Compliance Cost Panel Announced
Commerce Minister Paul Swain has today announced the members of the new Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs.
"The panel was originally scheduled to be named next year," Paul Swain said "but in response to demand from business I have stepped up the timetable."
The Panel will be up and running early in the New Year.
"The role of the Panel will be to provide advice to the Government on ways to reduce compliance costs to business arising from existing central and local government regulation," Paul Swain said.
"This doesn't include tax legislation which has its own separate review programme," he said.
“The Panel will be the mouthpiece for business to government on priorities for compliance cost reduction, it will report to the Minister of Finance and me by 30 June 2001.
"I received a high number of nominations for the Panel from a well-qualified group of people with differing skill sets and backgrounds, representing a range of different sectors.
"I am confident that business will be very happy with the high calibre of the people I have selected. The members of the Panel are:
Chair - Alan Dunn – Managing
Director/CEO of McDonald’s New Zealand. McDonald’s New
Zealand includes a collection of more than 140 restaurants,
the majority operated by 49 small business owners
nationwide. The company employs more than 6,000 people and
is the country’s largest first time employer. Mr Dunn will
chair the Panel.
John Albertson - Chief
Executive of the Retail Merchants Association,
Wellington.
Andrew Fox - a sheep and beef farmer
from North Canterbury.
Chye Heng - Chief
Financial Officer and Company Secretary of Beca Group Ltd,
Consulting Engineers.
David Hoskin - Managing
Director of Dave Hoskin’s Carriers Ltd, Wanganui and
President of the Central Road Carriers
Association.
Claire Johnston - Head of MPI
Clemenger BBDO, and formerly Chief Executive of the
Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Peter
Mony - General Manager of Maxtel Software Ltd,
Auckland.
Clare Nolan - Manger of the Wellington
City Council’s Economic Development Unit.
Vaughan Renner - Chief Executive of South Pacific Tyres
Limited, a tyre manufacturing company in Upper
Hutt.
Jerry Rickman - a Managing Partner of
Beattie Rickman, Chartered Accountants,
Hamilton.
Helen Samujh - a Senior Lecturer at
Waikato University, who has an accountancy and economics
background and experience of running a small business.
"To ensure this is an inclusive process, it is proposed that the expertise and knowledge of other nominees will be drawn upon by the Panel.
"The Panel and its work form part of the Government’s broad strategy to improve the general regulatory environment for business.
"It is one of four
key compliance cost reduction initiatives that I have
recently announced. The three other initiatives
include:
1. The establishment of Test Panels, made up
largely of business people, who will audit the likely
compliance costs and assess the workability of new
regulations before they are imposed;
2. The introduction
of a requirement that each new legislative or regulatory
proposal be accompanied by a Business Compliance Cost
Statement, and that these Statements be made public;
3. A
review of the progress that has been made in implementing
the recommendations of the Commerce Select Committee’s 1998
Inquiry into Compliance Costs for Business.
“The establishment of the Panel is an extremely important initiative and one that has the potential to result in some very worthwhile gains for the business community and for the economy as a whole," Paul Swain said.
Ends