Dr Eric Crampton: Send my regards to NZ’s regulators as they struggle to keep up

Last year, Cabinet papers promised that New Zealand’s agricultural-product regulator would be required to use assessments from trusted overseas regulators. The Bills now before Parliament instead say the regulator must merely “have regard to” them.

A duty to have regard to something is not a duty to use it. It can be satisfied by reading the overseas assessment, noting it, and then doing the local assessment much as before.