Four of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading environmental
organisations have today issued a joint open letter to Prime
Minister Christopher Luxon, urging him to reject the
Regulatory Standards Bill in full.
The Regulatory
Standards Bill is being discussed in Cabinet on Monday, 19
May 2025.
The open
letter, signed by the executive directors of Forest
& Bird, Greenpeace Aotearoa, the Environmental Defence
Society (EDS), and WWF-New Zealand, describes the Regulatory
Standards Bill as “an unprecedented threat” to environmental
protection, climate action, and the country’s democratic
and constitutional foundations.
The organisations warn
the Bill would create a dangerous new precedent where
governments are expected to compensate companies if new
environmental protections interfere with their property,
effectively turning the polluters pay principle on its
head.
— Open Letter to the Prime Minister of
Aotearoa New Zealand, the Rt Hon Christopher
Luxon
Re: The Regulatory Standards
Bill
Dear Prime Minister,
As leading
environmental organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand, we are
writing to express our deep concern regarding the proposed
Regulatory Standards Bill. We strongly urge your Government
to reject this bill in its entirety.
The
Regulatory Standards Bill poses a significant and
unprecedented threat to New Zealand’s ability to respond
to pressing environmental challenges, uphold Te Tiriti o
Waitangi, and maintain a functioning and responsive
democracy.
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If enacted, this legislation
would:
Impose financial penalties on
environmental action, making it a new and
unprecedented expectation that the Crown would compensate
corporations when laws to protect nature or the climate
affect the use or value of their
property;
Undermine environmental
protections by prioritising individual freedoms and
private property rights over the health of nature and the
public interest;
Establish an unelected
Regulatory Standards Board, appointed by the
Minister for Regulation, with the power to hear and amplify
complaints from companies and pressure the Government over
any policy inconsistent with a rigid set of
principles.
The bill also explicitly
excludes Te Tiriti o Waitangi from its set of
“good” law making principles. This risks undermining decades
of progress towards incorporating Treaty principles into
environmental governance and will likely result in legal
confusion and uncertainty.
The Ministry of
Justice has already advised that the Bill fails to reflect
the constitutional significance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and
is not aligned with the New Zealand Bill of Rights
Act.
The principles that all future governments
would be required to consider under the Regulatory Standards
Bill omit critical aspects of environmental stewardship, and
elevate individual freedoms and private property rights
above all other considerations.
This ideology
has no place in our legal system here in Aotearoa, where we
have long valued fairness and collective responsibility
rather than individual entitlement to harm nature or others
under the guise of freedom.
At a time of
escalating climate change and declining biodiversity, this
Bill would make it harder – not easier – for governments to
act in the national interest.
The Regulatory
Standards Bill has been rejected three times before. We
believe it should be rejected again. There is no public
mandate for this proposal, and it is being advanced through
a coalition agreement, not by popular demand or broad
consensus.
We therefore respectfully call on you
to:
- – Reject the Regulatory Standards Bill in its
entirety; - – Commit to strengthening, not weakening,
the Government’s capacity to address environmental
challenges for the benefit of all people in Aotearoa and
future generations; and - – Reaffirm the importance of
Te Tiriti o Waitangi in lawmaking and regulatory
design.
