tens of thousands of New Zealanders ignored as Seymours Bill passes (RSB)

Te Pāti Māori said the Government has trampled over the voices of 98.7 percent of submitters on the Regulatory Standards Bill – most opposing it for breaching Te Tiriti o Waitangi and ignoring Māori rights. This was some months ago and now the Bill has passed its third reading thanks to the support of National and NZ First.

Co-leader Rawiri Waititi told the select committee back in August that the Ministry of Regulation’s report silenced 157-thousand people who rejected a Bill they say breaches Te Tiriti, the Bill of Rights Act, and international law. His motion to throw out the report and base recommendations solely on public feedback was voted down.

Waititi said at the time it’s proof this Government is using Parliament to rubber-stamp an anti-Tiriti political agenda, and that’s a direct attack on Māori and democracy in Aotearoa.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Consitutional Lawyer Annette Sykes had also launched a scathing attack on the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB), calling it a “resurrected assault on Māori sovereignty” and a threat to Aotearoa’s constitutional foundations.

Her colleague Maia Te Hira also told the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee that the Bill represents a “new wave of colonisation,” warning it would cement corporate power, undermine Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and erase Māori from future lawmaking.

“This is the fourth attempt to pass this Bill. It’s the Bill that just won’t die. It’s the most rejected, refiled, and resurrected piece of legislation in our history. At what point does this become procedural harassment?” she asked.

Sykes, who has represented Māori across multiple Waitangi Tribunal inquiries and constitutional hearings, said the Bill grants primacy to individual property rights at the expense of collective Māori rights, particularly over whenua, wai, and customary resources.

“It promises protections to today’s property owners, yet denies retrospective justice to Māori whose land and water interests have been taken without consent or compensation for 185 years,’ she said.

“This Bill doesn’t just undermine Te Tiriti. It erases it.”

A group of prominent, and well known New Zealanders, has written an open letter to the Government against the Regulatory Standards Bill. In a press release earlier on Thursday the group has said; “As some of the country’s senior lawyers and researchers in a range of disciplines (law, economics, Tiriti o Waitangi, public policy, environment), including a former Prime Minister and two New Zealanders of the Year, we cannot stand by as the Regulatory Standards Bill is rushed through a parliamentary select committee next week.”

They go on to say “Each of us has written extensively and spoken out against this Bill from our respective areas of expertise. Many of us have done so for the three previous iterations of this Bill when it was promoted unsuccessfully by the Act Party and the Business Round Roundtable (later, the New Zealand Institute).”

“The Bill could have profound constitutional consequences. It establishes a set of principles as a benchmark for good legislation/regulation, many of which are highly questionable and designed to establish a presumption in favour of a libertarian view of the role of the state – one that ceased to have any currency globally more than a century ago. Te Tiriti o Waitangi has been excluded altogether. The power vested in the Minister for Regulation and a ministerial-appointed board is not subject to the normal accountabilities of Crown entities, conferring significant yet largely unaccountable authority on the executive.”

“Professor Emeritus Jonathan Boston, Dr Geoffrey Bertram, Dr Bill Rosenberg and Dr Max Harris have indicated they want to address the committee to reinforce their submissions. In Professor Boston’s view:

“The current Bill is destined to have a very short and ignominious life as an Act of Parliament: it enjoys virtually no public support; it lacks cross-party backing; it is opposed by the very Ministry that will be responsible for its implementation; and it endorses principles that have been found wanting by multiple generations of people throughout the world”.

In the end the tens of thousands of voices opposed to the Bill didnt matter and the Bill passed into law.

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