Taking a new look at old tools:  registering, licensing, permitting, accrediting, certifying and so many more

‘From the earliest days of the colonies, Australian governments controlled or influenced the activities of their citizens primarily by means of licences and registration’, writes our facilitator Arie Freiberg in Regulation in Australia. Nothing new under the sun! Despite the extraordinary changes in the demographic, political, technological and socio-economic characteristics of contemporary Australia, licencing and its variants – registering, permitting, certifying, authorising, accrediting – have remained the most ubiquitous and enduring regulatory tools. They have also withstood waves of criticism that they distort competitive markets, increase costs and impose unreasonable burdens on business. One might hope by now that we had reached settled and coherent practice on how best to define, apply, enforce and regularly review these much-used tools – but is this the case? Please join our highly qualified panel as we take a new look at these golden oldies of the regulatory toolkit.

• Facilitator: Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg AM (presentation slides)
• Speaker 1: Jenness Gardner (presentation slides)
• Speaker 2: Kerri Melkersson (presentation slides)

For further reading:

1. A new look at old tools: responses to unanswered questions on sli.do