How red tape removal became a progressive rallying cry

Perth Now

2 days ago

Conservative politicians often make hay with calls to slash red tape and limit the ever-expanding reach of big government bureaucracy.
But progressive politicians who care about housing affordability, the clean energy transition and encouraging quality research should likewise have over-regulation in their sights, argues Labor MP Andrew Leigh.
Despite being a rich society, a quiet accumulation of obstacles has prevented Australia providing its citizens' basic needs, the federal assistant minister for charities, competition, treasury and now productivity says.
Take, for example, Dr Leigh's home town of Canberra.
Faced with insufficient housing supply and rising unaffordability, the ACT government introduced a new planning system in 2023, intended to improve flexibility and clarity.
But greater flexibility meant greater complexity, more documentation requirements and slower approval timelines. Building consents more than halved.
Whereas, in the mid 1960s, when the national capital was being developed at "breath-taking" speed, 2400 new homes were being built on average each year. In 2024, only 2180 new dwellings were greenlit in the ACT.
The go-slow in approvals pathways is not confined to housing, with clean energy projects suffering from delay and deferral and stifling administration in the university sector holding back great Australian minds from realising world-changing research.
Slow, fragmented, and over-engineered systems are making it harder to get approval for the things Australia needs.
"And the consequences are visible everywhere - from rising rents and overcrowding, to the growing number of people priced out of the communities they grew up in," Dr Leigh will tell the Chifley Research Centre in Melbourne on Tuesday.
His speech, influenced by the work of US journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, calls for Australia to adopt an "abundance agenda": for a progressive supply-side push to fix falling productivity and meet the nation's needs.
"The abundance agenda isn't about building without limits. It's about removing the limits that no longer serve us," he says.
"Ambition without capability leads to frustration. Vision without delivery erodes trust. If we want the next decade to be one of shared prosperity and real progress, we have to be able to build."
The solution is not just to slash red tape and remove systems that are designed to keep risk in check.
Public institutions too often lack the capability to evaluate risks, make bold decisions, and stick to timelines. Upskilling them is essential.
"One reason for over-regulation is fear - of failure, of blame, of reputational damage," Dr Leigh says.
"The result is systems that push decisions upward, delay risk, and rely on external consultants to validate internal judgment.
"Reversing this trend won't happen overnight. But it starts with institutions that are trusted to act - not just to review, approve and regulate, but to enable."