Page 2028 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 June 2015
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Madam Speaker, today I introduce the Red Tape Reduction Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. Regulatory reform and red tape reduction are a priority for the government. In May the government released “Confident and business ready”, our strategy to ensure we create the right business environment and use our competitive strengths to accelerate innovation and investment.
Making it easier for businesses to meet regulatory requirements by streamlining processes and incrementally moving to a modern, risk-based approach to services and compliance are a key part of the government’s strategy. Each year we will present at least one red tape reduction omnibus bill to the Assembly.
Today’s bill complements the government’s program of significant regulatory reform initiatives by removing specific provisions that have been identified as redundant or as an unnecessary administrative cost to business or to government. This bill will also support the effective operation of Access Canberra, which the government has established to facilitate a single contact point for all regulatory services in the territory. This bill is part of an ongoing effort by the government to ensure regulation remains relevant and effective over time.
This bill amends legislation, including the Workers Compensation Act 1951, the Public Unleased Land Act 2013, the Public Sector Management Act 1994 and the Legislation Act 2001. The bill will include a new definition of public notice in the Legislation Act 2001 and will amend relevant acts and regulations to provide for public notices to be issued on an ACT government website. This bill will repeal the Hawkers Act 2003 and include provisions for hawkers in the Public Unleased Land Act 2013.
This government is committed to increasing people’s access to information and enhancing digital services. In the past decade, there has been a significant change in how people access information, with a dramatic shift to online and digital services. This is particularly evident in Canberra, where we have the highest use of the internet in Australia. This bill recognises this shift and includes amendments to provide the option for public notices to be published on an ACT government website. By providing greater flexibility in how the government communicates, there can be better targeting of messaging to the community.
Public notices are an important source of information for the community. The government’s objective with this amendment is to enable public notices to be communicated in a way or ways that will be the most effective means of reaching the intended audience. This complements other government initiatives to increase the awareness of information such as the whole-of-government digital mail service, which enables electronic distribution of any ACT government communication, including statutory notices. The definition of public notice in this bill includes the option of advertising in a newspaper, and this will continue to be used where this is the most effective communication strategy.
Our local media are an important component of ACT community life. The government will continue to engage with the various public media channels in the
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