Regulatory Responsibility Bill Hearing Process Constructive
New Zealand Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr today commended Parliament’s Commerce Committee for its
constructive approach to exploring options for a Regulatory Responsibility Bill. The Business Roundtable presented a
further submission (copy attached) to the Committee today.
“We have been impressed by the Committee’s careful and thorough approach to this bill, which is particularly desirable
given its importance.”
Mr Kerr said that regulatory responsibility legislation would rank with New Zealand’s main ‘economic constitutions’, the
Reserve Bank Act and the Fiscal Responsibility Act (now part of the Public Finance Act). As such, it required close
scrutiny and broad buy-in.
“The concept of the bill breaks new ground and holds real promise for providing a better set of checks and balances on
regulatory decisions made by executive government.
“While there is now common agreement that we have too much bad, economically damaging regulation, and that tighter
disciplines are needed on regulatory departments, the key issues are what sort of statutory framework would be best to
allow governments to put in place necessary regulation while preventing harmful measures, and what independent checks
there should be on the operation of the framework.
“We believe more work needs to be done to build on the Committee’s progress to date, to test the current bill further
and to explore concerns raised by submitters and ways of meeting them. We have suggested that further work, perhaps
involving outside experts, should focus on these issues.
“The most important thing at this stage is not to rush the process but to move it forward in a way that promotes wider
understanding and agreement”, said Mr Kerr.
ENDS