Who has been dobbed in to the ‘red tape tipline’?

Wednesday, 9 April 2025

Join the conversation in the comments below.

The red tape tipline is open for business!

Since last November New Zealanders have been encouraged to dob in the rules and regulations they think are making their lives slower, harder, and more expensive.

“We want to hear from tradies, farmers, teachers, chefs, engineers – every person doing productive work. If there’s red tape in your industry that needs cutting, we want to know about it,” Minister of Regulation David Seymour said last year, introducing the Regulation Ministry’s “red tape tipline”.

And dob in they did.

A document provided to The Post under the Official Information Act categorises the weird, wonderful and genuinely frustrating in more than 600 submissions made through the tipline. Like the struggle to get a mobile sauna permit, or the requirement of having to wear a seatbelt in a Santa parade.

The litany of complaints paint a picture of the frustrations of Kiwis trying to build a spa or pool, go camping, license their vehicles, negotiate traffic, extend their home, bake cakes for others or get a real estate license.

The most common concerns related to small food businesses, temporary traffic management, anti-money laundering rules, and building consents.

Concerns ranged from high registration and certification fees for small food businesses to the cost and complexity of temporary traffic management rules, while some raised issues with the disproportionate compliance burden of anti-money laundering regulations, and the challenges with building consents for everything from office buildings to tiny homes.

Submissions included calls to remove the ban on bikes on buses and simplifying the visa process for NZ citizens’ families, and highlighting complex regulations on first aid training, which was increasing costs.

One submission called for the scrapping of paper registration labels for vehicles, another complained about long processing times for driver licences.

The high cost of installing solar power in the face of rising energy prices was on the list, so was the lengthy consent process to establish community gardens on church grounds.

Others included a call for making buildings wheelchair accessible without extra costs, a complaint that a mobile sauna permit was hindered by council processes, and that the resource consent process for running a venue on someone’s own property was unfair.

There was concern that doctors were now charging for repeat prescriptions, that delayed alcohol licensing was causing financial strain, that formalising right of ways was costly and unnecessarily bureaucratic, that tiled shower regulations were costly and “redundant” and that there were excessive inspection requirements for spas and pools.

Also on the list: “Excessive bureaucracy for small electric boat hire”; “Santa parade health and safety requirements”; “excessive insulation thickness requirements”; “The Wellington City Milk-supply Act”; and “complex driveway regulations”.

One submission drew attention to pubs’ inconsistent pint sizes, which were reportedly sometimes smaller than advertised, and there were apparently repeated complaints of “high compliance costs for low-risk cake makers” as well as a submission on the seatbelt requirement for Santa parades.

Complaints were made about the Public Trust, local councils, the Department of Conservation, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, the Resource Management Act, the Commerce Commission, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and the Ministry of Education, among others.

According to the Regulation Ministry, the tipline has helped to alert relevant agencies of 122 regulatory issues in the most recent quarter. It was working to resolve a further 150 tips. Over 18 submissions have reportedly led to changes in regulation or improved information.

Of the submissions received, 150 were progressed to be investigated in the reporting period and 95 have been referred to the government agency responsible for the regulation.

Over 200 submissions, however, were reviewed and not progressed, due to them being unrelated to regulatory issues or were simply general feedback.

Comments are moderated during working hours and may not appear immediately.