Jack Santa Barbara says ACT's proposed legislation threatens all the protections in place for a healthy population and environment. And it threatens any future protections that might be needed

By Jack Santa Barbara*

The government’s proposed Regulatory Standards Bill (a dull sounding administrative proposal), is getting scant attention in the media and public discourse. It is essentially a license to externalise environmental and social costs on to the public, and an attempt to enshrine narrow libertarian values in our legal system.

As such, it is arguably one of the most regressive and dangerous Bills ever considered.

David Seymour’s Ministry of Regulation has published a proposed Regulatory Standards Bill for public consultation. If passed, this Bill would undo decades of environmental and social protections put in place to make life better for all New Zealanders. It would also make it considerably more difficult to implement future protections for people and planet.

Not only would new regulations be weakened in the name of productivity gains.  All of the regulations now in place to protect our health and safety, at work and at home, could be scraped or weakened.  Food safety, protection of children, transport safety, pollution abatement, workers’ rights, consumer rights, and more, would all be vulnerable. 

No longer would challenges to the adequacy of regulations to protect us be subject to the courts; a proposed Regulatory Standards Board would decide. And no longer would Treaty considerations have to be made when drafting or changing regulations that affect the wellbeing of natural systems or Maori lives.

The weakening of existing regulations, and the writing of new ones with productivity gains the priority, would be yet another backwards step taken by this government in its narrowly obsessive quest for economic growth.

There are several ways of increasing productivity for a business. 

One of the simplest ways of increasing productivity is to externalise costs.  Take short cuts with worker safety; pay employees less or reduce their benefits; make employee’s work longer hours with minimal compensation; don’t worry about food contamination; don’t worry about cleaning up pollution of air, water or soil; don’t worry about the conditions along one’s supply chain; etc.

This proposed Bill explicitly prioritises productivity gains over protecting people and the environment.

Productivity gains made by externalising costs are generally larger than productivity gains by using less energy or materials, or by creating new products or services that improve people’s quality of life.  Productivity gains made by genuine innovation, where environmental protection and social gains are integrated with actual quality improvements in products, are harder to come by.  The latter require more R&D, more investment, and more time, than simply ignoring standards that protect people and the environment.

Yet, that is precisely what this Bill is designed to do – allow businesses to ignore what we know protects people and the environment, in order to provide short term productivity and profit gains, without any real improvements in products or services.

Who gains and who suffers from this Bill is important to consider.

Companies would certainly gain in the short term by reducing the costs associated with meeting regulatory standards.  But people and the affected environment would suffer the removal of the protections now in place.  And ensuring future protections will be increasingly difficult.

The financial costs of the damages done to people and the environment would be placed both on those directly affected, and the public as a whole.  Taxes would need to increase to cover the health costs of reduced health and safety protections, and to clean up the environmental damages done to our air, water and soil.

And the social and emotional costs are always unfairly placed more on those already vulnerable.

Arguments about productivity gains being good for the economy just don’t hold under these circumstances. Increased productivity and profits do not trickle down to those most in need; they benefit the few and impose costs on the majority of us.

Such productivity gains are also likely to be short lived.  It won’t be long before the costs imposed on society and local environments become glaringly evident.  What remains of New Zealand’s “Clean and Green” brand will be forever sullied, affecting the long-term viability of our agricultural exports and tourism. 

Stricter environmental and social justice standards are included in our trade agreements with the EU and other nations.  Our new trade partners will not look favourably on the weakening of these standards, and an ever-wider range of NZ businesses could be affected.

There are some specific aspects of the proposed Bill that are of particular concern.

The Bill ignores the Treaty; yet another snub to our Treaty partners.  The court’s role would be weakened. Legal challenges to breaches of the regulatory standards would be more difficult, reducing society’s role in democratic decision making.

Most decisions about any regulation would be made by a Regulatory Standards Board that would be appointed by, and responsible to, the Minister.  Another example of weakening independent expert oversight in favour of political and ideological control.

The proposed Regulatory Standards Board is offered as a way of getting decisions quickly, again, without sufficient oversight.  This is a fast-track approach writ large to minimise personal and environmental safety in the interests of corporate profits.

The Bill also refers to a set of principles that the Regulatory Board would use to decide on specific regulations or complaints about compliance.  Unfortunately, the proposed principles focus on enshrining libertarian values (property rights, a narrow definition of equality, individual freedoms, and restrictions on government and taxation).

One might have expected the principles would reflect the purpose of regulations, to protect people and the environment.  But no mention of such concerns seems evident on Seymour’s watch.

In an unabashed effort at uncovering “horror stories” about how current regulations impose some controls on business, Seymour has established a Red Tape Tip Line.  Businesses are encouraged to write in their horror stories about how regulations have interfered with their productivity and profits, to provide ammunition to support the Bill. 

Perhaps a few of us should write in to the Red Tape Tip Line, indicating how regulations have kept us safe and protected the environment we enjoy. And progressive businesses that have benefited from genuine productivity gains from improving the health and safety of workers or consumers, or the environment, might do the same.

Putting this proposed Bill out just before the holiday season, with a deadline of 8 January for submissions, is yet another indication that we have a Minister with an ideological agenda consistent with the USA’s Project 2025.

This proposed legislation threatens all the protections currently in place for a healthy population and environment.  It also threatens the development of any future protections that might be needed.

This is a proposed Bill that deserves considerably more attention from the public and the media, as it would dramatically reduce our safety and wellbeing for years to come.

*Jack Santa Barbara, PhD, is a retired CEO, academic who lectured in sustainable business, and philanthropist, with a long standing interest in sustainability issues.