Time right to hear us

Jan Davis. ABC pic

This week I want to talk with you about the seemingly ingrained unwillingness of Tasmanian government agencies to consult with stakeholders in any meaningful way in the development of rules and regulations. And by consult, I don’t mean talk at or tell.

My dictionary defines consultation as ‘a meeting in which people or groups have a discussion before decisions are made’ or ‘when you discuss something with someone in order to get their advice or opinion about it’.

Clearly, the bureaucrats here have a different dictionary, as they keep telling us we have been ‘consulted’ when in actual fact we’ve only been told about new rules and regulations.

All too often, we are ‘consulted’ almost as an afterthought by being presented with some glossy brochure sent out for the world and its wife to comment on. Sometimes, we’re given a chance to make comment on an already firm proposal – which is essentially being asked to comment on a game plan which has been drawn up by someone who often doesn’t even know what game we’re playing. It’s a bit like being told we can have a new pen and advised we’re now lucky to be consulted about whether we want blue or red; rather than being asked about whether we need a pen at all, or if some other tool would do the job better.

There is a scent of arrogance and paternalism about this bureaucratic version of Father Knows Best – an attitude of ‘don’t you worry about that; we’re from the government and we know what’s good for you’.

That’s not how things should work in this day and age.

The Subordinate Legislation Act of 1992 is essentially a guidebook for government in how to make and change rules and regulations. It is worth quoting directly from the explanation of the Act from the Treasury department’s own website:

A key requirement of the Act is the need to initially assess whether or not proposed new or amendment to subordinate legislation imposes a significant burden, cost or disadvantage on any sector of the public. If subordinate legislation is assessed as imposing a significant burden, cost or disadvantage on a sector of the public, it should not be introduced unless it can be justified as being in the public interest.

When assessing the impact of proposed subordinate legislation, agencies and authorities must:

• compare proposed amendments to existing regulations with not changing those regulations;
• compare proposed new subordinate legislation with doing nothing or taking a non-legislative approach; and
• for subordinate legislation subject to the automatic repeal provisions, compare the proposed re-made regulations with doing nothing (and letting the regulations lapse).

If a significant burden, cost or disadvantage would be imposed, the Act requires that agencies and authorities prepare a regulatory impact statement (RIS) and use it as a basis for public consultation. A RIS must:

• explain the objectives behind proposed subordinate legislation;
• detail the alternative options that could achieve those objectives;
• estimate the costs and benefits which could be expected to flow from these options;
• indicate which is the preferred option and why; and
• outline the public consultation process to be undertaken.

Note the use of the word ‘must’ in this explanation – twice in fact.

New regulations affecting farmers are introduced almost every other day. Yet, in the time I have been in Tasmania, I have not seen one compliant RIS; nor I have I been asked to contribute to or comment on one.

There have been a number of very divisive proposals over the past year alone, including most recently the contentious draft AgVet Chemicals regulations. In this case, huge amounts of industry energy and resource have gone into bringing impossible expectations back into something that might be achievable – and we’re at last making some headway in this respect. In other cases, we’ve identified unintended consequences resulting from poor drafting or lack of industry knowledge. These cases create a climate of distrust, when we should be working together.

Believe it or not, we actually know quite a lot about the business of farming, and about how we can do things better. We’ve even got some expertise in determining what impacts proposed rules and regulations might have on farms and on how best to achieve desired outcomes. You never know, we might even have a positive contribution to make. Even when we may not agree with the endpoint, we can certainly provide advice as to how best to get there with minimal disruption to farm businesses.

And that, by the way, it is a requirement of the government’s own Subordinate Legislation Act.