Latest news with #red tape burden
The Guardian
a day ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Australia news live: business council plan to cut ‘$110bn red tape' including building codes and environmental assessments
Update: Date: 2025-08-14T20:30:12.000Z Title: Welcome Content: Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I'm Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories to get you started. Before next week's economic summit, the Business Council of Australia has outlined a vision to relieve business owners from what it calls the country's '$110bn red tape burden' as the federal government hunts for a solution to the nation's withered productivity. More coming up. The war in the Pacific ended 80 years ago and a ceremony at the Australian War Memorial later today will remember the service personnel who gave their lives fighting the Japanese. We have more coming up.
ABC News
a day ago
- Business
- ABC News
$110b 'red tape burden' slowing productivity, says Business Council, calling for Abbott-style audit
Cleaning up even a small amount of a $110 billion "red tape burden" could deliver billions in savings, the Business Council of Australia says, ahead of next week's economic reform round table. Years of accumulated regulations that have built up with little oversight have led to a compliance burden needlessly costing billions, the peak business body says. But there has been no significant red tape audit since the Abbott government in 2014, and no central agency tasked with preventing the build-up of rules duplications and inconsistencies. "The only way to sustainably lift living standards and grow real wages is through faster productivity growth," the council's treasury submission concluded. "We've identified 62 discrete examples in our own report, but these aren't the only 62 and there are going to be hundreds of other opportunities out there," chief executive Bran Black said. Among them are proposals to harmonise disparate schemes requiring businesses to comply with eight different regulatory regimes across states and territories, relax trading and delivery hours for retailers and fixing licensing rules for tradespeople, so that qualifications are recognised across borders. Ageing environmental laws holding up housing, resources and renewables projects, widely viewed as "broken", but which the government was unable to reform last term are a chief concern. The Business Council says productivity growth over the last decade is the worst it has been in 60 years, and that has also led to the slowest decade in income growth for 60 years. The outlook is even more dire. Just this week, the Reserve Bank further revised down its expectations for productivity growth into the future, attaching a warning that wage expectations would also have to be reduced, or else it would drive inflation. An alliance of nearly 30 industry groups has called for Australia to pursue a target similar to the UK government's of a 25 per cent reduction in the cost of regulation by 2030. Its chief executive Bran Black says if even a 1 per cent reduction in compliance burden was achieved, it would represent more than $1 billion in savings through lower costs, reduced delays and better choices. "Are there opportunities to consider overlaps, and where there are overlaps dispense with one of the overlaps? Do we really need, for instance, 36 different licences in Victoria in order to pour a first cup of coffee?" he asked. The BCA said the last "regulatory stocktake" under former prime minister Tony Abbott identified $65 billion in compliance burdens, $110 billion in today's dollars, and another $5 billion at least in new compliance costs since then had been identified by the government's Office of Impact Analysis. Mr Black said the government should launch a new red tape stocktake, and appoint a dedicated "minister for better regulation" who could ensure regular monitoring. Among its 62 'red tape' examples are inconsistencies across state borders on when retail stores can operate, what hours they are allowed to sell certain products and the hours workers are allowed to be onsite, for example to prepare ovens or cash registers. The BCA says hours are still "heavily regulated" in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia despite the shift in consumer preferences to 24/7 online trade. Similarly hours of operation for major stores and distribution centres are limiting when businesses can receive supplies and restock, an issue that hampered supermarkets in responding to panic buying during the pandemic, the BCA says. The council noted curfews were temporarily lifted to allow 24-hour operation of freight delivery and restocking during COVID, and easing the rules again would improve efficiency and reduce road congestion. "There are some jurisdictions that are far more open and free ... our position would be ultimately businesses are best to judge whether or not they should be open ... at the end of the day they are not going to be open if there's not a clientele that they can serve," Mr Black said. "I'm not for a second suggesting regulation is unnecessary, we have just got to make sure we have got the right regulation." It is less than a week until the Economic Reform Roundtable, led by Treasurer Jim Chalmers, is due to begin. The BCA's submission comes a day after accusations from Opposition Leader Sussan Ley that the government was using the round table to orchestrate a "stitch-up", with pre-determined outcomes in mind, after the ABC revealed leaked Treasury advice detailing possible announcements from the event. Mr Black however maintained optimism that participants were entering with an open mind. "I would be surprised if a treasurer wasn't receiving advice from his or her department in relation to the kind of issues that might come out of a round table and which should therefore be on the agenda for discussion," he said. "I genuinely think we should be approaching the round table with an open mind. We really do have a national productivity problem, and if that problem isn't addressed then that has an impact on your day-to-day quality of life."
