The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) has welcomed the Government's Omnibus Repeal Day Bill to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses.
AFGC CEO Gary Dawson said the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill that was introduced into Parliament yesterday marks the start of the Government’s regulatory reform that will boost the competitiveness of Australian business including the food and grocery manufacturing sector.
“If we are serious about growth, we need to be serious about regulatory reform as excessive red tape has been a major barrier to business growth, investment and employment,” Dawson said.
“There is real urgency in driving regulation reform for the food and grocery manufacturing sector while maintaining Australia’s strong public health and safety standards.”
Last year the AFGC released the Reforming Regulation of the Australian Food and Grocery Sector Report commissioned from Deloitte Access Economics. That report concluded that the current regulation of food and grocery falls well short of best practice and may indeed be one of the poorest examples of industry regulation in Australia, according to Dawson.
“The litany of regulatory failures makes astounding reading where companies are being hamstrung by duplication, inefficiency, heavy handed, overly cautious and redundant regulation which is effectively dragging down innovation, productivity and driving jobs and manufacturing offshore,” he said.
“Deloitte quantified the economic benefit of removing $100m of regulatory costs to be around $250m in additional GDP and more than 200 additional jobs for the food and grocery sector.”
“The food and grocery sector, Australia’s largest manufacturing sector, is very supportive of the government’s efforts to roll back costly unnecessary red tape. We welcome the emphasis on bringing back an evidence based approach to regulations that reflect regulatory best practice.”
“The Government’s approach reflects its efforts to set effective policies that will enable industry to take advantage of the massive growth potential for the future provided we can boost competitiveness and productivity, and open up market access in the growing economies of Asia,” Dawson said.
This week’s Federal Budget extended the Deregulation Agenda for another two years, with the federal government saying the package will save alcohol and fuel companies around $20 million dollars a year in compliance costs.
