Peters called the powers that would be given to the new board a \u201cterrible overreach\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, Parliament and ministers and others are all working on projects and they come under the surveillance of one group of people not elected who have a sort of Star Chamber quality about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next election we will be campaigning against it, and we\u2019ll get rid of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peters said the party had done its best to \u201cneutralise\u201d the act\u2019s impacts.<\/p>\n
One of the amendments made after the select committee process related to the Regulatory Standards Board<\/a>, which would be the entity to consider the consistency of legislation with the proposed principles.<\/p>\n The legislation\u2019s steward, Seymour, told the Herald at the time that the changes to the board were made at the request of NZ First to \u201cincrease its independence and effectiveness\u201d.<\/p>\n Seymour has said the legislation is about improving transparency. He said it ensures future bills are assessed against the proposed principles, but any findings about their consistency are non-binding.<\/p>\n Previously, members of the board would have been appointed by the Minister for Regulation, raising questions about the degree of independence the board would have.<\/p>\n To address this concern, the committee said the bill should include a clause stating \u201cthe board must act independently (and is not responsible to a minister) in relation to performing its functions\u201d.<\/p>\n Under the committee\u2019s proposed change, the Regulation Minister would also no longer make appointments. That power would instead be transferred to the Governor-General on the recommendation of the minister.<\/p>\n The legislation has been contentious for a list of reasons<\/a>, including concerns that it prioritises private property rights, is unnecessary, and doesn\u2019t properly account for Te Tiriti o Waitangi<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is part of the National-Act coalition agreement, which says the parties commit to \u201clegislate to improve the quality of regulation, ensuring that regulatory decisions are based on principles of good law-making and economic efficiency, by passing the Regulatory Standards Act as soon as practicable\u201d.<\/p>\n The \u201cprinciples\u201d it sets out for regulation don\u2019t have legal effect \u2013 meaning not following them isn\u2019t unlawful \u2013 but are intended as a guide for lawmakers and officials as to what is considered responsible regulatory practice. <\/p>\n Legislation would be assessed as to its consistency with the principles, though any findings would not be binding on Parliament.<\/p>\n Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat\u2019s clear is that this is a landmark piece of legislation that Act would never vote to get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4619,6030,6284,1888,8455,5420,6721,13489,13840,111,43,139,69,6729,10010,30503,34592,12717,97088,312,16797,97090,11422,61,97089,6728,102],"class_list":["post-143988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-act","tag-again","tag-david","tag-first","tag-getting","tag-hes","tag-labour","tag-leader","tag-like","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peters","tag-promise","tag-promises","tag-ready","tag-regulatory","tag-repeal","tag-says","tag-seymour","tag-sounds","tag-standards","tag-to","tag-twodayold","tag-winston","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Act leader David Seymour has defended his legislation. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n