Executive Summary
2. At the request of the Prime Minister, a Ministerial Group for Quality Regulation has been convened by the Minister of Commerce (who is also the Minister for Small Business) to carry out a Review of Regulatory Frameworks. The group comprises the Ministers of Finance, Fisheries, Agriculture and Forestry, Energy, Transport, Local Government, Labour and ACC, Communications, and Building Issues.
3. Regulation and regulatory frameworks play a critical role in shaping the business environment in which economic activity takes place. The economic transformation agenda requires government to focus not only on the removal of unnecessary regulatory constraints on economic growth, but also on continuous quality improvement of regulatory frameworks and processes.
4. This paper outlines some of the problems and frustrations experienced by business impacted by regulation and describes the issues that should be considered by the Review.
5. The Review will focus on the following issues:
- The identification of effective "fast track" mechanisms for administrative, legislative or regulatory amendments, where the original policy intent and objectives are not being met, or which are unnecessarily prescriptive, e.g. gaming rules, transport rules and enforcement of product standards at the border;
- Regulatory frameworks that intersect within industries and at the individual business level; e.g. Health and Safety in Employment (HSE), ACC and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) as one group and resource consent, Building Act and Code requirements, territory authority building consent and enforcement requirements as another;
- Studies of the impact of regulation and compliance on particular sectors - food and beverage (with wine as a sub-sector), hospitality and retailing; and
- Strengthening regulatory process disciplines, including the Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) regime.
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