Australian homebuilding industry welcomes progress on federal government's red tape reduction agenda, noting that inefficient, unnecessary regulations boost homebuilding costs: Housing Industry Assn.

Allison Oesterle

CAMPBELL, Australia , March 18, 2014 (press release) – The voice of Australia’s $70 billion home building industry, the Housing Industry Association (HIA), has welcomed progress on the federal government’s red tape reduction agenda, including the introduction of a new deregulation website and six-monthly parliamentary ‘repeal days’.

“Inefficient and unnecessary regulation is a real bugbear of the building industry and adds costs to building a new home,” said HIA Chief Executive–Industry Policy and Media, Graham Wolfe.

“The allocation of parliamentary sitting time to freeing up builders and the economy by reducing laws, rather than introducing new ones, shows a genuine commitment by government to addressing this chronic problem.”

“An obvious example is the ATO contractor reporting requirements that was placed on the home building industry.”

“These laws unfairly transfer the burden of information collection from the ATO onto small business principal contractors and builders, imposing considerable additional administrative and accounting red tape.”

“In 2011, Treasury estimated a one off cost of $90 would be borne by businesses required to prepare and lodge a report. However, HIA builder members advised that on average
they spent an additional 17.8 hours on paperwork as a result of the new regulations and incurred extra costs of $1,621.”

“It is not uncommon for the bureaucracy to underestimate just how time consuming compliance can be, so it is essential these tasks are not duplications, involve inconsistent definitions across portfolios or pass the burden from government to small business,” concluded Mr Wolfe.

* All content is copyrighted by Industry Intelligence, or the original respective author or source. You may not recirculate, redistrubte or publish the analysis and presentation included in the service without Industry Intelligence's prior written consent. Please review our terms of use.