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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1515 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

It is anticipated that in the near future newspapers, printers, second-hand dealers and collectors, and pawnbrokers will no longer be required to be licensed. Agencies are using the opportunity provided by the systematic review of legislation to closely examine all licences, and the Government has asked agencies to bring forward proposals for the abolition of licences identified as unnecessary by the end of 1997.

Greatly reduced paperwork for business will result from the common licence application form currently being developed for all businesses in the ACT. The Government is working with the Commonwealth on this project, which is being implemented nationally. Rather than having to deal with numerous application forms to start a business in Canberra, the most common licences will be dealt with on the one application form and through one point of contact. Businesses will also save time and money as a result of work being undertaken on industry licence application processes. These will enable a person wishing to establish in a particular industry - for example, the food industry; perhaps even Bega cheese - to complete one application form to seek approval for all licences required in that industry. The industry licence application scheme is being developed in conjunction with work on the common licensing scheme I referred to earlier.

As a result of implementing the recommendations of the Red Tape Task Force, the momentum for regulatory reform in the ACT Public Service will be maintained. The profile of regulatory reform has been raised. The first Minister for Regulatory Reform was appointed early in 1996, and the role of the business regulation review unit in the Department of Business, the Arts, Sport and Tourism has been refocused to concentrate on promoting best practice in regulatory reform across government. The unit will soon be conducting training programs for senior management and officers involved in the development of regulations.

Agencies are expected to regulate only when it is absolutely necessary. A manual for regulatory reform has been produced and will be incorporated into the public sector management standards and so become the management standard, recommended by the Red Tape Task Force, against which the regulatory performance of agencies will be assessed. When proposing regulations, agencies must in the future undertake a regulatory needs analysis, develop a series of regulatory options, consider mutual recognition issues, consider alternative ways to enforce regulations, prepare a business impact assessment, and, if necessary, prepare a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis if the proposed regulation is likely to restrict competition. I think they are some significant barriers to the mindless introduction of regulation.

Agencies have taken on board the message from business to improve the way they regulate. The customer commitment program has fundamentally altered the way the ACT Public Service sees its customers. It is the rock on which a culture of regulatory reform is based. As a result, agencies have conducted customer focus groups, specified response times, established single points of contact for clients, trained their staff to be customer oriented, established consultative mechanisms such as newsletters, public forums and advisory groups, and undertaken market research and surveys.

The removal of red tape and excessive regulation is now built into the mainstream business of agencies. Red tape and regulations have a habit of proliferating in bureaucracies, so a number of measures have been instituted to prevent this.

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