Monday is Hope Day - because you have the power to beat the most dangerous piece of ACT legislation yet!
9/6/2025
My Monday is Hope Day post is usually about something positive someone has done,or doing, to lift our spirits and set us up to combat yet another week of depressing news about how the gap between the rich and the poor is growing and how the planet is being exploited in the name of greed.
But today I want to give you a heads up about a dangerous piece of legislation that has had it’s first reading in parliament that could shatter the hopes and aspirations of our children and our children’s children, for generations to come.
It’s called The Regulatory Standards Bill and my hope that you will make a Select Committee submission to try to stop it.
It’s the work of David Seymour and the ACT party and what a piece of work it is!
If passed it will render future governments powerless to stop big corportaions - especially foreign owned ones - from doing pretty much whatever they want, and paving the way for the privatisation of things like our public health system and the plundeirng of our environment.
But,as I say you can stop it by making a written submissions to the Select Committee by 1pm in the 23rd of June . Here is the link.
(If the link doesn’t work you might have to copy and paste the external links I am providing in this post into your browser - but it’s worth it!)
You don’t have to write a lot, and below please find 6 reasons you might like to consider to get you started. Please feel free to copy anything you like.
There is no reference to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and there has been no consultation with Māori during the drafting of this legislation. That tells you this bill is a Trogan horse designed to bypass the principles of our founding document embedded in our law and the Crown’s obligations to honour The Treaty.
It promotes the rights of private property over the public good. This will give enormous power to corporates over any future government, in that it will make it possible for any overseas owned entity to sue us - the taxpayers- if they can prove in court they would lose future imagined profits from an enterprise because of a new law . This would have a chilling effect on future legislation and therefore not in the best interest of our democracy.
The bill bypasses environmental protections and the need to consult with communities affected by any proposed developments.
The bill is hypocritical in that it claims to be “designed, implemented, and monitored so that it achieves its objectives, and its benefits outweigh its negative impacts.” But by avoiding Treaty, Environment impact and basic democractic rights issues, it would make it much easier to implement any further legislation that would undermine the rights of Māori under the Treaty, cause damage to the environment and to communities.
If this bill becomes law then a Regulatory Standards Board will have the power to scrutinise both new and existing legislation (my emphasis) on consistency with the deeply flawed principles of this bill. And who will appoint this board? The Minister of Regulations of course! and currently that is the Deputy Minister, David Seymour. So this is a power grab by The ACT party designed to embed their libertarian economic and social policies into our society and limit our democractic right to change our laws as we , the people, see fit.
Once again, as with other pieces of legislation proposed by ACT, The Regulatory Standards Bill creates a problem where no problem exists . If you go to The World Bank site you will see we rate an incredible 98.5 out of 100 for the excellence of our regulatory quality, rule of law and control corruption. This bill , if it became law, would undermine all that our democracy has achieved to date.
WHERE IS THE HOPE?
National are already reeling from a drop in popularity after their support of Deputy Act Leader Brook Van Velden’s Pay Equity Ammendment that robbed New Zealand women of $12.8 Billion in pay equity and they are clearly wavering over their support of this next piece of exploitative ACT legislation
A deluge of submissions against this bill would certainly give National serious pause to consider its support for it.
So I hope you will join me in speaking up and making a submission on this dreadful bill in order to save our environment , our public health system and , yes, even our democratic way of life.
If you want to know more about the implications of The Regulatory Standards Bill, I did an interview with Melanie Nelson who has deep dived into this bill and who is in the forefront of the public opposition to it . (Go Melanie!)
The podcast is here:
EP 47 Melanie Nelson on the dangers of The Regulatory Standards Bill
Melanie Nelson has been deep diving into David Seymour’s very dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill and reveals how its real aim is to embed ACT’s libertarian agenda into our legislative process to th…
The video of the interview is here:
EP - 47 Melanie Nelson on the Dangers of The Regulatory Standards Bill
Melanie Nelson has been deep diving into David Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill.
AND…
Melanie has created a page of links that includes articles, analysis from legal experts and consultation reports as well as a guide to writing submissions which you can find here.
You also will find lots of good information and highly informed commentary on Melanie’s Substack Disinterpreted which you can find here
https://substack.com/@disinterpreted
Again if the link don’ work you might have to copy and paste them into your browser to access them.
Kia kaha!
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Thanks Bryan, I am hopeful.
I've made a submission and emailed NZ First urging them to oppose the bill because of the risk that foreign corporations will dictate NZ policy.
I'd suggest also putting on the bottom of the submission "This was not written by a bot, I am a genuine human".
The sooner the 'arrogant prick' is out of parliament, the better.
I do to Bryan,
But unfortunately due to how the voting power in select Committees is set up to mirror the voting power in the main house, the will of the people via submissions can be vetoed by the government of the day.
And given ACT were promised full support of this bill by National, because it's their wet dream to, and NZ First has promised to support it I full for being let in the Coalition, it does not look good, even if the public demonstrably reject it.
But I, like you vehemently encourage people to continue submitting, but I also think that New Zealand Democracy is in the fight of its life, and the people need to accompany their submissions with the a public display that makes that very, very clear to those that sit on that committee, just how much will they are thinking of committing treason against, and what that might mean for them.
Make it clear that Parliament needs to stand down to the will of the people on this one, as it's supposed to do.
Remember For the people, by the people, of the people.
Here is our submission if anyone is interested:
Submission to the Finance and Expenditure Committee
Re: Regulatory Standards Bill (2025)
Submitted by: Iain Parker
On behalf of: Uniting People's Credit Movement NZ (UPCMNZ)
Contact: www.facebook.com/groups/peoplescredit.nz
Introduction
Thank you for the opportunity to submit on the Regulatory Standards Bill. I submit this as a concerned citizen and founder of the Uniting People's Credit Movement NZ, which advocates for democratic oversight and public control of our economic and financial systems.
While the stated intent of this bill is to improve parliamentary scrutiny, uphold the rule of law, and protect liberties, the underlying design of the bill risks doing the opposite: creating an unelected regulatory superstructure that further distances decision-making from the public and Parliament.
This is not happening in isolation. When considered alongside the current suite of financial sector reforms—particularly the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill, the Financial Service Providers Amendment Bill, and the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill—this Regulatory Standards Bill appears as part of a broader legislative shift that empowers corporate and technocratic actors while sidelining democratic oversight.
In much the same way the Citizens United decision in the United States judicially rewrote the rules of democratic finance to favour billionaires and corporations, this Bill risks handing a regulatory veto to unelected technocrats who are not meaningfully accountable to the public. Only here, the mechanism is subtler — not cash bribes, but cushy post-political jobs and captured advisory boards.
There are currently no effective barriers preventing ministers or senior regulatory staff from moving directly into roles with the very institutions they oversee — creating an environment ripe for influence peddling and regulatory bias.
1. Democratic Oversight Must Not Be Outsourced
At the heart of my concern is the creation of a Regulatory Standards Board, appointed by the Minister for Regulation, which will have powers to issue binding assessments of legislation’s consistency with regulatory principles. This creates a dangerous precedent: an unelected, unaccountable body arbitrating what is deemed acceptable regulation under abstract principles that are not democratically defined or easily contestable.
Even more troubling is the potential for this Board to become a veto gatekeeper against public-interest legislation, especially if dominated by commercial legal minds or technocrats from financial or corporate sectors—as has happened in other jurisdictions under similar models.
This approach undermines the very parliamentary scrutiny it claims to enhance. If Parliament is to remain the supreme law-making body of New Zealand, its authority cannot be diluted by technocratic panels that are insulated from public pressure, media scrutiny, or electoral accountability.
2. Compounding Risk with the Financial Services Omnibus
This bill must not be viewed in isolation.
Currently before the Committee are several interconnected financial reform bills:
The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill, which shifts oversight from the Commerce Commission to the FMA, undermining consumer recourse.
The Financial Services Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill, which further consolidates control of registration and disciplinary processes.
The Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill, which modifies how market participants are licensed and overseen.
All of these bills share a common trajectory: centralising regulatory power under technocratic bodies like the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), which sits inside the Council of Financial Regulators (CoFR)—an opaque advisory body with no formal public accountability, and known for deep regulatory harmonisation with Australian financial authorities.
By overlaying the Regulatory Standards Bill onto this structure, we risk formalising a regulatory straitjacket that locks in pro-corporate interpretations of “acceptable” regulation while making it nearly impossible for Parliament to pass transformative, people-focused legislation that challenges entrenched financial interests.
3. Dangerously Asymmetric Principles
The regulatory principles proposed—such as protections for property rights, limits on taxation powers, and strict consistency with past legislation—may seem innocuous, even virtuous. But they are dangerously asymmetric when not paired with principles about public interest, climate responsibility, Te Tiriti obligations, or economic equity.
The result could be a system where any attempt to regulate banks, tax windfall profits, or restore public control over essential infrastructure could be struck down as “inconsistent,” while deregulation and financialisation are given a free pass.
This risks codifying a neoliberal bias into law under the guise of neutrality.
This bill to me is an effort of corporate interests to protect their property rights over commonwealth property they know they had no right ever obtaining possesion of in the first place, and would not have if it were not for the detrimental impacts of the flawed, if not corrupt, colonial era originated private bank centric money supply system we still endure.
4. CoFR and the Erosion of Sovereignty
The Council of Financial Regulators (CoFR)—made up of the RBNZ, Treasury, FMA, MBIE, and Commerce Commission—is increasingly ceding strategic oversight to its Australian counterparts, including APRA and ASIC. This is happening without public mandate, formal treaty, or parliamentary debate.
Multiple senior figures within our regulatory bodies now have Australian backgrounds or secondments. Decisions of national consequence—such as Basel banking standards, systemic risk definitions, or capital requirements—are being shaped to suit Australian interests, not necessarily New Zealand’s economic needs.
If the Regulatory Standards Bill becomes law, it could reinforce this drift by formalising a top-down, bureaucratic regime that is even less responsive to local communities, elected representatives, or national development goals.
5. Recommendations
I urge the Committee to:
Reject the Regulatory Standards Board in its current unelected, minister-appointed form.
Include protections for parliamentary sovereignty—explicit language guaranteeing that Parliament remains the ultimate decision-maker.
Require transparency in the CoFR’s operations, including public minutes and appointment scrutiny.
Delay passage of this bill until it can be properly reviewed in conjunction with the other financial system legislation currently under consideration.
New Zealand’s future regulatory landscape should not be built in silos. These bills interact. Taken together, they amount to a creeping regulatory coup that risks locking in corporate privilege and dismantling the public’s ability to hold power to account.
Conclusion
New Zealanders deserve a guarantee that legislation is shaped in the public interest, not behind closed doors by councils, boards and roundtables that rotate their chairs but never their priorities.
For these reasons, I urge the committee not only to scrutinise the text of the Regulatory Standards Bill, but to examine its role in the broader financial sector legislative agenda — and to halt the advance of a system that threatens to hollow out our democracy in favour of private control.
Please stand for transparency, accountability, and real democracy. Reject this bill in its current form.
Ngā mihi nui,
Iain Parker
Uniting People’s Credit Movement NZ (UPCMNZ)
www.facebook.com/groups/peoplescredit.nz