Australia is largely a nation of immigrants. From the First Fleet to the post-war wave of assisted passages, to the present day, migration has always been at the centre of this country’s development. As time has passed, however, and our population has grown and spread, it is natural that the...

The Productivity Commission was asked to examine the effects of bilateral and regional trade agreements, including on trade and investment barriers, regional integration and Australia's economy generally. The Commission concluded the benefits of these agreements have been oversold and the...

This Productivity Commission Report – Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Business and Consumer Services Sector – identifies ways to reduce the regulatory burdens on businesses in the finance and insurance, accommodation and food services, professional, scientific and technical...

As part of the National Reform Agenda, COAG agreed to benchmark and report on the regulatory burden across all levels of government, with the aim of identifying unnecessary compliance costs, enhancing regulatory consistency across jurisdictions and reducing regulatory duplication and overlap....

The Productivity Commission's research report into 'Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation' was released in March 2007. The Australian Government asked the Commission to develop a framework to benchmark regulatory regimes and their cost burdens across all levels of government...

Extract from the key points: The Australian anti-dumping system, which is based on agreed WTO rules and procedures, benefits a small number of import competing firms, but imposes greater costs on the rest of the economy. However, this net economic cost is likely to be very small. And the ability...

This is the second in a 5 year cycle of reports, identified improvements to regulations and their administration that will lower costs and other burdens on businesses, such as the time taken to gain regulatory approval for new products, without compromising underlying policy objectives. A common...

The Productivity Commission convened a roundtable Promoting Better Environmental Outcomes at Old Parliament House, Canberra on 19-20 August 2008. Participants included government officials, academics, consultants, journalists and representatives of environmental organisations and agencies....

The Commission’s final report into chemicals and plastics regulation acknowledges that government intervention to manage risks associated with chemicals and plastics is warranted where benefits materially exceed costs. Chemicals regulations are generally grafted onto (differing) state and...

The Commission recently completed a Research Report for the Government on the performance of public and private hospitals. The report examined relative costs, hospital-acquired infections and other aspects of hospital performance. It also dealt with informed financial consent and the indexation...