Genter Julie Anne: Regulatory Reform Bill Regulatory Reform (Repeals) Bill — Second Readings 
Genter Julie Anne: Regulatory Reform Bill Regulatory Reform (Repeals) Bill — Second Readings 
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JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. I rise tonight to speak specifically first on the Regulatory Reform (Repeals) Bill. I would like to begin by echoing the considered and clearly articulated views of my esteemed colleague Dr Russel Norman especially in his first speech on this bill.  
The Green Party advocates for a sensible rational and evidence-based approach to regulation as opposed to an ideological one. The Green Party is happy to support the non-controversial Regulatory Reform (Repeals) Bill as it repeals a number of superseded and outdated pieces of legislation—31 in fact. But as Dr Norman noted in his previous speeches there are both good and bad regulations. We often hear about the detrimental cost of regulation—especially from that side of the House—but we hear very little about the huge cost of neglecting to regulate appropriately. The costs of neglecting to regulate can be huge. This is evidenced by the leaky homes fiasco the cost of the Christchurch earthquakes and the cost of the  
Rena 
 disaster.  
If we move away from a highly charged ideological opposition to regulation and simply look at the evidence we can see that there are both good and bad regulations and the test must be what the overall impacts are on the community of either regulating or failing to regulate. And we cannot look at the impacts on just one specific special-interest group. Interest groups—and these can be specific business groups for example—will inevitably argue to reduce regulations and compliance costs because they have a direct financial interest in reducing the costs that they have to pay. But this in and of itself does not mean that those regulations or costs are without merit or that removing the costs will be good overall for the economy and New Zealand as a whole. In fact there is a lot of evidence that regulation is the single biggest driver of innovation. So it is the role of Parliament and this House to adjudicate on behalf of the people and not to cave to specific lobby groups and reduce oversight and short-term costs just so some groups can profit at the expense of all of us.  
As I said the Green Party does support the Regulatory Reform (Repeals) Bill because the legislation that is proposed to be repealed is redundant it was not really affecting anyone and it probably was not costing anyone much money which is why it did not seem like there were very many submissions on it at the Commerce Committee.  
When it comes to the Regulatory Reform Bill the Green Party would have liked to support this bill. It removes some petty obstacles that small and medium businesses often face and small and medium businesses are our best opportunity to develop a clean green economy that works for all New Zealanders. As Dr Norman said earlier today it removes an outdated restriction that restricts credit unions in their ability to provide financial services. The Green Party supports practical lawmaking that will help small business and help us transition to a sustainable economy and that is why we announced a small-business policy last year that would significantly simplify tax compliance.  
But we cannot support the Regulatory Reform Bill at the moment because of Part 4. I will take just a moment to mention our concerns about the amendments to the Conservation Act 1987 because these changes potentially make it easier for destructive commercial activities such as mining and large-scale tourism infrastructure development to occur on public conservation land. That has potentially quite a large impact on our “clean green” brand and our tourism sector which is arguably one of our largest exports.  
At the moment if someone wants to operate a commercial activity on Crown-owned conservation land they need permission in the form of a concession granted by the Minister of Conservation or a Department of Conservation official. Public conservation lands are far from being locked up as some would claim; they are the basis of our billion-dollar tourism industry and the location for considerable commercial activity. Last year—that is in 2010-11—the Department of Conservation had 4675 concession activities. The biggest group of concessions more than 871 were grazing concessions. Access easements including for mining operations were the next biggest group followed by guiding concessions and aircraft landing concessions. These concessions have varying levels of impact on landscapes on wildlife conservation land but we are concerned that the purpose of the amendments that are proposed in Part 4 of the Regulatory Reform Bill is simply to make it easier for business without necessarily giving the Department of Conservation the resources and the time to weigh up the evidence about whether it is going to be good or not for New Zealand. Thank you.