A future Coalition government would ensure stakeholders and not just politicians or public servants were drivers in designing good regulatory policy, according to Senator Jane Hume, the shadow minister for finance.
Hume told an audience at the Australia Wealth Summit that the Coalition wanted to develop regulation in consultation with stakeholders so that any rules put in place provided protection to consumers but were also not burdensome to the individuals and entities regulated.
Her intervention in policy design comes following criticisms from various stakeholder groups such as professional accounting bodies on the way in which the current government engaged in consultation across the financial services sector.
Hume said that a major concern in regulation was the cost of compliance and that existing regulations needed to be reassessed periodically to see whether the costs of any rule outweighed the benefits to the community.
“There are workable ways to do this. For instance, a requirement to undertake a Regulatory Impact Statements (RIS) with each new policy, encourages the policymakers to consciously consider the burden that new laws will have on our economy,” Hume said.
“The problem, of course, is that a Regulatory Impact Statement is only effective if governments pay attention to them.”
Hume unveiled a skeletal framework for policy design during her speech that included three elements: regulations must be fit for purpose, regulations must provide proportionate regulations for reasonable protections, and that regulations should facilitate innovation and growth.
An initiative that Hume, also shadow minister for the public service, said needed consultation with stakeholders was the development of a system that meant businesses would only have to file critical information with government once.
“A Coalition government will therefore consult on a ‘tell them once’ system, to examine how we can better align government agencies and regulators to limit the burden on Australian businesses, to be rolled out across key portfolios,” Hume said.
“Similarly, calibrating what is proportionate for reasonable protections cannot be determined in isolation by a bureaucrat in the Treasury or a politician in the ministerial suite — it must be informed by talking to impacted businesses, and understanding what they are trying to achieve.”
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