A National Government will repeal 100 regulations in our first six months in Government and we will eliminate two old
regulations for every new one we introduce, National’s spokesperson for Economic Development Todd McClay says.
“National understands the effect excessive regulations can have on competitiveness and productivity. We want an
operating environment where businesses can thrive and aren’t strangled by red tape.
“We need to regularly test whether regulations are still needed, remove barriers to new businesses entering markets and
streamline unnecessarily slow and expensive bureaucratic procedures.
“That’s why we will require future governments and regulatory agencies to undertake at least one regulatory
simplification process every three years that looks at reducing the complexity and number of regulations.
“Over a number of years, New Zealand has developed good processes to encourage discipline around the spending of
taxpayer money. We need to translate expected levels of fiscal discipline to regulation.
“This requires meaningful cost-benefit analysis of new regulations as well as political discipline. When Government
imposes regulatory costs on New Zealanders it should be held to account.
“National understands the importance of moving quickly to introduce new regulations for new technologies to get
established, and sometimes to disrupt old patterns. The previous National Government worked quickly to establish a
regulatory regime for New Zealand’s growing space industry.
“We will continue to work swiftly as new technologies arrive and we will remove regulations as they become redundant. We
understand the kind of regulatory environment that businesses need to succeed.
“National will restore business confidence and revive our economy.”