In this episode of Coherent, economist Geoff Bertram joins me to explore the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) and the deeper ideological project driving it. With a career spanning decades in regulatory economics, macroeconomic policy, and the history of economic thought, Geoff offers a sweeping and incisive analysis of how this seemingly technical Bill threatens to upend New Zealand’s democratic and regulatory foundations.

Geoff traces the RSB’s lineage from the Business Roundtable’s agenda of the 1990s to its current resurrection under the ACT Party. He explains how the Bill seeks to constrain the state through “paralysis by analysis,” pushing decision-making into the courts, entrenching extreme interpretations of property rights, and reframing long-standing public policy goals — such as fairness, environmental protection, and collective wellbeing — as “irresponsible.”

We talk about how the Bill’s compensation provisions could make regulating monopolies near-impossible, why it imposes layers of new red tape despite claiming to cut it, and how its principles are designed to intimidate government actors into inaction. Geoff warns that the RSB represents not just a threat to progressive policy, but a fundamental redefinition of what responsible government even means.

This conversation situates the Bill in the wider struggle between democratic government and libertarian ideology. Geoff argues that rejecting the RSB is a vital first step in restoring the ability of government to serve the public good — and offers a compelling roadmap for rebuilding a regulatory system that is inclusive, fair, and future-ready.

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