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OECD Reviews of Regulatory Reform: Australia 2010
Towards a Seamless National Economy
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- Foreword
- Acknowledgemets
- Table of Contents
- Abbreviations
- Executive Summary
- Résumé
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Part I. The Macroeconomic Context
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Chapter 1.
Performance and Appraisal
- Introduction
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The macroeconomic and structural context
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The macroeconomic context
- Figure 1.1. GDP per capita relative to the United States
- Figure 1.2. Key economic indicator
- Figure 1.3. Australia’s terms of trade and the real exchange rate
- Figure 1.4. Cumulative GDP growth forecasts
- Figure 1.5. Non-performing housing loans1
- Figure 1.6. Competition and efficiency in the banking sector
- Figure 1.7. Consumer price inflation and the output gap
- Figure 1.8. Business cycle and CPI volatility
- Figure 1.9. Total tax revenue and government debt (% GDP)
- Table 1.1. Correlation between discretionary fiscal policy and the output gap
- Box 1.1. Australia fiscal stimulus in international comparison
- Figure 1.10. The size and composition of fiscal packages
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The contribution of regulatory reform to economic success
- Figure 1.11. Reform in energy, transport and communication sectors
- Figure 1.12. Economy-wide product market regulation1
- Box 1.2. Regulatory reform and its economic benefits
- Figure 1.13. Labour and multi-factor productivity (MFP), Australia versus the United States
- Table 1.2. MFP growth by industry over aggregate productivity cycles
- Figure 1.14. PMR and investment in ICT
- Figure 1.15. The strictness of employment protection legislation, 2008
- Figure 1.16. Labour market indicators
- Figure 1.17. Migration trends
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Structural economic challenges
- Figure 1.18. Australia’s MFP slowdown in international comparison
- Figure 1.19. Labour productivity gap vis-à-vis the United States by sector, 20031
- Figure 1.20. The sources of real income differences, 2008
- Figure 1.21. Export markets and export growth
- Box 1.3. Improving water management in Australia*
- Figure 1.22. Water usage per capita by sector1
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The macroeconomic context
- + The achievements of regulatory reform and competition-oriented reforms to date
- + The challenges for regulatory reform
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
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Chapter 1.
Performance and Appraisal
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Part II. Regulatory Reform
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Chapter 2. Regulatory Governance
- The administrative and legal environment for regulatory reform in Australia
- + Recent and current regulatory reform initiatives
- + Mechanisms to promote regulatory reform within the public administration
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Administrative capacities for making new regulations of high quality, transparency
- The Cabinet process
- Transparency of procedures for making new laws and regulations
- Transparency in the implementation of regulation: communication
- Plain language
- + Transparency as dialogue with affected groups: Use of public consultation
- Transparency in the implementation of regulation: Compliance, enforcement and appeals
- Public redress and the judicial system
- Choice of policy instruments: Regulations and alternatives
- + Understanding regulatory effects: The use of Regulatory Impact Analysis
- Building regulatory agencies
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Improving the stock of existing regulations and reducing burdens
- + Conclusions and recommendations for action
- Policy options for consideration
- Notes
- Bibliography
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Chapter 3. Multi-level Regulatory Governance - Commonwealth-State Relationships
- Introduction
- + The Australian Federation and COAG co-ordination
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The COAG national reform agenda
- + Strengthening regulatory quality of COAG decisions
- + Co-ordinating arrangements within the States
- + Strengthening regulatory quality at the State level
- + General assessment of the challenges and opportunities for multi-level regulatory governance
- Policy options for consideration
- Notes
- Bibliography
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Chapter 2. Regulatory Governance
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Part III. Competition and Market Openness
- + Chapter 4. Competition Policy
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Chapter 5. Market Openness
- + General context
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The policy framework for market openness: The six “efficient regulation” principles
- + Transparency and public consultation benefits from well developed, easily-accessible and proactive arrangements, although efforts to improve the user-friendliness of technical standard setting are still ongoing
- Non-discrimination: A clear commitment to non-discriminatory economic policies, although the effects of the investment screening process and of the increasing number of FTAs are not totally clear
- + Avoiding unnecessary trade restrictiveness: an explicit commitment included in RIA mechanisms results in a trade-friendly regula...
- Encouraging the use of internationally harmonised measures: these mechanisms appear quite effective in dealing with regulatory divergence, except in the area of sanitary and phytosanitary policies
- Recognising the equivalence of other countries’ regulatory measures: this works generally smoothly, although the mutual recognition of professional qualifications at the State level is still a challenge
- Application of competition principles from an international perspective: A framework that works reasonably well
- Conclusion
- Policy options for consideration
- Notes
- Bibliography
This review of regulatory reform in Australia comes at the right time to capture the attention of the OECD community. Australia has successfully weathered the worst effects of the current economic crisis. The resilience of the Australian economy, in the face of the deepest and most widespread recession in over fifty years in OECD countries, can in part be attributed to Australia’s current and past regulatory reforms.
Australia has built strong governance foundations for the development of good regulatory management and competition policies, which are likely to be conducive to economic growth. It aims to reinvigorate a wide agenda of national reforms and to embed past reform achievements in new working arrangements between the Commonwealth and the States. This reform agenda is likely to yield substantial economic benefits for years to come, but demands joint participation and commitment from both the Commonwealth and all States. Maintaining the momentum for reform is a critical challenge, which requires a strategic vision as well as strenuous efforts to promote change and to establish a culture of continuous regulatory improvement.
Australia is one of many OECD countries to request a broad review by the OECD of its regulatory practices and reforms. This review presents a general picture , set within a macroeconomic context, of regulatory achievements and challenges, including regulatory quality at the Commonwealth level as well as across levels of government, competition policy and market openness. It also provides a special focus on Commonwealth-state relationships.
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Political Science > Political Process > General
Publishers
Publication year : 2010
License: All rights reserved ©
Times read: 225
