ANDREW Barr says his Government has removed a range of unnecessary burdens on businesses and the community.

The latest red tape reduction measures include:

• reducing reporting requirements for employers in the Territory by changing wage declarations for workers’ compensation insurance purposes from six months to twelve months;
• repealing the Hawkers Act 2003 and licensing hawkers under the Public Unleased Land Act 2013;
• modernising requirements for public notices in the ACT legislation to enable notification of public notices on an ACT Government website;
• extending permits under the Public Unleased Land Act 2013 from two to three years; and
• supporting the establishment of Access Canberra through internal administrative improvements.

“The Government is continuing to reduce business administration and compliance costs,” Andrew said.

“With the workers’ compensation changes alone, the result of this Bill will be to remove 70,000 extra administrative transactions per annum.

“The Government is also continuing its efforts to reduce administrative costs by extending permit periods for public unleased land use, as it has been doing for a range of licences in earlier red tape reduction bills.

“The licensing of hawkers will be brought under the Public Unleased Land Act, providing consistency in the regulatory approach to public land use. For hawkers themselves, there will be a seamless transition with their current licences continuing until they would have otherwise expired.

“Reducing red tape can be achieved by making regulations operate more flexibly. The Bill will allow for public notices to be provided online as well as in newspapers. This will give government agencies the opportunity to more effectively target audiences and will reduce information search times for business and the community.

“In December 2014, I announced the establishment of Access Canberra to provide a one?stop shop to cut red tape and streamline regulatory services for individuals and businesses. Amendments in this Bill allow for clarity in the exercise of operational functions by Access Canberra to support those outcomes.”

[Photo by James Petts, a attribution licence]