However, our legal system and theirs are a lot different as I understand it,
Arm,
With the very greatest of respect, you couldn't be more wrong, but you have swallowed the CASA propaganda.
Overall, the NZ legislative system is the same as Australia, and aviation wise, the framework is simply an Act (quite superior to our Act, and includes a requirement for the Minister to promote aviation) Regulations and Advisory Circulars (acceptable means of compliance). No nonsense of MOS. No thousands of Legislative Instruments.
About the only real black spot is medical standards, and that is because, in my opinion, the people are wrong. Sadly, CASA seem to have "harmonised" with NZ CAA in this area, because it/as result of which it (take your pick) disadvantages long standing Australian standards.
The Commonwealth of Australia has a long and respectable history of importing legislation by reference, we have been doing it since 1901.
but I don't see that that's what Skidmore is trying to do; rather, I think he's genuinely trying to work through and fix some significant problems in the organisation he's been appointed to lead.
Is he really??
One of his first "decisions" seems to be to reaffirm the Navathe approach to colour vision, taking us back almost 30 years, and the absolute antithesis of facts based or performance/outcome based regulation -- and contrary to Government policy on red tape reduction. Mr. Skidmore has been quite blunt about colour vision standards, he prefers the RAAF "black and white" (interesting choice of words) approach of one simple standard (unrelated to whether you can fly safely), you are in or you are out ---- based on arbitrary tests that neither conform with our present regulations, or ICAO.
Tootle pip!!