Roger Partridge: When transparency becomes a threat

Imagine asking your accountant to explain their calculations – and they respond by demanding triple their fee and warning you will be embarrassed by what they find.

That is roughly what happened when New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was asked about new transparency requirements.

Richard Prebble: Some suggestions to Winston on how he should write to the UN

Mr. Albert K. Barume, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, based in Geneva, wrote to ministers alleging that the Regulatory Standards bill “fails to uphold the principles of partnership, active protection, and self‑determination guaranteed under the Treaty of Waitangi”.

David Seymour responded expressing the views most of us hold saying: “We neither require nor welcome external lectures on our governance, particularly from bodies whose understanding of our nuanced historical, cultural, and constitutional context is so clearly deficient.”

Dr Eric Crampton: Making sense of the case for compensation in regulatory bill

The Regulatory Standards Bill before Parliament provides no enforceable legal right to compensation for the cost of regulation. It only suggests that compensation can be warranted when regulation takes or impairs property. A sovereign Parliament remains free to ignore that advice, as is made abundantly clear in sections 24 through 26 of the bill.

Damien Grant: ‘Regulatory Standards Bill’s a missed chance at real reform’

Why do we pass laws? Presumably, we do so to achieve some outcome. To change what people are doing outside the refined atmosphere of the debating chamber. For the better, one assumes.

Not all laws do that. We once had a law that made homosexual relationships between men illegal and punishable with imprisonment. We currently have laws making it a crime to burn the dried leaves of certain plants and inhale the smoke and recently parliament passed a ridiculous law that banned wearing the image of a British bulldog in some settings.

Dr Eric Crampton: The case for regulatory standards

Parliament faces tighter constraints when it wants to spend money than when it wishes to regulate. The Regulatory Standards Bill would set the two on slightly more equal footing.

Legislation like the Public Finance Act matters for spending. But the budget process sets its own binding constraint.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: A response to sincerely held concerns about the Regulatory Standards Bill

This week, Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee is hearing oral submissions on the government’s Regulatory Standards Bill. I support the Bill, most submitters oppose it. So, I have been listening carefully to their reasons.

Most opponents are passionate and sincere. They genuinely believe that the Bill will make it harder for governments to act collectively in the public interest.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Apatheism - The Age of Civic Indifference

A book currently climbing the German bestseller charts caught my attention recently, not least because its title poses a question that seems at once paradoxical and profound. Jan Loffeld’s Wenn nichts fehlt, wo Gott fehlt (“When nothing is missing where God is missing”) examines a growing phenomenon across Western societies that transcends conventional secularisation.

Insights From Social Media

“Read the Fine Print, Minister” – Why Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill Might Actually Be a Win for Democracy - Steven Mark Gaskell.

While political noise swirls around co-governance and fast-track laws, another bill — quieter but arguably more powerful — is making its way through Parliament: the Regulatory Standards Bill, spearheaded by ACT leader and Minister for Regulation David Seymour. And despite the predictable outrage from the usual suspects, this legislation could finally force our lawmakers to do something revolutionary: justify their decisions.

Karl du Fresne: Echoes of Citizens for Rowling

Who remembers the Citizens for Rowling campaign? It was a concerted attempt by the Great and the Good to derail National Party leader Robert Muldoon’s election campaign in 1975.

The campaign’s backers didn’t like Muldoon’s combative, divisive brand of politics and argued that Labour’s gentlemanly Bill Rowling, who had assumed the prime ministership after Norman Kirk’s death in 1974, offered a far more desirable style of leadership.

Anglo Saxon: Moneti$ing Maoriness

Debunking Hinemoa Elder's racist agenda.

The largest industry within New Zealand is the maori grievance industry. It has the greatest turnover by far of any business enterprise in New Zealand; and here's the kicker.. its completely non profit; it produces nothing; zero; nada; completely a zero sum game. The entire industry is a mind numbingly massive tax payer funded redistribution of wealth. Our best and brightest hop on a plane.. who can blame them?

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Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time - 28 June 2025

Rest in peace, Takutai Tarsh Moana Kemp

Having only just celebrated her 50th birthday, Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp sadly passed away this week. She had been diagnosed with kidney disease last year and was receiving treatment. She was on the waiting list for a transplant. The assumption has been that she succumbed to her illness.

Professor Ananish Chaudhuri: A Less Hysterical Look at the Regulatory Standards Bill

The Regulatory Standards Bill seems to have elicited a level of outrage that seems incommensurate with what the bill actually proposes.

What does the bill seek to do?

The bill lays out a set of principles that should guide legislation. These can be summarized into three broad headings.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: What happens when good governance becomes the enemy

Something odd is happening in New Zealand. The government wants to pass a law that would require ministers to explain their regulatory decisions. That is it. Ministers would simply need to show how new rules stack up against basic principles like clarity and fairness.

Yet somehow, 88 per cent of public submissions on this modest ‘Regulatory Standards Bill’ – nearly nine out of every ten – have condemned it.

Insights From Social Media

Steven Mark Gaskell writes > Māori Unemployment? Let’s Stop Blaming Everyone Else

Here we go again. Another report telling us that Māori unemployment is 8.4% nearly double the national average. And of course, out roll the usual explanations: structural inequality, systemic racism, not enough government funding, not enough iwi investment, not enough jobs in the regions... not enough of something that isn’t personal responsibility.

Let’s just be honest for once: maybe it’s time to stop blaming everyone else and look in the mirror.

Roger Partridge: “Trickle-down,” again

Few ideas haunt economic debate as relentlessly as “trickle-down.” Perhaps it’s the appeal of attacking something that no one has ever argued.

The theory supposedly claims that making the rich richer benefits everyone as wealth “trickles down.” It sounds plausible and feels unfair – making it the perfect villain.

Tui Vaeau: Why the Regulatory Standards Bill Terrifies the Wellington Priesthood.......

The Bureaucrats Who Cried Wolf: Why the Regulatory Standards Bill Terrifies the Wellington Priesthood

There is a peculiar scent that lingers whenever the Wellington set begin howling in unison: the stench of self-preservation. One whiff of accountability and the entire public health-industrial complex recoils like a possum in torchlight. The latest outburst of institutional hysteria? The Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) - a modest, methodical attempt to reintroduce sanity, transparency, and adult judgment into New Zealand's lawmaking process.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: Dangerous belittling of New Zealanders’ liberty and property rights

Governments have many roles, but some are of fundamental importance. A vital role is to secure citizens in their persons and possessions.

I am amazed by the extent of public opposition to this long-standing principle. It has been triggered by its inclusion in the government’s Regulatory Standards Bill.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: The foundation of freedom - Why legal principles matter

This week, the hotly-contested Regulatory Standards Bill was introduced to Parliament.

Vocal critics claim that the Bill improperly elevates selected legal and constitutional principles. The subjects of their ire include the principles of the rule of law, equality before the law, personal liberty and property rights.

Michael Laws On Why It's Time To Get Rid Of The Waitangi Tribunal

Michael Laws chats on The Platform about why he believes it is time to get rid of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: Preaching to the unconverted - My regulatory revelation

Last night, I found myself standing at St Peter’s Church for the “Red Tape Hui,” not to confess my economic sins, but to proselytise about the virtues of the prospective Regulatory Standards Bill.

The event, hosted by Labour’s Greg O’Connor, MP for Ōhāriu and Assistant Speaker of the House, featured a panel including Dr Bryce Edwards from The Integrity Institute and Craig Renney from the Council of Trade Unions.