Regulation Review Committee Parliament of New South Wales Proceedings of the International Conference on Regulation Reform Management and Scrutiny of Legislation Parliament House, Sydney 9 - 13 July 2001 Report No 19/52 November 2001 This report was compiled using Microsoft Word 97 and printed by Parliamentary Printing Services New South Wales Parliamentary Library cataloguing-in-publication data: International Conference on Regulation Reform Management and Scrutiny of Legislation (2001 : Sydney, N.S.W.) Proceedings of the International Conference on Regulation Reform Management and Scrutiny of Legislation, Parliament House, Sydney, 9-13 July 2001. [Sydney, N.S.W.] : Regulation Review Committee, Parliament of New South Wales, 2001. – 1 v. (various foliations) ; 30 cm. (Report no. 19/52, September 2001) ISBN 0 7347 6826 5 1. Delegated legislation—Congresses. I. Parliament of New South Wales. Regulation Review Committee. II. Title III. Series: New South Wales. Parliament. Regulation Review Committee. Report ; 52/19 348.025 (DDC21) _________________________________________________________________ International Conference on Regulation Reform Management & Scrutiny of Legislation 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS COMMITTEE AND SECRETARIAT MEMBERS……………………………………………..1 CHAIRMAN’S FOREWORD…………………………………………………………..……….2 CONFERENCE PROGRAM…………………………………………..………………..……….4 PHOTO OF CONFERENCE DELEGATES….………………….….…………..……..……..12 LIST OF DELEGATES……………………………..………………………..…………...……13 TRANSCRIPTS OF PROCEEDINGS……………………………………..………..……….18 Monday 9 July 2001 Welcome: Mr Peter R. Nagle MP….……………………………………….…..…………………..………….19 Official Opening: Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC……………………….………………...22 The Hon Chief Justice Murray Gleeson AC……………………………………………………….………..24 The Hon Chief Justice James Spigelman………………………….……………….……………………….30 Lord Mayhew OF Twysden …..…….…………………………………………….………………………..…….36 Tuesday 10 July 2001 Mr Gary Banks…………………………………….………………………………………….………….……………45 Mr Steve Gilchrist MPP.………………………………………..……………………………………….………….53 Mr Peter Nagle MP……………………………………………………………………………………..….…………63 Ms Sue Holmes……………………………………………………….…………………………………...………….72 Workshop One: Dr Philippa Tudor……………………….………………….…………………….….……….82 Workshop Two: Mr Luigi Carbone…………………….………………………..…..…………………………99 Wednesday 11 July 2001 Mr Peter Pike MP………………………………………………………………………………………………….…118 Mr Richard Worth MP……………………………………….………………….…..…….………………………127 Workshop One: Senator Helen Coonan…………………………………..………………………….…….158 Mr Paul Bek & Ms Jennifer Bryant………….….……………………………….….165 Workshop Two: Ms Sue Holmes……………..………………………………..……………………………..177 Thursday 12 July 2001 Hon Norman George…………………………………..………………………………..….…………………….193 Professor John Braithwaite……………………………………………………………………….………..……200 Mr Firoz Cachalia MPL…………………….………………………………………..……….……….…………..206 Dr Liz Kernohan MP………………………………………………………………………………………..………209 Hon Malcolm Jones MLC………………………………………………………………………………..…….….213 Mr Russell Turner MP………………………………………………………………………………………………216 Ms Marianne Saliba MP………………………………………………………………………..………….………218 Mr Andrew Homer……………..………………………………………………………………….……………….220 Hon Angus Redford MLC……………………………………………………………..………………………….222 Hon Geoff Squibb MLC………………………………………………………………..……………………..…..223 Dr Philippa Tudor……………………………………………………………………………………………………224 Mr Greg McLean………………………………………………………………………..…………………………..224 Mr Ray Molomo………………………………………………………………………………………………………225 Senator Barney Cooney…………………………………………………………….…………………..………..225 Mr Peter Pike MP………………………………………………………………………………………..………….226 Hon John Hargreaves MLA……………………………………………………………………………..……….227 Friday 13 July 2001 Mr Chandra Gowda…………………………………………………………………………………………………229 Mr David Simeon……………………………………………..…………………………………………………….237 Mr Mick Bates………………………………………………………………………………………..….…………..239 Professor Margaret Allars…………………………………………………………………………………………247 Senator Barney Cooney………………………………………………………………………………..…………256 CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS……………………..………………………….………….266 SPEAKERS PAPERS…………………………………………………………………..……..267 _________________________________________________________________ International Conference on Regulation Reform Management & Scrutiny of Legislation 2 APPENDIX: FINANCIAL STATEMENT _________________________________________________________________ International Conference on Regulation Reform Management & Scrutiny of Legislation 3 COMMITTEE AND SECRETARIAT MEMBERS Mr Gerard Martin, MP, Chairman Hon Janelle Saffin, MLC, Vice Chairman Hon Malcolm Jones, MLC, Hon Don Harwin, MLC, Dr Liz Kernohan, MP, Ms Marianne Saliba, MP, Mr Russell Turner, MP, Mr Graham West, MP, Mr Peter R Nagle MP, Chairman of the Regulation Review Committee, resigned from Parliament on 13 July 2001 SECRETARIAT Mr Jim Jefferis, Committee Manager Mr Greg Hogg, Project Officer Mr Don Beattie, Committee Officer Ms Rachel Dart, Assistant Committee Officer _________________________________________________________________ International Conference on Regulation Reform Management & Scrutiny of Legislation 4 CHAIRMAN'S FORWORD It is a pleasure to present the proceedings of the International Conference on Regulation Reform Management and Scrutiny of Legislation. These proceedings are Part 2 of the scheme by the Regulation Review Committee to improve regulatory management and controls in New South Wales. Part one of that enterprise, entitled Re-Engineering Regulations in New South Wales for the Twenty-First Century, is comprised in Report No 9/52, tabled in Parliament in June 2000. Part 3, to be published separately, will deal exclusively with the Australian viewpoint on regulatory management and reform. Part 4 will contain recommendations for change to the New South Wales regulatory system. The proceedings of this international conference show the importance accredited world wide to effective regulatory management and scrutiny of legislation. Lord Mayhew in his address said that almost all of the 29 OECD member countries now have a regulatory reform program in place. In the 1980’s there were only three or four. In his keynote address, the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Chief Justice Gleeson, spoke of the vast increase in the bulk of legislation and that in many areas the burden of compliance with regulations, in terms of knowledge, time and exposure, is so great that citizens give up the attempt. This indicates how important it is to have in place effective scrutiny mechanisms that test the justification for new and existing laws and that screen out unnecessary ones. We are fortunate to have had strong OECD participation and the workshop on the role of Parliament in ensuring the quality of law and regulation will have a lasting usefulness for us all. All scrutiny committee’s depend for their success particularly on support at the Ministerial level. The OECD has put this repeatedly at the top of its list in terms of importance. The excellent address by the Hon Justice Spigelman, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, contains a wealth of cautionary advice on permitting the regulatory decision-making process to be dominated by matters that are capable of measurement at the expense of qualitative considerations. The former he says, have acquired an entirely inappropriate significance by reason of their concreteness. The Chief Justice concluded his address with the words: “In my opinion it is of some significance to appreciate that the importance of what can be measured varies from one area of discourse to the other. There is a tendency in the literature on cost-benefit analysis and performance indicators to act on the assumption that the methodology is equally appropriate to any area of discourse. That is not the case, in my opinion. There are some areas of government regulation or public administration in which the things that can be measured are the important things. There are other areas – and the law is one of those areas – in which the things that can be measured are not central to the objectives and functions preformed by the organisations involved. Computation _________________________________________________________________ International Conference on Regulation Reform Management & Scrutiny of Legislation 5 can be of great utility. However, in significant areas there is no escaping the centrality of judgement of a qualitative character”. Ms Sue Holmes, on behalf of the OECD, gave us a reassuring response on this issue by saying that while quantification of costs and benefits is considered the best practice, the OECD has also said that the most important contributor to the quality of regulatory decisions is not the precision of calculations but the action of analysing, questioning, understanding real-world impacts and exploring assumptions. The transcript and papers in these proceedings contains a discussion and analysis of many fundamental regulatory problems. It was the basic objective of our New South Wales Committee to produce this type of dialogue so that the usefulness of the Conference could continue well after the close of it. At the closing session my colleague, Mr Peter Nagle MP, thanked all delegates and all those who assisted in the organisation of the Conference, in particular the Hon John Murray MP, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales and the Hon Dr Meredith Burgmann, President of the Legislative Council. The importance of the Conference is reflected in the resolution of the delegates to accept the generous invitation of Mr Steve Gilchrist, Co-Chair of the Ontario Red Tape Commission, to host the next International Conference