A Framework for Control: The RSB’s Blueprint for Influence
Subtle, enduring, and hard to undo — the RSB reframes what governments see as politically possible.
Newsroom’s recent article on the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) invites scrutiny of its design and deeper legal, constitutional, and political consequences.
Structural danger, not judicial weakness
The RSB has been described as a “toothless tiger”, because much of it may not be directly enforceable in the courts. Given New Zealanders are accustomed to seeing the courts as a key route to accountability, the implication is that a lack of judicial teeth means concern about the Bill is incorrect or overstated.
Clause 24 states that parts of the Bill do not create legally enforceable rights – but despite that it still carries significant legal implications.
Sir Geoffrey Palmer, in a recent interview on my podcast Coherent, argues that any lack of court enforceability is not a mitigating feature — it is a key source of its structural danger.
He warns that the RSB represents a new and troubling category of legislation. "The statute itself and its critical elements are not law. It’s basically unconstitutional to do that," he states.
Palmer calls clause 24 one of the Bill’s most troubling elements, warning that it breaches the separation of powers by limiting the courts’ ability to interpret its key provisions. Legislation that functions as law for some purposes but not others, he argues, is constitutionally improper — interpretation belongs to the courts, not Ministers. “Otherwise we would have Executive dictatorship.”
In practice, this would allow Ministers to unilaterally define the principles in cases of disagreement — a dynamic Palmer warns creates the conditions for authoritarian-style governance.
Palmer warns the Bill centralises power in a “wide-ranging super-Minister” with sweeping oversight across Cabinet. Ministerial responsibility is further diluted by the Regulatory Standards Board — appointed by that same Minister — which he says casts a “black cloud” over Ministers, designed to intimidate without needing to strike.
Soft power, cultural shift, and the long game
As Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Dr Eddie Clark, Professor Dean Knight and others have observed, the Bill’s intent is to shift what government does — and what it considers politically possible. This is not a lesser form of influence or outcome. It is the very point.
David Seymour himself states that the Bill aims to create a "culture change" over decades. In the New Zealand Herald, he acknowledged these effects explicitly: "It will put costs of administration. It will put a political embarrassment. It will potentially lead to people challenging, through the Regulatory Standards Board, and getting declarations that bad laws have been made. All of that is true."
Palmer calls the RSB as "a long-term depth charge" – an “extremely complicated and big program of regulatory interference” designed to gradually disrupt how laws are made.
Professor Dean Knight notes that the Bill embeds soft-power layers — procedural, bureaucratic, and reputational — that push governments toward adherence even without court enforceability. Instead, they operate through internal culture, certification, and public framing.
The RSB doesn’t attack head-on — its influence cuts deep as it rewires how regulation is imagined and constrained. Over time, its principles give real teeth to an ideological agenda that could lead to extensive deregulation and reshape the very role of government. Its power lies in quietly shifting the culture of lawmaking and government’s focus — applying pressure, signalling constraint, and redefining what’s politically “responsible.”
Legislation prioritising the public good, the environment, the fullness of the rule of law, te Tiriti or fairness is likely to be subject to complaints to the Regulatory Standards Board for being outside the scope of “responsible regulation” and therefore “irresponsible”. While still allowed, it would need to be publicly justified by Ministers and would be subject to criticism from the Board.
Chilling effect of “regulatory takings” provision
The RSB states that “responsible regulation” should include compensation for regulatory impacts on property. Palmer emphasises this as part of its “insidious” nature, as most existing and new legislation is set to be assessed for consistency with the RSB principles. If incorporated into other laws, clauses on regulatory takings would become enforceable in the domestic courts through those laws.
That governments remain free to omit such provisions is not a satisfactory counter. In practice, public servants are likely to conform to the law’s direction, and political pressure will mount where there are departures. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) history demonstrates this clearly – although governments can pass legislation inconsistent with BORA, they have done so rarely due to the controversy and political pressure that comes with doing so.
The current government has already committed to including a regulatory takings clause in the RMA replacements — a move the RSB is likely to normalise across the legal landscape.
Emeritus Professor Jane Kelsey, in her submission to the Select Committee, describes the most likely and pervasive effect of the regulatory takings principle as “regulatory chill”. This occurs when the cumulative risk of reputational, political, and fiscal consequences deters governments from pursuing new legislation, even where there are strong public policy grounds for doing so.
She also warns that the principle could be used to bolster Investor-State Dispute Settlement claims. The RSB could be cited in international arbitration, where claimants can argue that failure by the New Zealand Government to apply the regulatory takings principle was a breach of their legitimate expectations.
Knight says the regime is designed to ramp up political and bureaucratic pressure on draft laws that don’t conform to the RSB’s principles. Laws affecting property may be slowed or contested during Cabinet or in Parliament.
He says these “slated norms” will likely be embedded in decision-making infrastructure — including the Cabinet Manual, circulars, and papers — and flow through to Parliament. This reinforces Palmer’s warning that the RSB is designed to shape how regulation is approached long before any court or select committee sees it.
Complaints to the Board could tie up MPs, Ministers and officials in constant defensive work. Ironically, the Bill is pitched as reducing red tape. However, as the Legislation, Design and Advisory Committee (LDAC), the New Zealand Law Society, and many others have noted, it increases red tape and will reduce the efficiency of government.
Out of step with Bill of Rights and the rule of law
Palmer, who was responsible for BORA, disagrees with the comparison of the RSB with BORA. He calls the RSB “an affront to the rule of law,” which opens the door to ideological influence without democratic safeguards.
One of his key concerns is that the rights protected through BORA genuinely are fundamental human rights. The RSB “principles” are selective and highly contested. LDAC, the government’s expert body on good law-making, states these are not long-standing or fundamental principles of good law-making.
Sir Geoffrey says, “It’s a Bill that wants to go in the back door because it can’t enter the front door. The front door is to get rid of as much regulatory legislation as you can and review it all.”
In other words, Palmer argues that the Bill pursues a deregulatory agenda – not through open political mandate, but by embedding constraints through process. He contends that it shifts democratic priorities away from collective wellbeing, equity and te Tiriti obligations, and toward libertarian values like minimal regulation and property protection.
The New Zealand Law Society recently released a report calling for the rule of law in New Zealand to be strengthened. While the RSB purports to support rule of law principles, it instead codifies only a narrow subset — excluding values and protections that underpin public interest regulation.
It omits key rule of law values – including access to justice, fairness, state accountability, democratic legitimacy, collective and Indigenous rights – allowing them to be framed as inconsistent with “responsible regulation”.
The Law Society’s January submission noted that individual liberties and property were deliberately excluded from BORA and should not be codified in a regulatory statute. LDAC states that where the RSB repeats principles that genuinely are part of good law-making, it is unnecessary – and the remaining principles are poorly drafted, subjective, and contested.
Palmer argues the RSB conflicts with multiple BORA provisions and faults the vetting process for overlooking them. One key concern is natural justice: the Board, as a public authority, could affect people’s rights without hearings or appeal.
Its negative reports could also delegitimise policies and deter public interest legislation, creating bureaucratic and reputational barriers. The Bill’s design enables opponents of regulation to weaponize process and undermine democratic responsiveness.
Conclusion
The Regulatory Standards Bill has been described by some as symbolic or politically inert. But that view underestimates its deeper institutional, legal, and ideological implications — and the profound impact it could have on our democracy.
This is no toothless tiger. It is a slow, silent architecture: a framework designed not for immediate confrontation, but for long-term influence — reshaping how laws are conceived, justified, and constrained. Its force lies not in judicial enforceability, but in its power to rewrite the unwritten rules of lawmaking — and the law itself — over time.
This is not reform for good law-making. It is structural interference that risks paralysing democratic decision-making by embedding ideological filters into the heart of the legislative process.
It doesn’t need to bite today. It just needs to reshape tomorrow’s legal culture — embedding libertarian norms and chilling public interest regulation before it begins.
As Sir Geoffrey Palmer warns, the Bill is “undemocratic and dangerous.”
“It is an attack on the democracy we now have that will exert influence by reducing regulation over the years in circumstances where it may be needed. It is pernicious.”