Australian Government Response to the OECD Report – Towards a Seamless National Economy, 2009 Review of Regulatory Reform: Australia
The Minister for Finance and Deregulation released the Government Response to the OECD Report – Towards a Seamless National Economy, 2009 Review of Regulatory Reform: Australia on 15 February 2010.
The OECD report examines Australia’s regulatory governance system, including special topics on competition policy, market openness and federal-state regulatory issues. A key finding of the OECD’s review is that Australia’s sensible economic interventions and mature regulatory settings made a significant contribution to the resilience of the Australian economy in the face of the global financial crisis. The OECD concludes that the ‘impact of the global recession in Australia appears to have been less severe than in most other OECD countries’. The review also highlights Australia’s regulatory reform achievements more generally, finding that ‘Australia is one of the front-running countries in the OECD in terms of its regulatory reform practices’.
The OECD report also examines long-term regulatory challenges for Australia and suggests opportunities for further regulatory reform. The Australian Government has welcomed this opportunity to further develop and enhance the existing better regulation agenda and has agreed several new initiatives in response to the OECD review, including:
- further improving the Australian Government’s engagement with business to identify regulatory reform opportunities and concerns through establishing a formal consultation forum with business and using web 2.0 technologies;
- subject to the agreement of state and territory governments, developing approaches to identifying and managing new regulatory proposals at the local level which could affect the operation of national markets;
- a number of initiatives to improve the effectiveness of regulatory impact assessment; and
- enhancing the transparency of regulation‑making by requiring regulatory agencies to report publicly on how they will ensure regulations do not impose unnecessary costs on business.
The full OECD Report, a summary policy brief, and the full Australian Government response to the OECD’s policy recommendations are available below:
- OECD Report – Towards a Seamless National Economy, 2009 Review of Regulatory Reform: Australia [
3MB] - OECD Policy Brief – Australia: Moving to a Seamless National Economy [ 192KB]
- Australian Government Response to OECD 2009 Review of Regulatory Reform: Australia PDF Version [ 87KB]
- Australian Government Response to OECD 2009 Review of Regulatory Reform: Australia RTF Version [
246KB]
Publications are also available from the OECD at www.oecd.org/regreform [
]
Contact for information on this page: deregulation@finance.gov.au