This Productivity Commission Report – Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Business and Consumer Services Sector – identifies ways to reduce the regulatory burdens on businesses in the finance and insurance, accommodation and food services, professional, scientific and technical...

Prospective changes in the demand for and supply of aged care services present a number of challenges, according to a new Productivity Commission Research Paper. The Australian community values older people having access to high quality and cost effective aged care services. This is reflected in...

Extract from the key points: The Australian anti-dumping system, which is based on agreed WTO rules and procedures, benefits a small number of import competing firms, but imposes greater costs on the rest of the economy. However, this net economic cost is likely to be very small. And the ability...

This is the second in a 5 year cycle of reports, identified improvements to regulations and their administration that will lower costs and other burdens on businesses, such as the time taken to gain regulatory approval for new products, without compromising underlying policy objectives. A common...

The Productivity Commission convened a roundtable Promoting Better Environmental Outcomes at Old Parliament House, Canberra on 19-20 August 2008. Participants included government officials, academics, consultants, journalists and representatives of environmental organisations and agencies....

The Commission’s final report into chemicals and plastics regulation acknowledges that government intervention to manage risks associated with chemicals and plastics is warranted where benefits materially exceed costs. Chemicals regulations are generally grafted onto (differing) state and...

The Commission recently completed a Research Report for the Government on the performance of public and private hospitals. The report examined relative costs, hospital-acquired infections and other aspects of hospital performance. It also dealt with informed financial consent and the indexation...

The Productivity Commission's 2009 roundtable was organised around the topic Strengthening Evidence-Based Policy in the Australian Federation, and held at Old Parliament House in Canberra on 17-18 August 2009. Participants included government officials, academics, consultants and representatives...

In May 2009 the Australian Government asked the Productivity Commission to examine three aspects of the health care system: • the relative performance of public and private hospitals, with particular regard to the cost of performing clinically-similar procedures and the rate of...

A report released by the Productivity Commission – Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Occupational Health and Safety – has identified significant differences in regulation and in the actions of regulators across the jurisdictions that are hard to justify. While OHS...