Pansy Wong MP
National Party Commerce Spokeswoman

6 October 2006

Labour adds more cost but no value

The Government is continuing to bump up compliance costs and red tape unnecessarily, says National's Commerce spokeswoman, Pansy Wong.

"The Testing Laboratory Registration Amendment Bill is the latest example of this Government's indifference to the effect of compliance costs on organisations.

"This bill will force bodies such as Heath and Disability Auditing NZ to increase accreditation fees by more than eight times because they won't be able to use their existing accreditation agency.

"That is a totally unnecessary change.

"This organisation is approved by the Director-General of Health to audit certain service providers, and I fail to see what additional value can be gained by increasing fees by eight times.

"They are either going to have to pass on the costs to those they audit or they will be driven out of business.

"And it doesn't end there.

"Taxpayers will no doubt have to cough up for the cost and lengthy process of developing the lofty standards demanded by the recently passed Standards and Conformance Bill, which aims to introduce new subjective targets such as social responsibility to businesses.

"These two pieces of legislation alone put lie to claims by Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel that her Government wants to have a 'horizontal, cortical and dynamic review' to reduce compliance costs.

"The lights are on but no one's home when it comes to this Government and compliance costs," says Mrs Wong.

ENDS

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