Commerce Minister Paul Swain has today announced the members of the new Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs.

"The panel was originally scheduled to be named next year," Paul Swain said "but in response to demand from business I have stepped up the timetable."

The Panel will be up and running early in the New Year.

"The role of the Panel will be to provide advice to the Government on ways to reduce compliance costs to business arising from existing central and local government regulation," Paul Swain said.

"This doesn't include tax legislation which has its own separate review programme," he said.

“The Panel will be the mouthpiece for business to government on priorities for compliance cost reduction, it will report to the Minister of Finance and me by 30 June 2001.

"I received a high number of nominations for the Panel from a well-qualified group of people with differing skill sets and backgrounds, representing a range of different sectors.

"I am confident that business will be very happy with the high calibre of the people I have selected. The members of the Panel are:

 Chair - Alan Dunn – Managing Director/CEO of McDonald’s New Zealand. McDonald’s New Zealand includes a collection of more than 140 restaurants, the majority operated by 49 small business owners nationwide. The company employs more than 6,000 people and is the country’s largest first time employer. Mr Dunn will chair the Panel.
 John Albertson - Chief Executive of the Retail Merchants Association, Wellington.
 Andrew Fox - a sheep and beef farmer from North Canterbury.
 Chye Heng - Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary of Beca Group Ltd, Consulting Engineers.
 David Hoskin - Managing Director of Dave Hoskin’s Carriers Ltd, Wanganui and President of the Central Road Carriers Association.
 Claire Johnston - Head of MPI Clemenger BBDO, and formerly Chief Executive of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce.
 Peter Mony - General Manager of Maxtel Software Ltd, Auckland.
 Clare Nolan - Manger of the Wellington City Council’s Economic Development Unit.
 Vaughan Renner - Chief Executive of South Pacific Tyres Limited, a tyre manufacturing company in Upper Hutt.
 Jerry Rickman - a Managing Partner of Beattie Rickman, Chartered Accountants, Hamilton.
 Helen Samujh - a Senior Lecturer at Waikato University, who has an accountancy and economics background and experience of running a small business.

"To ensure this is an inclusive process, it is proposed that the expertise and knowledge of other nominees will be drawn upon by the Panel.

"The Panel and its work form part of the Government’s broad strategy to improve the general regulatory environment for business.

"It is one of four key compliance cost reduction initiatives that I have recently announced. The three other initiatives include:
1. The establishment of Test Panels, made up largely of business people, who will audit the likely compliance costs and assess the workability of new regulations before they are imposed;
2. The introduction of a requirement that each new legislative or regulatory proposal be accompanied by a Business Compliance Cost Statement, and that these Statements be made public;
3. A review of the progress that has been made in implementing the recommendations of the Commerce Select Committee’s 1998 Inquiry into Compliance Costs for Business.

“The establishment of the Panel is an extremely important initiative and one that has the potential to result in some very worthwhile gains for the business community and for the economy as a whole," Paul Swain said.

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