Gone By Lunchtime (Image: Tina Tiller)
Gone By Lunchtime (Image: Tina Tiller)

PoliticsJuly 16, 2025

Gone By Lunchtime: ‘The one thing they could blow up the government over’

Staff writers
Gone By Lunchtime (Image: Tina Tiller)
Gone By Lunchtime (Image: Tina Tiller)

We rattle through the reg stan bill, its advocates, its dissenters, and the tension it has created within the coalition.

There has plenty plenty of heat, and occasional shafts of light, in the arguments around the government’s regulatory standards bill (or reg stan bill, as nobody except the Gone By Lunchtime podcast is calling it).

In a new episode of the Spinoff politics chinwag, Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire discuss the bill, its ambitions and the criticisms levelled against it. And another thing: the way the legislation has become a source of some tension between the Act and New Zealand First Party, amplified by a cameo appearance by a United Nations special rapporteur.

Also on the pod: the state of play in the Tāmaki Makaurau byelection, and the state of yuck in Wellington local body politics. You’ll never guess what we heard from the friend of a neighbour of a colleague about Ray Chung.

Follow Gone By Lunchtime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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