Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Cost of Business Registrations

The Productivity Commission has released two companion reports, benchmarking business regulation across jurisdictions: one on the Quantity and Quality of Regulation, the other on the Cost of Business Registrations. The first report provides indicators of the stock and flow of regulation and regulatory activities, and quality indicators for a range of regulatory processes, across all levels of government. The indicators provide some baseline information for each jurisdiction, against which trends in the quantity and quality of regulation might be assessed in the future. It is apparent that there are significant differences across jurisdictions, reflecting different regulatory approaches as well as the characteristics of the jurisdictions themselves. This second report provides estimates of compliance costs for business in obtaining a range of registrations required by the Australian, state, territory and selected local governments. The registrations include generic requirements for incorporation, taxation and business name registrations. In addition, the Commission benchmarked specific registration costs incurred for five types of business (a café, builder, long day child care, real estate agent and winery). It emerged that the estimated time costs of business registrations were generally relatively low, with most costs and differences across jurisdictions relating to fees and charges. These reports are the first instalment of a series of studies benchmarking Australian business regulation across jurisdictions. They have also served to test the usefulness of different survey techniques and benchmarking indicators and provided lessons for future exercises. In particular, the business registrations study highlighted the potential challenges in obtaining adequate data from individual businesses. The reports should facilitate a more informed discussion about comparative performance and help jurisdictions identify where they might improve their regulatory performance.