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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (17 April) . . Page.. 1017 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The ACT Government broadened the scope of the review in the ACT to include an examination of any areas which place unnecessary burdens on business.

I would like to make two points briefly today and then make a few comments on some of the recommendations. The first is that I recognise that red tape is a problem for small business, and unnecessary bureaucracy often places large burdens on business. One reads in the report about the number of forms people have to fill in, the processes they have to go through and what that actually costs them. It is obviously quite inappropriate, and it needs to be tidied up. But the Greens would not support measures to remove so-called green tape, or safeguards which protect workers or the community. While this report focuses on reducing the administrative costs to business of complying with legislation and regulations, the Greens are concerned that measures which protect the environment may be weakened.

A major thrust of the report is voluntary compliance by the business sector, which is quite clear from recommendation 33. It reads:

The Task Force recommends that the ACT Government prepare guidelines for regulatory enforcement which acknowledge that the greater proportion of resources and endeavour should be devoted towards obtaining voluntary compliance by business.

How is this Government, or how are future governments, going to make sure that voluntary compliance is working? Any reliance on voluntary measures from business must be accompanied by the Government assisting business to meet environmental targets; otherwise, there is a real danger that standards will be reduced. Mechanisms for monitoring voluntary regulation are essential if we are not to see a possible decline in standards. Of course, with that comes a preparedness to take strong action if voluntary measures are not being adopted satisfactorily.

Recommendation 16 is that the integrated environment protection legislation be subject to a business impact assessment. This question was asked by the Australian Conservation Foundation in the competition policy inquiry, but it is worth repeating here: Why is the onus always on the environmentalists or community groups to defend their position and show how measures to protect the environment are not affecting competitiveness, rather than the onus being on business to prove that environmental standards are not being reduced or that society is not being harmed in some way?

Recommendation 28 is about review of legislation and regulation. There is a 10-point plan for regulatory review, with a panel of business representatives. It is essential to have wider community representation on this panel. We must have environment, consumer and community representatives on it also, or there is definitely a danger that there will not be balanced outcomes. We cannot trade off short-term economic considerations for long-term social, environmental or economic considerations. Also important in this process is implementing consultative mechanisms between the public and private sectors.

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