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nerwengreenThe bill in question: https://www.regulation.govt.nz/our-work/regulatory-standards-bill/
Submission due date: 13 Jan 2025
What I submitted:
The purpose of a democratic government is to represent the best interests of the people, including their wellbeing and the wellbeing of the natural environment.
A core part of the government’s responsibility is to mediate between parties with conflicting interests in such a way as to ensure that all parties can carry out their activities and goals with the least harm done to each other, other people, or the natural environment. This includes defending the people from private for-profit corporations, which by definition are mainly interested in maximising profit for themselves, regardless of any expense to the people, their wellbeing and communities, and the wellbeing of the natural environment. Government mainly defends the interests of the people by making laws and regulations that limit the damaging activities that profit-minded corporations can have.
The goal of the Regulatory Standards Bill seems to be to disable the government from being able to carry out its core function of defending the people from the corporations.
We already know what happens when a democratic government removes all the laws and regulations that limit the exploitative activities of private for-profit corporations. Other countries have tried this, for example the United States in the 1980s. Forty years later, the primary focus of the U.S. economy is about moving all of the nation’s wealth toward corporations and the billionaires who own them as efficiently as possible, while the people there are relentlessly exploited in every possible way for every aspect of themselves that has potential value to the corporations, particularly as workers or consumers.
I say that we don’t want Aotearoa New Zealand to become anything like the United States. I moved here from the United States to get away from the hyperfocus on the monetary value of everything, and I say that anyone who wants to live in a society that values corporations over people, that thinks “economic growth” is what’s most important, should go live there instead. Such places already exist - there is no need to create that here in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Instead of endless and pointless unfettered growth, the purpose of the economy should be, and certainly can be here in Aotearoa New Zealand, about providing for the wellbeing of the people and the natural environment. The wellbeing of businesses is irrelevant. Businesses are not people. They have no value in and of themselves; they are tools that should be for providing products and services that support the wellbeing of the people and the natural environment. The moment they stop serving the people or the natural environment, especially if they begin to harm people or the natural environment, they should be forced to cease to exist.
I oppose the Regulatory Standards Bill because its goals are the opposite of what Aotearoa New Zealand is about, has been about, and should be about.
Submission due date: 13 Jan 2025
What I submitted:
The purpose of a democratic government is to represent the best interests of the people, including their wellbeing and the wellbeing of the natural environment.
A core part of the government’s responsibility is to mediate between parties with conflicting interests in such a way as to ensure that all parties can carry out their activities and goals with the least harm done to each other, other people, or the natural environment. This includes defending the people from private for-profit corporations, which by definition are mainly interested in maximising profit for themselves, regardless of any expense to the people, their wellbeing and communities, and the wellbeing of the natural environment. Government mainly defends the interests of the people by making laws and regulations that limit the damaging activities that profit-minded corporations can have.
The goal of the Regulatory Standards Bill seems to be to disable the government from being able to carry out its core function of defending the people from the corporations.
We already know what happens when a democratic government removes all the laws and regulations that limit the exploitative activities of private for-profit corporations. Other countries have tried this, for example the United States in the 1980s. Forty years later, the primary focus of the U.S. economy is about moving all of the nation’s wealth toward corporations and the billionaires who own them as efficiently as possible, while the people there are relentlessly exploited in every possible way for every aspect of themselves that has potential value to the corporations, particularly as workers or consumers.
I say that we don’t want Aotearoa New Zealand to become anything like the United States. I moved here from the United States to get away from the hyperfocus on the monetary value of everything, and I say that anyone who wants to live in a society that values corporations over people, that thinks “economic growth” is what’s most important, should go live there instead. Such places already exist - there is no need to create that here in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Instead of endless and pointless unfettered growth, the purpose of the economy should be, and certainly can be here in Aotearoa New Zealand, about providing for the wellbeing of the people and the natural environment. The wellbeing of businesses is irrelevant. Businesses are not people. They have no value in and of themselves; they are tools that should be for providing products and services that support the wellbeing of the people and the natural environment. The moment they stop serving the people or the natural environment, especially if they begin to harm people or the natural environment, they should be forced to cease to exist.
I oppose the Regulatory Standards Bill because its goals are the opposite of what Aotearoa New Zealand is about, has been about, and should be about.
