Tisch Lindsay: Third Readings 
Tisch Lindsay: Third Readings 
[Volume:635;Page:6542] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 I wish to take a short call on this legislation which was previously known as the Business Law Reform Bill. National supports this legislation and has supported it right through. The legislation makes some incremental changes to the way that businesses will operate in the future and we support that but a number of the issues that we believe are important in terms of compliance have not been addressed in this legislation at all. Although the Business Law Reform Bill has been broken down into five other bills each of which has some merits in terms of the big challenges facing businesses—particularly small businesses—in New Zealand this legislation does absolutely nothing. That is why I said that although there are some incremental changes that we support unfortunately the legislation does not go far enough for us. 
Let us look at what has been happening around the world and at some of the reports that have been done. I have some here. Here is a very important and interesting report that was done back in July. Look at the size of it! It is called  
Finding the Balance: Maximising Compliance at Minimum Cost 
. It is a very full and comprehensive document. This Government has not taken notice of the very important recommendations that appear in this report by the Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs. Here is another document called  
Constraining Government Regulation 
. The previous speaker Russell Fairbrother talked about the Regulations Review Committee and although it has a very important function it is unfortunate that in terms of compliance the committee really only gets into something once legislation has been passed and people make complaints. I sat on the Regulations Review Committee. I guess it is a committee that is— 
H V Ross Robertson 
: High-powered. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Well it can be high-powered. It is a very important committee as the member said. It can be tedious. However it has an important function in overlooking the whole range of legislation and regulation that come forward. I do not know whether members opposite have seen  
Constraining Government Regulation 
. It is a very very important document. 
I spent some time overseas to see what other countries are doing. Here is a document from the Commission of the European Communities. It is interesting to note the challenges faced by European countries. Germany has an economic programme called Agenda 2010. It has taken information out of this very comprehensive document which has given it some leads and certainly some competitive advantages in the marketplace that it has not had before. 
I went to Singapore. It has a programme called SPRING. This document has identified the sorts of challenges that small businesses in particular face. It is called  
SME 21: Positioning SMEs for the 21st Century 
. If we look at the Singaporean economy we see that the constraints there especially in respect of environmental law and environmental issues are very strong. But Singapore has been able to take the red tape out of compliance. It has been able to identify those things that businesses are interested in and assign someone to help each business as a policy adviser. The scrutiny with which a proposal is analysed is very very clear. Businesses deal with one person at a time and at the end they know whether their project will go ahead. 
Here is an Australian document dated 16 August that talks about Australia slashing red tape. If we look at the  
Report of the 
Taskforce on Reducing Regulatory Burdens on Business—Final Government Response 
 we see a very comprehensive document. 
Unfortunately the Government here seems to brush over these important issues that face businesses. It plays only at the edges. As I said there are some incremental changes but they are not significant enough to give that competitive advantage to small businesses in this country. We need bold and innovative strategies. They can come about by the Government taking seriously the issue of regulation. Regulation builds walls where there should be bridges. 
 We find that over the last 6 years the Labour Government has been very quick to introduce legislation and just gloss over the regulatory impacts the compliance cost regimes and the impact statements that should appear in legislation. Although as I mentioned the Regulations Review Committee actually had some oversight of that—it is usually too late by the time that the committee gets to it to actually be able to do much about it. Regulation is important and should be about building bridges. The public sector has every interest in maintaining and growing its position and little incentive to ensure optimal outcome from interventions. Its drive is to maximise not optimise the regulatory interventions. 
Government has become bigger over the years and the structural bias that we are seeing now creates a regulatory culture that has remained. There is no incentive for public servants to reduce regulations. I said in my first reading speech—[ 
Interruption 
] My first reading speech Mr Cosgrove was an interesting speech in that it did challenge the Government— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: A small speech! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: It was a 10-minute speech; it might have been small in stature but it was full of character. It was full of some very informative information that the member may be interested in. I will not repeat it; it is in  
Hansard 
. I am sure that the member might want to get it out and have a look at it for some late-night reading. 
We have had the McLeod Tax Review the ministerial panel on compliance cost and the Small Business Advisory Group’s reports. So a large number of reports have been done. Unfortunately this Government knows best and tends to overlook the expertise that is necessary in order to structure the environment in which businesses operate in a way that reduces the compliance and red tape that are there. 
The primary cause to address really is the incentives for the public sector to regulate. This legislation goes absolutely nowhere towards addressing that. We need to create a system in which public servants put their energy into creating optimal outcomes for Government interventions. That as I said before is the crucial issue that should be dealt with. Instead the Government just makes more and more laws. There is no incentive for public servants in New Zealand to propose a removal or rationalisation of regulations or of old regulations. That just does not occur. Australia’s move to a regime of sunset clauses in a number of regulations is something that National has endorsed. I know that my colleague Dr Richard Worth who chairs the Regulations Review Committee has some very strong points he makes about monitoring regulations that are in New Zealand. 
Although these incremental changes are for the better the opportunity has been lost to make substantive changes in the areas of taxation the Resource Management Act Occupational Safety and Health regulations and employment law. There is no incentive for the Government to reduce compliance and there is no incentive for public servants to see how they can optimise outcomes. The Government is interested only in creating barriers that shackle investment and business; we see that time and time again. National wants businesses to be able to get on with the job of creating wealth and jobs instead of being distracted by the excessive red tape that we see at every turn.