Bryce Wilkinson's book promoting a `Regulatory Responsibility Act' is the resource every New Zealand business has been waiting for, though few will ever know that, says ACT Commerce Spokesman, Stephen Franks.

"It is a comprehensive examination of the various attempts that have been made to cut red tape.

"From it we can understand why the Government will ignore most of what it heard from its own Panel on Compliance Costs. The Panel reported in good faith, after business people all over New Zealand put time into submissions. Yet we are getting ever increasing red tape

"The book explains that regulation is a way to pluck, and divert wealth and benefits to political supporters, without the losers being able to calculate the costs. It is often a form of tax, imposed without fair sharing of the cost, and without Parliamentary scrutiny.

"As a lawyer I find Mr Wilkinson's draft Regulatory Responsibility Bill fascinating. He is an economist and he has more respect for the rule of law, and appreciation of the benefits of good law compared with the costs of bad law, than any lawyer I know.

"A Parliamentary debate over his Bill would raise issues that our forebears considered vital, but we have forgotten.

"I think it would also carry us back toward the first world. We are being relegated to the third world by a Government that treats laws as political slogans, without caring about the consequences," Mr Franks said.

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