Just days after the Opposition announced a plan to impose strong controls on the electricity industry, a new study has questioned the impact of politics on making regulations.
The Law Foundation's regulatory reform project has been aimed at designing a framework of rules for New Zealand.
Ultimately the Foundation intends on developing a tool kit for regulatory reform as a guide to policymakers, lawyers and the public.
Project leader Susy Frankel, a law professor at Victoria University, says politics can drive regulations from one extreme to the other, but the question that needs to be asked is whether regulation is necessary and, if it is, what regulation is appropriate.
Professor Frankel says the tool kit will provide information such as what happened in the past under different regulations.
