Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Manufacturing and Distributive Trades

The Productivity Commission's report on ‘Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Manufacturing and Distributive Trades’, identifies a number of ways the Australian Government can strip out unnecessary regulatory burdens on manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing businesses. A common concern of businesses consulted by the Commission was poor communication with regulators. Information from regulators was often found to be difficult to access, inconsistently communicated or costly to interpret. Small businesses, in particular, could be disadvantaged by such poor communications. The Commission identified a number of areas requiring action, including - increasing the national consistency in the implementation and enforcement of food regulation across all jurisdictions; - changing governance arrangements for food regulations to improve the timeliness and transparency of decision making; - reducing the time and cost, and improving the transparency, of assessment processes by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA); - removing the TGA's monopoly on assessment for Australian manufacturers of medical devices by allowing manufacturers to choose a certification body approved by the TGA.