Rural Australia

The Age

Monday April 21, 2008

By Ben Doherty

AN AMBITIOUS plan to create nationally consistent laws across the states within 12 months - concerning everything from road rules to rail gauges to biotechnology - is one of the chief proposals to emerge from the summit.

A hundred delegates from regional and rural communities told the summit that differing laws between states was costing farms and other businesses millions of dollars a year.

Under Australia's century-old federal system, trucks have to stop at state borders to change axle weights (or in some cases leave entire trailers behind), rail gauges between states don't match and businesses are forced to meet multiple, often conflicting, laws over food production, water rights and workplace safety.

The co-chairman of the rural stream to the summit, Tim Fischer, (below) said the state borders' "wrinkles needed to be ironed out". "To that end, we almost abolished the states," he told the summit. "Standardisation is urgent. This includes uniform regulation, standards and enforcement for transport, both road and rail, and for agriculture."

He said many inconsistencies cost rural businesses time and money - "even things like the non-harmonisation of the hours truck drivers can be at the wheel versus rest time".

Mr Fischer said a system of financial incentives and penalties should be established, similar to national competition policy, to encourage states to sit down and thrash out their differences.

At the last Council of Australian Governments meeting in March, regulatory impediments to business earmarked for reform included occupational health and safety laws, business reporting, food regulation, mine safety, electronic conveyancing, petroleum regulation, maritime safety, wine labelling, directors' liabilities and financial service delivery.

Victorian Premier John Brumby agreed that financial penalties would hasten reforms.

"We'd strongly support that," he told the rural stream at the summit. "The incentive fund is a great way to do it. States that perform, states that drive productivity reforms, states that get rid of the dead hand of regulation, they get some incentives. Those that don't get penalised. It's absolutely the right way to go."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, too, agreed that the issue of disharmony in state regulation required attention. "The point about taking a truck across state borders . . . is barking mad. So let's have a look at that," he said.

"We've got to look at that one (regulation) very quickly because it seems to me to be one full of immediate practical import to people living in rural and regional Australia."

National Farmers Federation president David Crombie said the harmonisation of regulations between states would cost the Government nearly nothing, but save millions of wasted dollars for primary producers.

Australasian Railway Association chief executive Bryan Nye said it was an urgent priority for almost every rural industry. "This should be achieved in 12 months and further progress built upon each year until 2020."

The rural stream of the 2020 Summit also identified climate change as a pressing issue for country Australia. The answer, Mr Fischer said, lay in the north of Australia, where rainfall was still plentiful.

© 2008 The Age

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