David Seymour: Regulation Minister calls for consolidation after 267 different regulators discovered in new report

Regulation Minister David Seymour says New Zealanders should only have to knock at one regulator's door to get something done.

A Ministry report out today identifies almost 270 different organisations within our regulation system. 

They're spread across central and local Government, and statutory bodies, committees and tribunals.

Seymour says this feels like New Zealand is a small country with a too-big Government, and changes need to be made.

"You just feel that a lot of things would be easier if we looked at these and said - hey, maybe we need fewer agencies focused on doing things that are essential, we'd getter better results, less costs, it'd be easier to fix things."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon. If you had to guess how many different
regulators we had in New Zealand, would you guess? Two
hundred and sixty seven. That's the numbers according to a
new report from the Ministry for Regulation, and the finding
has been labeled a twisted spaghetti of regulators who don't
just cost money to fund, but suck up people's time
and force others to give up completely. That's from David Seymour,
who was, of course the minister. Let's talk to him. Hi, David, Hey, ever,

(00:22):
is that necessarily too many?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
No, there's no right number. But when you consider that,
this means we have basically got a regulator of some
sort for every town the size of fielding in this country,
it does feel like we're a small country with far
too bigger government. And then you look at some specific
examples we drilled into dogs because it's just a bit
of fun. I mean, there's five different government agencies that

(00:47):
regulate dogs, there's eleven different laws that regulate dogs, and
then there's a bunch of subagencies. I mean then there's
the police, the SPCA and so on. So there's actually
just a crazy number of people involved in regulating dogs. Now,
why does that matter because the Minister for the local
government is currently trying to deal to dog attacks, the

(01:09):
number of people he has to deal with if he's
going to do anything meaningful. I'm not saying he won't succeed,
but you just feel that a lot of things would
be easier if we looked at these and said, hey,
maybe we need fewer agencies focused on doing things that
are essential. We get better results, less costs and be
easier to fix things.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Okay, so let's stick with the example of the dogs.
Can you fold all five of those bodies into one
body to make it simple?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah? I suspect. I mean, we don't know where it
will go in the end, but I suspect you don't
need the DIA in the form of councils, the police,
the doc the MPI. I suspect you could say, look,
there's one agency that's going to be all things dogs.
If you've got a dog, talk to these guys rather
than what we have. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Are there any that stand out to you, Any regulators
that stand out in that list as actually just been
redundant all together?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
It wi be a bit controversial, but we got something
like a dozen different medical regulators who've got nurses, dentists, doctors, pharmacists,
and quite a number of physiosm and so it goes.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
And so you would scrap some of them or blend
them into one.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
When it's really fragmented. What they end up doing is
actually fighting for turf with each other and trying to
keep people out who could do a good job because
they tend to be dominated by the incumbents in that
industry or that sector, rather than asking about what's best
for patients. The other thing about having a whole lot
of small regulators is that they tend to look for

(02:41):
stuff to do, whereas if you have one and say, look,
you got finite resources, finite time, do the things you
really have to do, like keeping patients safe, make that
your priority. Then they kind of have to economize and
you actually get efficiency. So that that would be an
example of where I think we could do a lot better.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Cool Now, listen on the public servant. Is this one
that's been announced today actually going to happen? And the
reason I'm asking that is that you had promised pro
the last election to get rid of fourteen thousand and
it didn't happen, So why will this one happen.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Because it didn't happen when I promised it. Because there's
three parties, and of course you know you can be
there every day harassing the other two, but at the
end of the day, you lead a horse to water,
you can't make them drink. I think what has made
them drink is the financial reality. And this is another
thing I've said that sooner or later, financial reality is
going to drive us towards the sum of the things

(03:34):
that's been saying. And the other reason I believe this
will happen is that the Treasury has now put it
into the books. So if we don't do this, and frankly,
heaven forbid it, another government got in and didn't do
this after November, then they are going to have to
adjust up their spending forecast, therefore borrow more money, run
bigger deficits for longer. And I think that is simply

(03:57):
not credible for any government in a country that's already
on watch from the ratings agencies.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Right now, David, thanks for your time. I appreciated David Seymour,
Regulation Minister for more. From hither Duplessy Allen Drive listen
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