Cabinet finalises controversial Regulatory Standards Bill

Wednesday, 7 May 2025

16th April 2025 Iain McGregor/The PressDavid Seymour in Christchurch giving a speech to Business Canterbury on regulation and other key issues shaping New Zealand’s business future.

Cabinet has decided on the terms of Regulatory Standards Bill, a 20-year ACT Party project that David Seymour says will expose and root out bad lawmaking.

Seymour on Wednesday morning said the proposal for the bill, which would set a “benchmark” for government regulation and create a Regulatory Standards Board to hear complaints, had been agreed by Cabinet.

The bill would now be drawn up by the Parliamentary Counsel Office and Seymour said he would seek Cabinet’s approval to introduce it to Parliament in two weeks’ time.

PM Luxon rejects David Seymour’s suggestion that the executive is too big, saying it's focused on efficiency and value for money. He also defends creating a South Island minister, calling it important for regional representation in Cabinet.

“New Zealand's low wages can be blamed on low productivity, and low productivity can be blamed on poor regulation,” Seymour said.

“In a nutshell: If red tape is holding us back, because politicians find regulating politically rewarding, then we need to make regulating less rewarding for politicians with more sunlight on their activities.

“That is how the Regulatory Standards Bill will help New Zealand get its mojo back. It will finally ensure regulatory decisions are based on principles of good law-making and economic efficiency.”

The ACT Party first put forward legislation to create such a standards regime for regulation in 2006. An iteration of the bill was voted down as recently as 2021, when Seymour pursued it as a members’ bill.

ACT succeeded, however, in convincing National and NZ First to progress the bill when forming coalition Government.

The Regulatory Standards Bill is set to enliven the debate between ACT and its opponents on the political Left, who argue the legislation is a neo-liberal trojan horse to do away with regulations that protect workers and te environment.

Seymour said it would simply make bring transparency to regulation, as the Public Finance Act brings to public spending.

“The law doesn’t stop politicians or their officials making bad laws, but it makes it transparent that they’re doing it. It makes it easier for voters to identify those responsible for making bad rules. Over time, it will improve the quality of rules we all have to live under by changing how politicians behave.”

The Regulatory Standards Bill would require ministers and government agencies to assess legislation and regulations against a series of principles: rule of law; liberties; taking of property; taxes, fees and levies; and the role of the courts.

Also to be assessed would be the consultation with those affected by the regulation, the alternate options considered, and a cost-benefit analysis.

If the lawmaking or regulation is assessed as inconsistent with any of these principles, the minister or agency would have to publicly explain this.

A Regulatory Standards Board of political-appointees would also be set up under the bill to make its own assessment of whether legislation lived up to the principles. Inquiries into this may be prompted by a complaint, a minister, or under the board’s own direction.

Its recommendations would be non-binding.

The bill would also empower the Ministry of Regulation, newly created under the National-ACT coalition agreement and of which Seymour is minister, to require information from public service agencies for regular reports on the government’s regulatory system.

Seymour was proposing that, once the bill passed, the regulatory standards regime come into effect at the beginning of 2026.

Correction: This article previously incorrectly named the Parliamentary Counsel Office the Parliamentary Cabinet Office. (Thursday, May 7, 2025, at 9.39am)