Roy Heather: Regulatory Responsibility Bill — First Reading 
Roy Heather: Regulatory Responsibility Bill — First Reading 
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HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I stand up very proudly to support the Regulatory Responsibility Bill in the name of my colleague Rodney Hide and I am very pleased indeed that it will pass through this first reading tonight and go to a select committee for further hearing investigation and public submission which is a very important part of the process that we value hugely. This bill will in fact change the political landscape in which we all operate and in which laws and regulations are passed. 
What exactly does the bill do? The Regulatory Responsibility Bill means that each law and regulation will have to be measured against principles of responsible management. Those people who live in a business environment and those of us who take the passing of law and regulation very seriously will recognise the value of this. Important questions will have to be asked and answered before a new law or regulation is made. These would be questions like why this regulation is needed what side effects it might have and whether there any unintended consequences we have not thought of. 
All laws and regulations will have to be reassessed every 5 years so that rules that are failing to meet their aims and regulations that have passed their use-by dates—and we can all probably think of any number of those that are on our statute book at the moment—can be identified and removed. These assessments would be published so that the public can see whether the Government is acting responsibly. Each and every one of us who sits in this House has a public duty to do just that. 
Here are some of the questions that would be asked. Why is this bill needed? What will it achieve? What is likely to happen if it does not pass? Are there any unintended consequences or side effects of a particular piece of legislation? Are there any alternatives? What makes this the best option? If anyone’s legal rights or property rights are being infringed whose are they? Do they consent and are they being properly compensated? Does the regulation follow the principles of responsible regulatory management? When will the regulation next be reviewed? These are all very important questions and questions that I think are very often overlooked or not given a moment’s thought when regulations and laws are put in place. 
What if a regulation does not meet the principles? None of us of course can limit the things that future Parliaments might do or are able to do but we can make sure that they explain why decisions are made so that Kiwis can make up their own minds about whether the right actions are being taken. A law or regulation can still be passed that does not follow the principles of responsible regulatory management but the Minister for Economic Development would need to publish an explanation of why it was passed in this instance. 
Some of these matters may be approached in very different ways. Rodney Hide himself has said that this bill is not perfect but it is very important that it goes to select committee so that those who may have greater expertise than we had when putting this bill together and those who feel they have something to contribute—maybe an alternative to achieve the same aim—can come to the committee and have their concerns heard. In fact those members around the select committee table can make changes if it is deemed that those changes are a better way of achieving our aim. 
Something that ACT members have talked about ever since we have been in this Parliament is how to cut red tape. There is always a lot of talk from both sides of the House about this. So how will this bill cut red tape? We certainly believe that it will. The bill will not directly remove red tape but it allows new and existing rules to be measured against the principles of responsible regulatory management making it easy for ineffective rules and those with high compliance costs to be identified. Letting the public find out which rules fail the test puts pressure on politicians as is right and proper to clean up bad laws and regulations from the past and encourages us all to think carefully about and to pass rules that are good for our future. 
We thank those parties that have supported us in this measure. This is a very good bill; it considers very important measures and very important principles. It gives us great pleasure that it will pass through its first reading tonight and be referred to the select committee.