The Government has introduced the Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill (RSAB) Package which comprises four Bills that contributes to the Government’s priorities to improve the quality of existing regulation, access to justice and court timeliness. They are:
These Bills are the first regulatory systems amendment bills for the Ministry of Justice and represent a key milestone for its regulatory stewardship work programme and delivering to the Ministry’s strategy ‘to steward our policy and regulatory systems’.
A regulatory systems amendment bill aims to improve the laws underpinning a regulatory system. They bring in amendments that help to keep regulatory systems up to date and relevant. This may include fixing errors, addressing gaps and removing unnecessary red tape. Such bills provide an opportunity to progress issues that may otherwise not be prioritised by the Government’s policy work programme.
The four Bills will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Courts and Tribunals, Occupational Regulation, and Criminal Law (Anti-Money Laundering) regulatory areas, three of the seven regulatory areas administered by the Ministry.
The work on the RSAB package begun in mid-2023 with a call for proposals across the Ministry and the Judiciary, including Tribunal Chairs. Proposals were deemed suitable if they:
The Bills will implement 89 changes across 25 Acts.
The Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill makes amendments across 15 Acts. These amendments will relieve administrative burdens, clarifying roles and expand the powers and jurisdiction of judicial officers, consistent with their existing role and other powers. The amendments will affect multiple jurisdictions, including the Coroners Court, Family Court and the Employment Court.
The Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill makes amendments to five Acts. The amendments will impact the Disputes Tribunal, Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal, the Tenancy Tribunal, the Private Security Personnel Licencing Authority and the Parole Board.
The amendments in this Bill will remove barriers to accessing justice, simplify the appointment processes to tribunal bodies, and clarify and resolve inconsistencies in the legislation.
The Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill makes amendments to three Acts affecting three occupational regulation regimes administered by the Ministry of Justice. The Acts being amended are the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 (LCA), the Real Estate Agents Act 2008 (REAA); and the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA).
The amendments should increase the efficiency of the lawyers’ complaints system, address an ongoing issue regarding the enforceability of conveyancers’ undertakings, reduce the compliance burden on real estate agents, enhance the Real Estate Authority’s powers to better protect consumers and align the references in the PRA and the Crimes Act 1961 to the serious offences that disqualify people who are convicted from being licensed to run sex work businesses.
The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill aims to provide immediate relief to businesses by reducing compliance burdens and costs.
An example of an amendment providing immediate relief included in the Bill is to exempt low risk trusts from enhanced customer due diligence requirements. This will reduce compliance burden for business with customers that are low-risk trusts. Enhanced customer due diligence requirements include the need to conduct further checks to verify the source of funds or source of wealth information of the customer.
Download a complete list of the amendments for each Bill [PDF, 218 KB].
Find out about the progress of the Bills on Parliament's website:
View the bills on the New Zealand Legislation website:
Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill Package: Policy proposals [PDF, 9.6 MB]
Regulatory Impact Statement: Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill package [PDF, 1.3 MB]
Wide ranging legislation to make justice system more efficient (external link)
More AML relief on the way for Kiwi businesses(external link)