COAG Meeting 13 April 2007: regulatory reform progress

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) met in Canberra on Friday 13 April 2007.

COAG has published a full communique of agreements reached; in many cases they are simply agreements to monitor or review progress.

In the area of regulation reform, a 27 page agenda was released.

COAG agreed to the following actions to address various regulatory ‘hot-spots’:

• implementation of national rail safety legislation and a nationally-consistent rail safety regulatory framework;
• establishment of a national system of trade measurement funded and administered by the Commonwealth at an estimated cost of around $29 million over four years;
• in-principle agreement to the establishment of a national system for registration of personal property securities by 2009, administered by the Commonwealth, subject to further consideration of financial arrangements;
• a timetable for achieving national occupational health and safety (OHS) standards and harmonising elements in principal OHS Acts;
• the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Water Resources will develop a proposal, in consultation with States and Territories, for a more harmonised and efficient system of environmental assessment and approval as soon as possible;
• ensuring best practice regulation making and review processes apply to the Building Code of Australia (BCA) and removing unnecessary state-based variations to the BCA; and
• a process for developing a model to deliver a seamless, single online registration system for Australian Business Numbers and business names, including trademark searching.

The States and Territories agreed to develop a uniform approach to product safety within 12 months.

COAG further agreed to the Productivity Commission benchmarking compliance costs of regulations in targeted areas, with the Commonwealth fully funding the benchmarking exercise.