Regulation Articles

The Morrison government has flagged tax cuts and aggressive deregulation as part of a pro-business road to economic recovery. A focus on stimulating rapid growth on the other side of the coronavirus pandemic is expected to guide October’s federal budget. — AAP report, April 20. Future government action must focus strongly upon savings as a result of the 15 per cent of GDP ($340 billion) that has been spent on combating coronavirus

The Australian economy has been flagging for many years now. Over the past year we actually saw a decline in GDP per capita and per hour worked. There are many reasons for this but all come back to government intervention – excess spending on unproductive welfare measures, over-taxation of business income and the general regulatory morass that has come to characterise economic management.

Getting back to parochial matters, the following is my take on the Victorian Andrews Government political playbook as published in the Herald Sun this morning A benefit of election campaigns is that while they are in progress politicians don’t have access to the legislative and regulatory levers. Election campaigns and caretaker government mean politicians can only talk about “fairness” or “reconciliation” or how they are going “to create the modern dynamic 21st century economy”

The debate ignited by the Productivity Commission over the effectiveness of superannuation funds as pension funds contains some enigmatic facets. One is that the funds themselves, especially the trade union dominated “Industry Funds”, tend to make their investment choices overwhelmingly at arms-length on the advice of professionals. 

Like a border skirmish that develops into a global conflagration, John Howard’s policy to require “two per cent additional energy” be met with renewables has escalated into a measure destroying the electricity market. Back in 1998, the idea sounded good: give renewables a leg-up while they march to their inevitable destination involving cost-competitively displacing fossil fuels in electricity supply.

The unions have found a cause in Barry’s– a brother and sister run café in Melbourne’s Northcote. United Voice got a big enough crowd to fill a TV screen to protest against “wage theft”. The café was paying casual staff the (lower) permanent staff rate but giving them free coffees and meals. The ABC, which as a taxpayer financed supplier can readily afford to pay the wage rates designated by some isolated umpire, 

The unions have found a cause in Barry’s– a brother and sister run café in Melbourne’s Northcote. United Voice got a big enough crowd to fill a TV screen to protest against “wage theft”. The café was paying casual staff the (lower) permanent staff rate but giving them free coffees and meals. The ABC, which as a taxpayer financed supplier can readily afford to pay the wage rates designated by some isolated umpire, 

The attention attracted by US import duties is important on many dimensions. ​ Alan Kohler, in the process of suggesting that Trump might be deliberately trying to start a trade war, pointed out that the policy communication came at a press conference, following talks with steel executives. Right at the end of the press conference, the President unexpectedly announced, “Twenty-five per cent for steel. It will be 10 per cent for aluminium. 

Many of us have a nostalgia for the days, commencing with the Hawke-Keating competition reforms, when there was a phalanx of business people calling for deregulation, privatisation and smaller government. Prior to the 1980s the manufacturing groups were calling for more support against imports, including stopping “dumping” a policy approach that Australia took to global heights.

It is perhaps a little cruel to apply the epithet, “The best energy minister we have” to the likeable Josh Frydenberg, especially since he alone with Tony Abbott actually writes his own media pieces. In today’s AFR he writes about the unfolding gas crisis. While he cannot blame the Queensland government, where the ALP has followed the Coalition in permitting gas exploration, he blames the ALP under Gillard for permitting too many exports and the Andrews 

Yesterday the Commonwealth government gave environmental approval to Project Sea Dragon, a $2 billion scheme involving prawn farming in the North. According to reports it will increase the national prawn catch by 55 per cent and employ 1400 people in activities that deliver real worth involving willing customers. Revenues of over $1.25 billion a year are expected. 

Each year the energy regulator, the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), publishes data on the make-up of electricity costs for households. This breaks down costs into three categories: environmental, regulated networks and wholesale/retail. In Queensland federal environmental policies cost the average household $63 and state based schemes a further $128, adding 7 per cent to household electricity bills. NSW consumers get off more lightly:

According to research commissioned by The Australia Institute if we ban all new coalmines, allowing coal production to fall from 420 million tonnes annually to under 50 million tonnes, we would see a trivial 0.6 per cent fall in GDP. To arrive at such numbers TAI commissioned Victoria University to use a garbage-in-garbage-out analysis with fungible labour, capital and technology. The model’s construction means that any industry’s demise assumes factors of production

A benefit of election campaigns is that while they are in progress politicians don’t have access to the legislative and regulatory levers. Election campaigns and caretaker government mean politicians can only talk about “fairness” or “reconciliation” or how they are going “to create the modern dynamic 21st century economy”. Governments already take nearly 40 per cent of our income, mainly for welfare spending, and Commonwealth regulations cost us an additional 

Addressing independent truckers, Malcolm Turnbull announced that the $4 million saved from the abolition of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) will be diverted to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, with extra money pumped into road safety programs such as Roads to Recovery. I wrote about the issue a couple of months ago, as did Judith. The RSRT was set up by Gillard government’s Minister for Workplace Relations, Bill Shorten

MARK Twain said, “No man’s property is safe while the legislature is in session.” That was at a time when government took less than 10 per cent of people’s earnings compared with today’s 40 per cent. Even so, the present federal election campaign proves him wrong. Parliament isn’t sitting but the major parties’ spendathons and regulatory excesses are growing like burgeoning tumours, devouring the only areas where wealth is created

A re-affirmation of small government, ideally including constitutional limits on its size and regulatory authority within the economy, is necessary if stagnation is not to become the way of the world. Or we could ape Japan's example and learn to live with little or no growth, not now or ever

The safety of road transport by heavy vehicle has, like all transport, mightily improved over the years. Better trucks and better road are the chief contributors. Australia, in spite of having a geography that entails a great many long distance heavy truck journeys, is about average within the OECD with 5 deaths per 100,000 people per year – that’s down from over 13 per 100,000 in 1990

One significant change Malcolm Turnbull has introduced is the creation of a mini-department for Cities. This is in spite of the Commonwealth having few city specific taxation and regulatory responsibilities. The original ministerial choice, Jamie Briggs, has yet to be replaced after being sacked for unwanted familiarity with a female public servant in a Hong Kong bar. The Gillard government had previously developed a Cities policy and issued a 90 page glossy publication,

The break-neck growth of the Chinese economy over the past 25 years generated the Australian mining bonanza.   This transformed us into a virtual economic province of China.  It brought significant economic  growth, though this was diluted by the offsetting effects of wasteful government welfare spending  and regulatory controls over business.     The many domestic political extravagances that offset the benefits of the mining boom included  energy policies

n the lead-up to December’s Paris conference on climate change, more than 100 major firms have promised the White House they will lower their emissions of carbon dioxide. BHP, Alcoa and Rio have joined 11 other firms in undertaking to “mobilise the technology, investment and innovation needed to transition to a sustainable low-carbon economy”.

It comes as no surprise that Wotif founder Graeme Wood should be funding a group of Aborigines as one of the bow strings for prosecuting the case against the development of Adani’s Carmichael coal mine. Wood and his associates sought out, financed and organised the Aborigines group to claim that the Indian owned coal mining was engaged in racial discrimination. That was going nowhere but it adds to the cacophony that the ACF led forces

Tapping coal seam gas reserves has been among the most challenging political issues around the world.  Perhaps this is because the mineral extracted is new and those ranged against such activities can mobilise opposition and invent new dangers from a novel form of mining

The Victorian Auditor General, John Doyle is another key state government identity (actually appointed by the Coalition) who is under a “personal grievance” cloud, having left a previous position in British Columbia following expense fiddling allegations. He was somewhat controversial in his previous post in criticising the BC government’s performance in preserving biodiversity, which he declared was “.. like a canary-in-the-mine situation. 

Fifty years ago Western Mining made encouraging exploration finds at Kambalda in Western Australia and proceeded to get two government approvals and build a mine that was operating within 17 months. It became one of the biggest nickel mines in the world. Contrast the regulatory approach 50 years ago with the obstruction faced by Shenhua's Watermark mine on the Liverpool Plains. At a cost of $1 billion, this is planned to add 10 million tonnes

The White Paper on Agriculture has been a long time coming. Its gestation would not have been helped by departmental changes. Barnaby Joyce fired the Department head he inherited, Andrew Metcalf, who had no experience in the portfolio prior to his appointment in 2013. Barnaby unaccountably acquiesced in or was forced to accept as the new Departmental Secretary Paul Grimes, who also had no experience in the portfolio. 

A DECADE of stagnating output and sluggish productivity growth in agriculture screams out for reform but a foreshadowed Commonwealth policy review is behind schedule. The farm sector’s malaise stems from government regulation. This has prevented land clearing and blocked new technology like genetically modified crops, which now dominate global agriculture. Above all, it has denied agriculture the water supplies, which in Australia are its lifeblood.

Business Spectator’s writers are a queer bunch. Bartholemuesz is among Australia’s top half dozen business writers and both Kohler and Gottliebsen are often bang on the money with insightful and interesting pieces. And, heavens above, they even publish Sinclair. But its energy team, Tristan Edis and Matthew Wright, often write as though they are bag men for the renewable industry.

“I can feel a dam coming on” was the refrain made famous by the Modest Member. A new dam, new road, additional water rights, were among the baubles seemingly available from governments to be scattered among the voters when favours were needed. Their urban counterparts were job subsidies, new training schemes to counter the high regulated youth wage, and even more darkly, trade restraints and subsidies to manufacturing. 

ON Christmas Eve — an ideal time to bury dubious policy — Richard Colbeck, parliamentary secretary for agriculture, announced that the government would prevent fishing vessels longer than 130m from operating in Australian water

Christmas Eve is the ideal time to announce a policy that is old news before anyone can digest it. True to form, yesterday, the parliamentary secretary for agriculture, Richard Colbeck, said the government would stop vessels longer than 130m from fishing in Australian waters. The ban is aimed at integrated factory fishing vessels that harvest the catch faster and more efficiently.

Bill Carmichael in an op ed piece in today’s The Australian promotes many of the right policies for sound government. He suggests we should have a level playing field – though in citing business leaders in support of this he is being rather selective. And he rails against the appalling anti-dumping arrangements that we have which we use as protectionist tools. Indeed, he is rather soft on this, saying the reversal of the onus of proof is the problem

Government "industry" policy in Australia has a dismal history. In the past, policy was dominated by tariffs that sought to provide a domestic market for local firms in the hope that these would eventually become internationally competitive. Supporting that approach was "positive" assistance with research, including advising firms about how to conduct their businesses. These Government measures simply frittered away wealth in subsidies to failing firms, high prices, 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his energetic parliamentary secretary, Josh Frydenberg, have delivered the government's first bonfire of regulations, together with guidances designed to arrest the flow of new regulations. Modern-era deregulation began in the 1980s with United States president Ronald Reagan. He required a systematic appraisal of new regulations and a deregulatory oriented review of existing ones.

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In electricity supply, Victoria is widely regarded as the most competitive jurisdiction in the world. Supply comes from dozens of generators including from three major businesses producing within the state. Victoria's "poles and wire" networks are all privately owned and operate far more cost-effectively than those of other states. Indeed, former prime minister Julia Gillard, though a lifelong socialist, urged New South Wales and Queensland to privatise their networks

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in promoting the case for Budget deficits, says, "Imagine a wage earner, John, employed in the same job throughout the last 20 years". She reckons that, if faced with reduced income this year but hopeful of future increases, John should cover his expenditure by borrowing. There you have the Government's spending strategy. This does not work for individuals. Still less can firms follow her advice and, faced with losses

This year thousands of pages in government reports have addressed electricity supply policies. Electricity is also at the eye of the carbon emission restraint storm that continues to blow, even after the latest fiasco at Doha. Having started this century with deregulatory and privatisation measures that elevated Australian industry to world leadership in low-cost supply, the electricity sector is reverting to its over-regulated condition before the Kennett and Keating

Australia has thrived by achieving high productivity levels, especially in our agricultural and mining industries. Commercial fishing has had a more mixed success, partly because Australia's catch quotas are set extremely conservatively. As a result, we are a net importer of fish despite having the one of the world's largest oceanic territories. Aggravating this is the Commonwealth Government banning the Abel Tasman, 

Caltex has seen its share price value outperform that of similar stocks in recent weeks. Usually it is a promising new investment that drives a firm's improved stock value but in the Caltex case it is disinvestment that has prompted the share price to rise. This involves a contemplated closure of the firm's Brisbane and Sydney oil refineries, first foreshadowed in December 2011 and followed by an announcement last month. The Caltex refineries are old but 

How many separate approvals are required before an owner can move into a new house in Melbourne's designated urban growth area? Twenty? Fifty? According to Victoria's Growth Area Authority (GAA), 540 different ticks are needed from regulators. It's no wonder that not enough houses are being built and that completed houses cost so much. It's miraculous that 35,000 new houses actually get built each year in Victoria. 

Nobody is accusing the Baillieu Government of intemperate haste in rectifying the Bracks-Brumby era's unrestrained spending programs and regulatory excesses. In real terms, between 2000 and 2010, Victoria's government spending increased by 57 per cent. We got scant value from this, thanks to ballooning public service numbers and a wasteful infrastructure program, including the desalination plant and the Sugarloaf pipeline. 

Free trade provides the cheapest goods and services for the consumer and increases real living standards. But pressures for increased industry protection from overseas suppliers are re-emerging in Australia. In broad terms, the average Australian tariff, and its subsidy equivalent, has been reduced from about 35 per cent to 5 per cent over the past 40 years. Other specific assistance measures like government purchasing preferences, local content arrangements, 

Last month's Productivity Commission report on the retail industry came when the industry is under increasing pressure. Sales, especially household goods and clothing, are sharply down over the past six months. This tailspin in demand stems from economic uncertainties created by perilous global economic conditions. But these have been exacerbated by the Federal Government introducing wealth-sapping avalanches of costs and regulations 

Julia Gillard has adopted a polar extreme policy approach to the Hawke-Keating Governments. The ALP regained power in 1983 on the back of Bob Hawke, who was catapulted to the party's leadership on the very day the election was announced. Having solid recognition and facing a haughty, unpopular Malcolm Fraser he sailed into office. In contrast to the turmoil of the Whitlam period of office, Labor in 1983 courted solid performance

The annual report of the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission demonstrates the regulatory burden imposed by the State Government increases every year. In an attempt to get benefits from new or changed regulatory proposals, the Government requires a Regulatory Impact Statements (RIS). In practice, these reports are often whitewashes that justify the prejudices and regulatory preferences of politicians and bureaucrats.

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The China boom has continued to lift Australian income levels via mining demand and this has been supplemented by general increases in primary product prices. But our success has been due to the investment environment of the past two decades and earlier. The "micro-economic reforms", started in the early 1980s by the Hawke government, dismantled many of the government-imposed restraints that added costs to enterprise, and injected greater competition

Julia Gillard told us last week why it is imperative to get the legislative program started. Unfortunately. absent from this was the need to put Parliament to work removing the crushing regulatory and tax burdens the government imposes. Instead, she promised us new and expanded quangos, with their collateral damage of an increased public service staffed by people attracted away from productive activities. 

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Easter in Melbourne this year was a throwback to the 1970s, with closed shops and empty streets. Interstate visitors looking for bargains in the city's fashionable precincts had to settle for a cup of coffee. Effectively outlawing shopping on three of the year's prime trading days has a particularly adverse effect on Melbourne's attraction as a tourist destination. Enforcing shop closures considerably reduces the city's draw as a visitor destination,

Mr Bracks must have considerable wisdom. He has examined the car manufacturing industry, had a damn good natter with its workers, managers and shareholders and concluded that more support is necessary. Currently the industry has taxpayer subsidies valued at $4 billion between 2006 and 2015. In addition, it has tariff protection which increases import costs by 10 per cent. Together, these measures are worth the equivalent of more than $20,000

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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has prosecuted companies it says have formed cartels and colluded to fix prices. These have included cardboard box suppliers and Ballarat petrol station operators. After reviewing cartel cases in Australia and across the world, the Institute of Public Affairs found that regulatory authorities' legal actions have seldom had the intended effect of bringing down prices.

Far from a success of public policy, the $1 billion rural broadband subsidy won by Optus and Elders demonstrates once again the failure of the competition regulation. Ever since Optus and Telstra rolled out similar cable networks in the mid-1990s, wasteful duplication has been the bogyman of telecommunications investment.

Numerically, Australia now has more regulations than at any time since federation. If we are to pare back government interference in the economy, we need to attack more than just the national income share of government, but also the regulatory web which surrounds the decisions of people and firms. Can this regulation be reduced?

Ferdinand de Lesseps, having masterminded the building of the Suez Canal, set out to build the even more ambitious Panama Canal. It was a highly risky venture, traversing seasonal, tumescent rivers and a huge mountain range. There was no ready supply of skilled

The Institute of Public Affairs participates in an annual assessment of economies compiled by Canada’s Fraser Institute. Called the Economic Freedom of the World, the compilation assesses 141 countries against 42 criteria to determine how open they are to private enterprise

Far from a success of public policy, the $1 billion rural broadband subsidy won by Optus and Elders demonstrates once again the failure of the competition regulation. Ever since Optus and Telstra rolled out similar cable networks in the mid-1990s, wasteful duplication has been the bogyman of telecommunications investment.

Having been a touchstone in Australia's economic resurgence, the national access regime is now a ball and chain around the ankle of growth. Following the Hilmer report in 1993, major facilities including ports, pipelines, telecommunications systems and railways were declared open. Their owners, mainly governments, were required to allow private businesses to use the assets on fair terms and conditions.

The most courageous, enduring and beneficial change that the Hawke ascendancy brought 25 years ago was in industry protection. Before then the Coalition government had proven unable to reduce tariffs that were consigning Australian manufacturing to the level seen only in autarkic and Communist countries.

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The Bracks Government's flood of new regulations continues, but a bright spot is Treasurer John Brumby's pledge to cut regulation costs by 25 per cent over five years. This is a tough goal and recent increases in regulations invite scepticism about its achievability. Measuring the outcome will gauge whether or not government statements are mainly bluster.

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Businesses constantly experience frustrations with government regulations. But few areas of government are trying to do something about it. One that is is the Federal Government's Productivity Commission. The PC has issued a handbook for regulatory agencies on best practice regulation. This sets hurdles over which new regulatory proposals must leap before they are even considered by governments.

Every year, Telstra must submit 162,000 pages of paperwork to regulators. It estimates that there are 500 public servants devoted to its regulation. Large firms in transport and communications, such as Telstra, rail operators, and pipeliners incur considerable costs to accommodate regulators such as the ACCC and the National Competition Council.

Kevin Rudd has signalled a determination to pursue "industry policy". In its original form, this is the long discredited Australian approach of yesteryear. Industry policy meant tariff and tax assistance to a host of manufacturing industries. It was hoped that these measures would be the fertiliser to propel budding activities into world-beating flowers. None of them ever did. By the late 1970s we were saddled with permanently hospitalised manufacturing industries including cars, 

Has senator Helen Coonan become unhinged? She urges Telstra to build a cable network on the basis that once built, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be able to determine whether Telstra has the right to use it as it sees fit ("Telstra's rivals must fight to access new work", AFR, November 30).

To clear the decks for his elevation to the ACCC, in 2003 former AFL Commissioner Graeme Samuel wrote an article entitled ‘Footy wouldn’t be fun without a level playing field’. In it he argued that equalization of salary caps was not anti-competitive since the code itself is the competitive entity

The Commonwealth has recently established a red tape task force to eliminate many of the costly burdens that government regulation brings. There are legions of candidates for the task force to review. One of these is Australia's anti-dumping regime. Anti-dumping actions can be

It is ironic that the Prime Minister has chosen Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks to head his new red tape taskforce, when it has recently issued a report calling for new regulatory intrusions in the provision of liner shipping. Reversing the position it took five years ago, the commission now says that liner shipping conference agreements should be subject to the general provisions of the Trade Practices Act. Regular liner shipping carries nearly half our exports and 80 per cent

Premier Peter Beattie campaigns in elections as Queensland's Sir Galahad, saving voters from his own government's depredations. Incongruous as this may be, it differs little from the detachment of our elected leaders from their own decisions and outcomes when addressing business regulation.

We can't seem to get it right on infrastructure, the ports, pipelines, roads, rail and telecom lines, over which all of us travel and transact each day. Yet, while there are many voices calling for vigorous action to resolve a crisis in the provision of new infrastructure, the lack of data on existing levels of infrastructure or recent additions is cause for some caution.

For businesses and households alike, regulations add costs. Among these is the tiresome process of filling in forms and paying government fees. But more important is the effect of regulations in preventing firms and individuals from exercising their own preferences to buy, build, work, and sell.

Deregulation and opening up competition in infrastructure like electricity and telecommunications have been central to Australia's strong economic performance. To the applause of those recognising regulation's stifling effect on business, last April the Treasurer, John Brumby, announced a new Government agency, the Victorian Competition & Efficiency Commission (VCEC).

Following the 9 October election, the Coalition must consolidate and build upon the reforms blocked in the Senate. Further reform is vital to accommodate the significant changes taking place in Australia. Chief among these changes is the ageing population and the more open world economy. These create pressures for on-going improvements in productivity both to support more dependents and to maintain competitiveness.

‘Regulatory capture’ is a notion that has long shaped a good deal of thinking about the interaction of government agencies and businesses. Analysts pointed to seemingly over-sympathetic decisions of regulators,

Reduced trade barriers have been key elements in the increased prosperity the world has seen in the post-1945 era. These lower barriers have allowed greater specialisation of production with consequent gains in cheaper goods enjoyed by all parties.

During 1997 Australian Governments introduced a Gas Code, the National Third Party Access Code for Natural Gas Pipelines. A stepchild of the Hilmer Competition reforms, this is administered by the ACCC and the National Competition Council (NCC).

During 1997 Australian Governments introduced a Gas Code, the National Third Party Access Code for Natural Gas Pipelines. A stepchild of the Hilmer Competition reforms, this is administered by the ACCC and the National Competition Council (NCC).