Regulatory Standards Bill hearing, day one: Former PM says ‘no chance' of bill working
Read our explainer on the Regulatory Standards Bill here and our reporting on the urgent Waitangi Tribunal hearing on the bill here.
A new day, a new controversial piece of legislation under scrutiny. After attracting a reported 150,000 public submissions, the Regulatory Standards Bill is having its week in the select committee, with all-day hearings from Monday to Thursday knocking out 30 hours' worth of oral submissions. Whatever the finance and expenditure committee hears could influence changes to the bill, but the passing of it is already a promise made in the National-Act coalition agreement.
The inside of select committee room four was a ghost town on Monday morning, with all MPs on the committee's panel opting to join the hearing via Zoom, and most submitters doing the same. Lawyer Ani Mikaere was one of the first speakers of the day, and had some choice words about the bill and the government at large: 'National and NZ First currently face the spectre of this parliamentary term going down in history as the period when the Act Party governed – as coalition partners, you have been completely upstaged.'
Adam Currie from 350 Aotearoa, who appeared via Zoom link, told the committee the bill can 'get in the compost heap' – then panned his camera over to his own compost heap for visual effect. 'Thank you Adam, very succinct,' committee deputy chair and National MP Ryan Hamilton replied.
Former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, who submitted against, labelled the bill the 'strangest piece of New Zealand legislation I have ever seen'. Palmer argued that regulation is necessary in many instances – like when he worked as a young lawyer on night clothes regulations, so that young children wouldn't be set alight by heaters while they slept.
'The idea that you would not allow parliament to protect the public from danger is just unreasonable,' Palmer said.
Lawyer Sonja Cooper of Cooper Legal, which represents survivors of abuse in care, said she opposed the bill as it would allow abuse to continue. Cooper said she was concerned with the bill's principle that all are made equal under the law – her clients have a 'very distinct and urgent set of needs' which wouldn't be addressed if they were treated as 'equal', and with many of them being Māori, the bill's omission of the Treaty was a 'refusal to accept the needs for policies which may need to treat people differently to achieve equality'.
When Act Party MP and committee member Mark Cameron questioned whether Cooper was telling the committee that laws should allow people to be treated unequally despite all people being 'created equal', Cooper replied: 'It's a nice thought that everyone is born equal, but that's not the reality.' Their back and forth made Palmer whisper 'oh, god' and at the end of it, he and Cooper just threw their hands in the air in disbelief.
Human resources expert Chris Till supported the bill, but didn't support his 'undemocratic' five-minute submission time. After arguing that iwi have too much power over freshwater resources, and that the RSB would fix this 'racist, tribal and anti-democratic' system, Till continued to argue with Hamilton about his lack of time, so his submission was called off slightly early. Cameron, who had been waiting to ask a question, just gritted his teeth.
Later, former Green Party MP Darleen Tana submitted against the bill, with the argument that it would 'constrain future governance, restrict public investment and sets up a narrow economic lens'. Also submitting against, Dunedin City Council's in-house lawyer Karilyn Canton said the council was concerned that the bill's omission of the Treaty would make it at odds with council obligations under the Local Government Act.
She also highlighted the bill's requirement for review of secondary legislation (such as council bylaws, of which DCC administers about 40), and argued the Local Government Act already has sufficient provisions to the creation of these laws. Canton said it's also still unclear what falls into the scope of 'secondary legislation', and the likes of a district plan – which has the force and effect of a regulation under the Resource Management Act – would fall into this category. 'So the risk is that it creates disputes, creates costs and it creates uncertainty,' Canton said.
Health Coalition Aotearoa's chair Boyd Swinburn opposed the bill, and told the committee the sector's already existing 'regulatory chill' – the absence of regulations which could protect young people from the likes of alcohol marketing – could turn into a 'regulatory freeze' if the bill passed. Swinburn pointed to the Australian government's years-long court case with tobacco giant Phillip Morris over plain packaging for cigarette cartons, which the company argued violated their property rights by confiscating property (their trademark) without compensation.
'It's very naive to think that the industry would not weaponise the privileging of its private property and rights,' Swinburn said.
Far North district councillor Hilda Halkyard-Harawira began her submission against the bill by chucking on a pair of sunglasses, and letting the committee know that up in Northland, if someone speaks to you with their shades on, it's because you're telling a 'whole bunch of lies'. She said the bill amounted to 'historical amnesia', and said the uplifting of personal, economic and property liberties over collective rights was like experiencing a flood in your neighbourhood, and only having the local 'vape store' owner be saved.
Raewyn Moss and Jo Mooar of Transpower, which controls the nation's energy grid, highlighted their concerns with clause eight of the bill, which highlights 12 principles of responsible regulation, including an emphasis on property rights. 93% of Transpower's overhead lines run on statutory rights under the Electricity Act, the committee heard, and Moss said there was concern that a review of the Act will result in Transpower paying compensation to permit them to use and maintain the land their grid rests on.
They were also concerned that protections for these lines under the Resource Management Act would be overruled and ignored for new housing and developments, which could 'have a big impact on public safety'.
Rock the Vote NZ deputy leader Daymond Goulder-Horobin said the party largely supported the bill, but they had some suggestions. For 'better optics', regulations minister David Seymour should share appointment powers of the regulatory standards board that will be born from the bill with other parties, so that the committee is 'balanced'.
'Every party is beneath 50% of the vote, so democratic legitimacy is always vested on [the voting of a bill],' Goulder-Horobin said. 'This does not have to be a bill that antagonises the left.'
The finance and expenditure committee will resume oral hearings into the bill today at 8.30am.
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Reportedly, this NSW arts summit will be attended by NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey, and about 150 donors, venue operators, art investors and tax experts. [Just how many artists will be invited is unclear.] 'The sector is telling us,' Mookhey told the Sydney Morning Herald, ' that tax policy settings are a significant impediment to artists' business viability, international competitiveness and income stability.' Arguably, artists deserve better. At last count, the arts and culture sector contributed an estimated $A123.3 billion annually to the Australian economy. In the year to March 2024, New Zealand's arts and creative sector contributed $NZ17.3 billion to our economy, or 4.2 % of GDP. In other words, the arts and cultural sector more than pays its way. According to Infometrics research in 2023, the arts/culture sector grew by 5.3% that year, compared to only 2.9% growth for the rest of the economy. Some 117,0000 people were employed in the arts/culture sector in 2023. 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Footnote: Other countries are treating arts funding as an investment in social wellbeing and economic growth. Last year, Ireland extended its Basic Income For The Arts funding programme into 2026, and put $35 million euros more into it: Launched in 2022, the pilot scheme is examining the impact of a basic income on artists and creative arts workers over a three-year period. Payments of €325 per week [that's $NZ634! ]are being made to 2,000 eligible artists and creative arts workers, who have been selected at random. Here's the rationale : ' I believe that Ireland holds a unique position in the world, where our culture, Ár dTeanga and our artists are the beating heart of our society,' Minister Paschal Donohoe commented. 'There are record numbers visiting our national cultural institutions. Irish writers are some of the best in the world – giving us pause to reflect on the world around us, to make sense of it or, indeed, to escape it entirely for a moment.' 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The coalition government has provided no similar, additional stimulus to our own local film industry. The Art Budget blues Given New Zealand's current ideological fixation on cost cutting for its own sake, Creative NZ's retention of funding of $16.6 million in Budget 2025 counts as a relief, even though inflation will erode some of the funding's net value. Direct government funding provides about 25% of Creative NZ's revenue, with the other 75% coming from Lotteries Board money, which has inched up to $52.78 annually for the next four years, from $49.5 million in 2023/24. The current lotteries plus government funding comes to an annual total of $69 million, well down from the $87 million the arts received during the last year of the pandemic recovery period. In a familiar gambit, 're-prioritisation' has also seen funds shifted from one scheme and added to another to create an illusion of extra government support. 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In the process, the rates cap would also undermine the international credit rating of councils, and increase the costs of their borrowing for essential infrastructure. Instead of an imposed rates cap, Local Government NZ President ( and Selwyn mayor) Sam Broughton wants local and central government to collaborate on solutions: 'From the international analysis it is clear that a rates cap will have unintended consequences on communities; it will restrict the ability of councils to invest in infrastructure and risks their financial instability, and we need to avoid this…..Australian examples show that a rates cap will have the opposite effect to what the Government wants to achieve.' Footnote: BTW, and in the interests of informed collaboration, there is nothing 'fanciful ' about local council or central government spending on the arts. Artists pay taxes and help lift the nation's GDP, as well as enhancing the public's sense of wellbeing and cultural identity. If artists could afford to live downtown e.g. if tax system changes did enable unused commercial properties to be occupied at peppercorn rentals – this could revitalise the inner city, boost retail spending, provide part time labour for cafes and restaurants, and enhance the value of adjacent downtown properties through the added foot traffic (and tourism) being generated. Footnote: In 2019 Victoria University academic Jonathan Barrett analysed how a capital gains tax could make more people feel inclined to invest in art. Don't Rely On The Market Some people, including a few artists, find the very notion of state funding of the arts to be a hard concept to embrace. For one thing, there's a certain lack of romance involved. An artist starving in a garret is a more heroic image (at least, until the gum rot sets in) than an artist pulling a government cheque from the mailbox en route to the potting shed. Charges of elitism over arts funding (why this art form over that one, why them, not me) tend to clang up hard against the sense that this stuff is really important, contributes to our national identity etc etc. All of which is worthy of debate, provided it doesn't lead to policy paralysis, One way to justify spending on the arts is to demand a commercial return, as one would with any other commodity. That argument is self defeating. Why? For one thing, society benefits from what economists call the 'spillover' benefits of arts creation and consumption, just as it does in other non-quantifiable areas. Inevitably, the 'spillover' returns to society from spending on art, public healthcare, state schooling, science and the military are notoriously difficult to quantify, and establish a market value. Defence spending for instance is as costly as its benefits are nebulous. Yet for some reason, successive governments have been willing to write the NZDF – and them only – a blank cheque. Why not science? Why not the arts? There is also a so-called 'option value' argument for arts funding, whereby whilst you or I may not choose to patronise an art gallery or a ballet, many of us would still like to see such things supported, and kept as a viable option for others, or for our grandchildren. To illustrate this notion of option value, economists routinely offer the jokey old anecdote about the King of Naples, who once told the composer Antonio Scarlatti that he felt fine about supporting the Naples Opera, just so long as he was never actually invited to attend the confounded thing. Another key economic driver for regular boosts in arts funding was a point made decades ago by the economist William Baumol – namely, that arts activity is simply not conducive to the technological advances and the productivity gains that have been obtainable elsewhere in the economy. This syndrome – routinely called 'cost disease' or 'Baumol's disease' – applies equally to the funding for public health and education as much as it does to the arts. All such sectors entail services – creating art, educating kids, caring for sick people – that are next to impossible to automate and to mechanise. 'This means that as wages go up in these handicraft services,' Baumol said, 'there is no productivity offset to rising costs.' (Lorde, Taikla Waititi, Shane Cotton etc do not come off a production line.). At this point, the free marketers would probably say – well, why not leave it the market? If people want art, then let them pay for it. Yes, Baumol wrote, but what quality would the prevailing market settle for? Wouldn't such a market be inclined to downsize by cutting out rehearsals and other production costs, and concentrate on the likes of sure-fire Broadway hit musicals, rather than on Shakespeare or on untried new talent? In other words, the centre-right formula of holding the funding at current levels – and looking to the market and/or the community for extra money – is unlikely to result in (a) quality (b) diversity and (c) anything other than the recycling of the known and the safe. All of which would quickly erode the option value and the cultural capital of our art, both here and overseas. It would be self-defeating, in that it would diminish/destroy the value of the product. Besides…at the very worst, an added investment by the state in art and culture is certain to deliver better social and economic returns than gifting landlords with a $3 billion handout. Footnote : Australia is a wealthier country than New Zealand. Yet its artists hardly have it easy. According to the SMH article linked to above, the average annual income of professional artists in Australia is $A54,500, earned via insecure projects and commissions. A writer's average annual income is just $A18,000, and the median annual income for musicians is $A15,000. Plainly, starving in a garret for your art isn't a lifestyle ' choice' that died out at the end of the 19th century. Needing The Love There's no particular reason for linking to this, beyond it being an all-time favourite video. Oh baby lady girl. Art is its own reward :
