The Regulatory Standards Bill can effectively silence, or even criminalise, dissent, even if the grounds for such dissent are robust, evidence-based and are due to concerns about health or environmental damage. At the very least, if enacted, the Bill can override current safeguards in these areas.
Regarding vaping regulations, of which there are very few already in New Zealand, these could be reduced even further, for example if the Ministry for Regulation decides such regulations threaten profitability of a corporation or the government.
The primary reason for the Bill it appears is to enable profit-making ventures to side-step usual regulations. Some regulations probably should be modified, but this Bill is NOT the way to do it, for multiple serious reasons.
I strongly recommend making a submission, brief or detailed, to the government. The deadline for submission is tomorrow as I write, so it is Monday 13 January, and may be done by email, stating name, address, contact details, whether you are representing yourself only or an organisation or group and if the latter the name of it, and the content of the submission, simply to this address,
SBconsultation@regulation.govt.nz.
or you may use the online portal provided, which requires answering many arguably loaded and quite complex questions.
The link to both the proposed Bill and the submission information is
It seems the focus is especially on overriding important components of current regulation such as RIS (Regulatory Impact Statements) which are robust but not in Bill form.
As stated, the Bill if enacted can silence dissent, as a much more moderate Australian Bill has, making any protest which could threaten economic prosperity of the nation or a corporation illegal. It actually criminalises dissent, as it meant one risked jail if for example publishing robust evidence of companies lying in the labelling of honey regarding country of origin, such that it was very likely to have unacceptably high levels of certain plant toxins. The proposed New Zealand Bill is much wider reaching, however and would undermine normal judicial processes.
That relatively few people appear to know about the proposed Bill is particularly worrying.
This is my very brief simple submission, which was emailed.
“The proposed Bill is facilitating the government's overriding RIA (Regulatory Impact Assessments) and RIS (Regulatory Impact Statements) particularly if a business case is made.
The newly formed Ministry for Regulation is to be given this power.
The government appears to believe it is using a loophole provided by RIS not being law. However, ignoring or not using proper RIS would mean the government would not be performing its primary role of a 'duty of care' which requires the acknowledgement of potential harm.
(The government appears to have decided that Treaty issues would not be affected currently in this regard as the Treaty is legislated. - note added later'..' :'but I would be highly sceptical of this.')
Also, the Ministry has stated it would not be required to provide detail about any decision, and can just cite the 'high level expectations of agencies and Ministers'.
The Bill thus appears to enable both 1. ignoring the authority, evidence-based statements and conclusions of experts in the primary areas which the RIA and RIS would involve in each case, and 2. a lack of transparency as this occurs.
For example, it can override, on the basis of financial profit for a corporation, impact assessments regarding health and the environment, such as in a mining proposal where it impacts on water essential for human use and health or has the potential to cause significant toxicity in the marine or land environment.
A 2020 description of the previous government’s Cabinet's Impact Analysis Requirements appears to recognise and address the primary areas involved and which must be taken into account in such matters. The new Ministry for Regulation 2024 protocol would not. (The last paragraph was slightly modified after submitting.)”