Offensive Trades List Scrapped After 70 Years

Fish curers and leather tanners are off the hook. The Government is scrapping the so-called 'offensive trades' registration requirement under the 1956 Health Act, ending annual paperwork and fees for hundreds of businesses that have been jumping through a 70-year-old regulatory hoop for no good reason.

Regulation Minister David Seymour says the change follows a submission to the Ministry of Regulation's Red Tape Tipline. "Red tape isn't neutral; it's a tax on productivity and growth. When businesses spend time and money spent on needless compliance it diverts their resources away from things that matter," Seymour says.

The 'offensive trades' list — a relic of mid-century public health concern — covers things like fish curing, leather tanning, flax pulping, and nightsoil collection. In 1956, these probably needed watching. In 2026, not so much.

Health Minister Simeon Brown says the existing environmental and industry-specific systems, along with local councils and other Health Act powers, already do the job. "One person's 'offensive trade' is another person's livelihood and where compliance costs are not necessary, they shouldn't exist. These businesses will no longer have to complete registration paperwork or pay registration fees, and councils won't have to administer the regime," Brown says.

The savings are estimated at up to $2.26 million over 10 years — not exactly a budget-buster, but real money for small operators who've been quietly filing forms nobody needed.

Seymour is clearly enjoying this. "The Red Tape Tipline continues to deliver for Kiwis. If you've got a regulatory problem, we want to hear it and fix it," he says. "The Ministry for Regulation is in a unique position to take on regulatory costs that make it harder for Kiwis to get on with business. Because these regulations are imposed by so many departments, it takes one ministry with a mandate for doing the dirty work and working with others to cut the red tape."

The tipline model — letting businesses dob in their own pointless compliance burdens — is at least an honest admission that government rarely notices its own mess until someone outside it points at it long enough.