NANDOR TANCZOS: I was reflecting while I was preparing my speech on this Regulatory Responsibility Bill on how times have changed since I came to this House in 1999. At that time, a member’s bill from the ACT party—or the Green Party, for that matter—would usually attract the response of: “Well, we kind of like the idea, but we are not going to support it because it’s from them.” Today we have parties saying: “Well, we are not sure if we like the idea, but let’s see if we can support it, because it’s from them.”

I think that is a good thing, and I have to say that I think the Green Party has been part of promoting a different approach to cooperation across this House. It is our view that MMP parties should support members’ bills, at least for the first reading—especially of other MMP parties but also across the House, because members’ bills have made an important contribution to our democracy—except where there are good reasons not to. So we approached this bill looking for reasons to support it. Mr Hide has done an excellent job of going around and talking to the parties, and I congratulate him on the wide degree of support he has for this bill—I think he has done a very good job in that. Mr Hide mentioned to the Greens that although the bill does not currently contain any provisions around green issues, nevertheless that is something we could look at and there might be opportunity to introduce some of those things.

I am certainly very attracted to the idea of a kind of environmental vet on legislation and regulations, similar to a kind of New Zealand Bill of Rights vet. In the context of a Parliament such as ours—a majoritarian, single-Chamber Parliament, with no single constitutional document—the idea that there would be some kind of environmental constraint on the executive is an attractive one.

In the way that the New Zealand Bill of Rights recognises human rights and we recognise children’s rights, it would be something that would recognise environmental rights. Environmental rights are not just the rights of humans to enjoy a clean environment but also the intrinsic rights of other species to inhabit the planet that they are a part of just as we are. So there are some things to attract us there.

We also looked at the bill in light of the fact that the Greens are suspicious of the power of the State. The libertarian tendency that we share with the ACT party is one of the things that has joined our two parties at various times.

Rodney Hide: At the hip!

NANDOR TANCZOS: At the hip, says Mr Hide. Certainly there have been occasions when the ACT party and the Greens have been the only parties in agreement on a particular issue. We are very aware of the danger of an unrestrained State and consider it at least as dangerous as unrestrained global corporations.

Some people have viewed the Greens in the past as being “State-ist”. I reject that notion. Just as we recognise there is a place for markets, we recognise there is a place for the State and appropriate regulation. Nevertheless, we are suspicious of both and see the community as the primary locus of power and decision-making. “Appropriate decision-making” means that is not always the case, but the community is where we start from, and I say the community rather than individuals because it is a collective notion of the power of ordinary people to make a better world.

We are especially concerned about the extension of regulations and the increasing use of delegated regulation by the executive to bypass parliamentary scrutiny. The Regulations Review Committee looks at process and issues of jurisdiction but does not look at the substance of regulations. We are concerned about these things. As I say, we approached this bill looking for reasons to support it, but in the end we had to come to the conclusion that we could not, and that this bill would not do the things that we wished.

Rodney Hide: We’ll improve it, Nandor.

NANDOR TANCZOS: Mr Hide says that they will improve it. I look forward to seeing that, and look forward to the possibility that it may be possible to support the legislation at a later stage, but it seems strange to us that in order to get rid of red tape the bill promulgates red tape. Despite Mr Hide’s assurances to the contrary, it appears to us on reading the bill that it feeds bureaucracy in order to slay it. It seems to be an inherently contradictory notion, and one that we have difficulty with. So the Green Party is opposing this bill at this stage, although we recognise Mr Hide’s quite genuine intentions to do something about what is a significant issue. We look forward to seeing whether we might be able to change that position at a later stage.