Roar Of Approval For Business Compliance Cutting Work
Business is giving the Ministerial Panel on cutting compliance costs the biggest thumbs up possible, the Employers & Manufacturers Association (Northern) says.
"The recommendations from Alan Dunn's committee are extremely wide ranging with virtually all of them getting huge
applause," said Alasdair Thompson, EMA's chief executive.
"The report, and the response its getting, must tell Government how critically important these issues are to business.
"The EMA endorses the call by Business New Zealand for Commerce Minister Paul Swain to keep faith with business on the
report's recommendations.
"To do this the Minister needs to have a commitment from Cabinet on a set of credible compliance cutting measures out
before the year's end.
"Such a request would not be onerous as many of the report's recommendations involve relatively small adjustments and
apply equally across several different areas.
"For example, enabling electronic interactions with Government agencies covers critical issues from tax to the
collection of statistics, hazardous substances and the RMA.
"Compliance with all of them could benefit enormously if Government simply agreed to make the cutting of business
compliance part of the terms of reference of its own e-Government (E-CAT) strategy, as the report recommends.
"We wholeheartedly endorse the call for Government to address its own adoption of electronic transactions capability
under urgency.
"Many of the report's recommendations apply equally to local government including the development of a framework to
ensure standardisation and certainty in applying for resource consents.
"We like the suggestion too for all councils to appoint a business liaison officer, and for the emphasis on training and
education programmes to ensure the rate of compliance is raised.
"As the report says in endorsing these for the HSNO Act 1996, 'we should have learnt from the repercussions of (their)
absence when the RMA was introduced.'"
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