property, with its focus on property rights over common good.
  • The Regulatory Standards Bill will have a chilling effect on the ability of future Governments to put environmental protections in place.
  • The Regulatory Standards Bill is a waste of Parliament’s time; it is supported only by the ACT Party and a couple of right-wing think tanks. The Government should have genuinely engaged with communities and with Māori to establish strong law-making principles that are supported by all for long-lasting, bipartisan support.

3. Explain further (optional)

Draw on your own interests and what you’re passionate about for this section. You could focus on environmental protection, te Tiriti o Waitangi, impacts on wealth inequality, the mechanisms of good law-making more broadly – or all of the above!

There is no right or wrong way to structure your answer. We have some examples below you can draw from:

  • The Regulatory Standards Bill focusses on the rights of private property owners over the values we all care about: thriving taiao, clean freshwater, health and safety rules that protect workers, and reducing climate pollution. The focus on individual rights and interests will primarily benefit wealthy property owning corporations over collective interests and resources we all need to thrive.
  • The policy development behind the Regulatory Standards Bill has already breached its own principles. It has failed to demonstrate that the benefits of the legislation outweigh the costs; it has failed to undertake a fair and transparent consultation process with the truncated time for submissions at the select committee stage, and; it has failed to identify who benefits and who suffers a detriment due to the legislation.
  • New Zealand already has an excellent system for oversight of legislation, it’s independent, thorough and has existed for decades (the Legislation Design Advisory Committee). This Bill would create unnecessary duplication and uncertainty. It’s dangerous for this Government to be unwinding decades of agreement about the values that shape our laws.
  • The Regulatory Standards Bill purports to establish ‘good’ law-making practices, when the principles it proposes are far from ideologically neutral. The principles go further than what is accepted in New Zealand society, and yet, don’t include principles that we all broadly accept, such as those found in the New Zealand Bill of Rights. What principles are and are not included in the Bill, is arbitrary.

Recommendations for changes you want the select committee to make. We recommend abandoning the Bill.

  • e.g., “In light of the shortfalls and failings outlined above, I recommend the select committee abandon the Regulatory Standards Bill.”

If you haven't already, read our Green Party submission against the bill here.