Source: Greenpeace
Greenpeace Aotearoa has today filed its submission opposing the Regulatory Standards Bill and calling for it to be rejected in full.
“Dressed up in the language of freedom and liberty, this Bill promotes a fringe libertarian worldview that individuals and corporations are entitled to harm nature and others, and if restrictions are placed on them, then they should be compensated.”
“This ideology is fundamentally at odds with our nation’s deeply-rooted values of fairness, care, and collective responsibility.”
“At its core, this Bill is an attempt by a far-right politician to create a bill of rights for corporations, at the expense of the rights of New Zealanders, the rights of nature, and the rights of Māori guaranteed to them under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”
“If enacted, it will, without doubt, erode environmental protection, lead to the extinction of precious native wildlife, and impair the Government’s ability to take action on climate change.”
The Greenpeace Aotearoa submission goes on to warn that the Bill would open the floodgates for corporations to expect taxpayer handouts for any regulation that protects public health and the environment, or tries to manage the cost of living. It gives a series of chilling examples:
- If rules were strengthened to prevent catastrophic oil spills such as the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the executives at BP oil would expect millions from the taxpayer.
- Basic protections for our drinking water or lakes and rivers, would see Fonterra making complaints to an unelected regulatory standards board and expecting a public payout.
- Supermarket giants would expect compensation for any efforts to limit price gouging and bring down grocery prices.
- Offshore shareholders of multinational forestry companies would expect a payout for any new laws compelling them to prevent further deaths of New Zealand forestry workers.
- Even the Tobacco industry would expect taxpayer dollars simply for efforts to save New Zealanders’ lives and get us to a smoke-free reality.
