Get ready for the Regulatory Standards Bill

Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, May 11th, 2025 - 9 comments
Categories: act, david seymour, Deep stuff, human rights, treaty settlements, workers' rights - Tags:

The recent sense of shock and awe is strong.

Following on from the undermining under urgency of the current Pay Equity scheme the Government intends to introduce the Regulatory Standards Bill.

And its clear intention is to sideline the Waitangi Tribunal by again bringing forward the introduction of the Bill to undermine a a planned Waitangi Tribunal hearing.

From Pokere Paewai at Radio New Zealand:

The Waitangi Tribunal have moved forward the date of an urgent inquiry looking into the Regulatory Standards Bill to Wednesday, 14 May.

The decision follows a request from claimants Toitū te Tiriti to move the date of the inquiry forward to 13 May after it was announced the bill would be introduced to Parliament on 19 May.

The inquiry date was originally set for 6 June, which means the Tribunal would have lost its jurisdiction to review the proposed legislation if the inquiry proceeded as is.

To add to the pressure on the Waitangi Tribunal the Government has announced a review into its operation. David Seymour welcomed the announcement and said that the Government was reigning the Tribunal in and that it was time “to put the Tribunal in its place”. Given that Tribunal decisions are advisory only it is hard to understand why Act should be so upset with it.

Accelerating the introduction of the Bill to attempt and usurp the Tribunal has been tried before.

And I anticipate that the Tribunal will rightfully give the Government bollocks over the bill. Because the Bill attempts to guide the formation of law but excludes any reference to the Treaty of Waitangi. Property rights are to be sacrosanct unless they belong to Iwi.

At one level it is a shame that the Bill is not already law. The consultation document provided that “the law should not adversely affect rights and liberties, or impose obligations, retrospectively”. It would be good if David Seymour could explain how the changes to Pay Equity complied with this principle.

But the proposal is deeply troubling. The consultation document proposed the following principle for the bill:

Legislation should not unduly diminish a personʼs liberty, personal security, freedom of choice or action, or rights to own, use, and dispose of property, except as is necessary to provide for, or protect, any such liberty, freedom, or right of another person.

And there is the further proposal that “fair compensation for the taking or impairment [of property rights] is provided to the owner”.

There is no room for collective rights under these principles. And measures to enhance environmental protection would be significantly limited by the need to pay private compensation if this was enacted.

The proposal reads unsurprisingly like core Atlas Network values and was supported by the New Zealand Initiative which described the measure as a “modest transparency measure” that “will better inform the public about laws and regulations likely to make New Zealanders worse off”.

The measure to exclude the Treaty is clearly deliberate. Collective rights do not get a look in.

Already New Zealanders have rejected the proposal. The Herald reported that 88% of submitters to the consultation document opposed the bill, with just 0.33% supporting or partially supporting it. The rest didn’t have a clear position.

The fight against this proposal is potentially as important as that against the Treaty Principles Bill.

If this measure is passed it could significantly affect the Government’s ability to govern, undermine Treaty rights and skewer the legal system away from collective rights and responsibilities to a Atlas inspired preference to private rights over everything else.

Get ready to submit. In opposition.

9 comments on “Get ready for the Regulatory Standards Bill ”

  1. Patricia Bremner 1
    11 May 2025 at 1:02 pm

    What are our options Micky?

    Many of us are so worn down by the "sorted' crowd’s agenda.

    It is like being in front of a steam roller with our feet in quick sand.

    We need an island of sanity, a group of parties promising to reverse all Atlas agenda moves.

    Reply
  2. Barfly 2
    11 May 2025 at 2:01 pm

    It almost seems the world is speed running fascism.

    Reply
  3. Bearded Git 3
    11 May 2025 at 2:16 pm

    Under this legislation, where property rights are paramount, a person could build a massive ugly monstrosity on their rural land and the (say) 4 neighbours to the property would have no right to object during the planning stage. The public would also have no say.

    The values of the 4 neighbours property would be significantly reduced due to the effects of the monstrosity. The wider public's enjoyment of the landscape would be diminished.

    That sounds like taking rights away from people and the general public to me.

    Reply
  4. feijoa 4
    11 May 2025 at 3:32 pm

    If you think about undoing regulation in NZ

    Just think

    Leaky Homes

    Leaky homes will just be the tip of the iceberg if this lot have their way.

    The general philosophy of the Bill doesn't even touch on Health and Safety and why we need H&S regulation. The whole thing is abhorrent.

    Reply
  5. ExpertCant 5
    11 May 2025 at 5:56 pm

    The author states that "Given that Tribunal decisions are advisory only it is hard to understand why Act should be so upset with it." Equally, the provisions of the Regulatory Standards Bill are also advisory only – so it is hard to see why the left are so upset with it.

    Reply
    • joe90 5.1
      11 May 2025 at 8:57 pm

      so it is hard to see why the left are so upset with it.

      This lefty is upset by insincere hypocrites intending to retrospectively change, under urgency, the Equal Pay Act 2020, and then hamstring future Parliaments.

      /

      6 Principles

      (1)

      The principles of responsible regulation are that, except as provided in subsection (2), legislation should—

      Rule of law

      (a)

      be consistent with the following aspects of the rule of law:

      (i)

      the law should be clear and accessible:

      (ii)

      the law should not adversely affect rights and liberties, or impose obligations, retrospectively:

      (iii)

      every person is equal before the law:

      (iv)

      issues of legal right and liability should be resolved by the application of law, rather than the exercise of administrative discretion:

      https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/member/2021/0027/latest/whole.html#LMS477253

      Reply
      • ExpertCant 5.1.1
        12 May 2025 at 11:26 am

        I do not understand, if you are opposed to retrospective law, surely this Bill would add more scrutiny to any future government imposing retrospective law? Or are you simply upset that a government is hypocritical, and if so, which government was not hypocritical? Also, you completely missed the point that this Bill only has declaratory powers (similar to the Waitangi Tribunal) and therefore it does not "hamstring future Parliaments."

        Reply
        • Res Publica 5.1.1.1
          12 May 2025 at 11:52 am

          Because, funnily enough, there’s a massive difference between applying law retroactively and doing what this government has just done by extinguishing a raft of legitimate legal claims under urgency, without consultation, debate, or democratic scrutiny.

          This isn't some high-minded philosophical exercise about parliamentary sovereignty. It’s a gutless, cynical, and authoritarian maneuver that cuts off access to justice for people who acted in good faith under the law as it stood. That’s not just bad process: it’s a direct attack on the rule of law.

          And let’s talk about this “it only has declaratory powers” nonsense. For now? Sure. But anyone who’s read a single submission to a select committee knows exactly how malleable legislation becomes once it's in the machine. There is nothing stopping this Bill from being amended to expand its powers, and no reason to believe it won’t be, especially given the precedent this government is setting.

          Even if the Bill stays as-is, the chilling effect will be real. It establishes a parallel review body—not the judiciary, but a panel of ministerial appointees—political stooges, handpicked to re-litigate the decisions of elected governments. That’s not oversight. That’s control.

          It’s a signal to future governments: Don’t be bold. Don’t challenge the status quo. Don’t try to govern in the public interest, or we’ll send in the Review Board. And it gives the powerful: those with money, legacy assets, and entrenched interests, a permanent thumb on the scale.

          Because you can bet a sizable chunk of Nicola Willis’ Cook Strait ferry cost overrun that every property developer in the country is already salivating at the prospect of having their version of “property rights” enshrined in law—enshrined in a way that shields wealth and entrenched interests from future policy change.

          Well, them, and their lawyers.

          The real winners of this Bill aren’t the everyday New Zealanders it supposedly protects. It’s the consultants, the corporate litigators, and the asset-holders who’ll use this new review body to challenge, delay, and water down anything that threatens their bottom line. Housing reform? Climate adaptation? Urban density? Water regulation? Forget it—they’ve just been handed a new legal weapon.

          This isn’t about fairness. It’s not even about freedom. It’s about locking in the power of those who already have it, and making damn sure the rest of us can’t do anything to shift the balance.

          You want to talk hypocrisy? Let’s start with a party that once screamed about overreach and now rewrites the rules when the law becomes inconvenient. This isn't constitutional principle—it's raw power dressed up in process. And anyone defending it should stop pretending otherwise.

          Reply

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