Regulatory Responsibility Process Constructive

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

See... NZBR_Sub_on_Options_for_a_RRB.pdf

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