In an exclusive interview with InvestorDaily, Senator Sinodinos said ministers in the Treasury portfolio will be issuing relevant regulators with a new brief to assess the ‘red tape’ corollary of policy items on the business community, a directive he admitted is no easy task.
“One challenge we face in the Treasury portfolio is that apart from our departments, we also have a number of regulators, including ASIC, APRA, the ATO etc. so it’s a complex task to work out how in that space we are going to apply some of our principles we announced before the election around reducing red tape,” Mr Sinodinos said.
“Ministers run the portfolios, regulators obviously have statutory independence, but at the end of the day, they work within the framework of the policy of the government of the day.”
At the same time, the assistant treasurer – who is one of a number of key Coalition figures overseeing the government’s deregulation taskforce and red tape reduction agenda – said it was important to have regulators “inside the tent” to help “road test” policies instigated by parliament.
Senator Sinodinos will be issuing ‘charter letters’ to relevant regulatory authorities in the near future outlining their new obligations to assess and examine policies through the prism of “the impact of regulatory requirements on industry”. The charter letters will issue a statement indicating “this is how I expect you to conduct yourselves, these are my priorities”, Mr Sinodinos said.
The taskforce does not intend to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” or implement a “no regulation agenda” but rather, implement “sensible, intelligent regulation that minimises the cost of compliance” on industries including wealth management and financial services.
The comments follow the Senator’s commitment to place draft legislation implementing the Coalition’s pre-election FOFA wind-back promises before Cabinet before the end of the year.
