ROGER PARTRIDGE: When Transparency Becomes a Threat

Imagine asking your accountant to explain their calculations – and they respond by demanding triple their fee and warning you will be embarrassed by what they find.

That is roughly what happened when New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was asked about new transparency requirements.

The story begins with the Government’s Regulatory Standards Bill – a coalition agreement measure. MBIE, the department responsible for regulatory policy, was asked to brief its Minister.

The Bill proposes something straightforward: when ministers introduce new laws, they should tell Parliament whether those laws comply with well-established legal principles – like clarity, rationality, respect for property rights – and explain any departures.

This approach is not revolutionary. These principles are already embedded in Cabinet guidelines and regulatory impact frameworks. The Bill's aim is to ensure some of the most fundamental of those principles are not quietly ignored.

MBIE’s response was extraordinary. Internal documents released under the Official Information Act this week show officials claimed implementing the Bill would require up to 285 new staff costing $34 million. Radio New Zealand reported MBIE warning of “continuing embarrassment for Ministers” – essentially admitting many future laws would fail basic standards.

The cost estimates are also absurd. MBIE’s workforce doubled from 3,300 to over 6,600 between 2017 and 2023. Yet when asked to explain whether regulations comply with fundamental legal principles – which should be routine – MBIE’s response was not redeployment, efficiency, or streamlining. It was to bid for hundreds more staff.

Worse, when MBIE’s advice was requested through the Official Information Act, the department blacked out nearly everything – not just recommendations, but headings and summaries. A department warning about the dangers of transparency could not even be transparent about its own advice.

The real issue with the Regulatory Standards Bill is not that ministers might be embarrassed. It is that MBIE sees the Bill as a problem rather than progress. But if proposed laws regularly fail to meet basic standards, surely we should know about it?

Good regulation requires more than rules on paper. It requires a culture that values openness. When the department meant to champion these values treats accountability as an existential threat, it is not the transparency requirements that need rethinking – it is the culture itself.

This column was first published in The New Zealand Initiative’s Insights newsletter on 25 July 2025. To read it on the Initiative website, please click here.

Roger Partridge writes here