Brooking RachelRACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Kia ora. Thank you Madam Speaker. Firstly I would like to congratulate the member David Seymour for having his bill drawn from the ballot.David Seymour: Thank you.RACHEL BROOKING: Well done.David Seymour: It was a big effort!RACHEL BROOKING: A big effort. Very honoured to be able to speak on this Regulatory Standards Bill today.Now as the member has just said—David Seymour—there are very important principles for good regulation and good legislation: transparency being able to justify what you do and being able to explain it. That I very much agree with.I think it's very important before we get into the debate about this bill that we talk about the name: the Regulatory Standards Bill. I think a lot of people at first look will look at this and think Oh it's about regulation; it's about secondary legislation". But in fact it's not just about that. It is about regulation as we call it being secondary legislation but it's also about primary legislation; that is the work that we do here in this House. When we make a bill and go through our select committee process and have our readings and debates it's saying that that process should be subject to the regulatory standards in there—what would be an Act.So it's important to acknowledge that it addresses both primary and secondary legislation. My focus tonight is on the primary legislation piece of this. Why that is is because it is very significant. As the member just said this will have a constitutional role. He's talked about the infrastructure of the constitution and our way of making laws. He's quite right. It is a big deal that if we had some way of involving the courts to be able to make a declaration that Parliament had not done its job as it should in compliance with the Regulatory Standards—as it would be—Act then obviously that is a very significant change to our constitutional arrangements and that separation of powers which the member has made very clear.To be fair we already have the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that to some extent deals with questioning what we do in this House. I think there's some very important differences there. One—and the most important one I would argue—is that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act contains internationally agreed human rights. These are not contentious subjective political ideas; they are internationally agreed human rights. Of course we know under section 7 of that Act the Attorney-General can make a report about whether or not a bill is consistent with that New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So as I say there is some similarity but the big difference is the contested natures of the principles that Mr Seymour just mentioned and I'll come to in a minute.As we noted in the history lesson that we've just had this bill has been around for some time. It's been previously considered—and I'll go to that in just a minute—but it's important to note that since 2011 when it was first on the table as such there have been three changes to the Standing Orders. There's been the Legislation Act 2019 and most recently the Secondary Legislation Act 2021. That Act will clarify what secondary legislation is what it's called and be very helpful and do a lot of the things that I think Mr Seymour is interested in. It was a massive piece of work. With the Legislation Act the Parliamentary Counsel Office now has a role in terms of informing what good legislation is reviewing it and providing an annual report to the Auditor-General.So going to previous considerations of this bill in a slightly different form but the main principles still stand. The report of the Commerce Committee on the Regulatory Standards Bill in 2015 talked about the advice that they received and how it raised certain concerns around the bill which the committee considered should be brought to the attention of the public. The first was that the bill would result in an overlap of new with existing principles; secondly delegated legislation already reviewed by the Regulations Review Committee—fantastic committee—would become subject to the statement of compatibility and court review processes prescribed in the bill; and some important principles have been omitted from the bill; then also it poses risks to the transparency of lawmaking processes; and finally the Legislation Bill which was before the House at the time already proposed a structured process for the ongoing revision of legislation—and of course we know that's been enacted in a couple of different forms since then.The Regulatory Standards Bill as we heard—there's principles they are found in clause 6 as the previous speaker said. They include the "Rule of law" "Liberties"—the subheading is "Liberties"—and a lot of this deals with private property rights. So this is something that obviously the member and his party feel very strongly about. There's also then the "Taking of property": that there'd be full compensation for taking of property. These are differences from our current law. There's also "Taxes and charges" the "Role of courts" and then "Good law-making". Some of the issues in "Good law-making" at paragraph (i) are in fact already addressed in things like regulatory impact statements. At paragraph (k) it is said that to "be the most effective efficient and proportionate response to the issue concerned that is available." While at first glance that sounds like a very sensible thing and I would agree with it there's always political judgment in making those decisions they are subjective things that politicians who stand on manifestos should be deciding; it should not be for the court. So that is why this is a very important debate to have on this bill.Those principles that I've just outlined they are consistent with ACT's values and the private property rights pre-eminence there. These are political choices. I'm hoping that they don't reflect the political choices of other parties in the House. I note that other parties have different views and different choices so it may be if somebody else was writing a bill like this they might say "How is a piece of legislation consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi and our partnership there? How is it consistent with international treaty agreements? How is it consistent with climate change obligations? How is it consistent with community wellbeing outcomes? How is it consistent with revision of say public education or say public healthcare and environmental protections?" These are all good political things that we should be discussing and debating in this House and it is for this House to decide those priorities.I've had the pleasure of reading a thesis. It was an Honours—David Seymour: We all have our thesis.Hon Member: Go on summarise it for us.RACHEL BROOKING: That's right. Mine's a particularly geeky pleasure there. So by E. M. Thomas it was a dissertation for her Honours in a Bachelor of Laws degree at the fine University of Otago. It was dated October 2011 and it's called " 'Tinkering in the Constitutional Shed': The Regulatory Standards Bill and Legislative Quality in New Zealand." I would just like to quote from the conclusion of that thesis—and it's important to note that this thesis is talking about the same principles that are in the bill before us now. It says "The [Regulatory Standards Bill's] principles are controversial and are of uncertain scope and dubious orthodoxy. This is exemplified by the takings principle. The RSB [Regulatory Standards Bill] would not meet its own standards as the principles are vague unclear and likely to destabilise New Zealand's law. In turn this would undercut the rule of law." And it goes on.So in conclusion this bill if enacted would add more red tape and confusion. The democratic process of electing politicians is to make policy choices. It is not the role of the judiciary to do this. Angela Roberts: It's our job; it's not their job.RACHEL BROOKING: That's right. So for that reason we will not be supporting this bill. Thank you Madam Speaker."