15 August 2025
A major new report has provided a blueprint for the Government to cut red tape and out-of-date regulation, in order to reduce costs for consumers and businesses, boost productivity and get more homes built faster.
The Business Council of Australia’s new Better Regulation report finds Australia has a more than $110 billion red-tape burden, which is holding back investment and major projects critical to Australia’s economic success.
Business Council of Australia Chief Executive Bran Black said the report calls for practical reforms to remove unnecessary red tape to boost investor confidence and make it easier to work, trade and do business across Australia.
“We have become too complex a country in which to do business, and that’s a massive handbrake on our ability to lift productivity and living standards,” Mr Black said.
“At the upcoming Economic Reform Roundtable, we have an opportunity to address excessive and duplicative rules that impose unnecessary costs on both businesses and consumers.
“As our report shows, reducing the red tape burden by 1 per cent could unlock an extra $1 billion a year for the economy.”
The BCA’s Better Regulation 2025 report calls for:
- Simplifying compliance and licencing regimes across the country, particularly for tradespeople critical to building more homes.
- Streamlining trading hours and practices across the country.
- Aligning planning and environmental assessments between federal and state governments to create faster investment outcomes for housing and energy projects.
- Ensuring laws are fit for our future digital economy to allow a faster rollout of AI and cyber innovation.
- Creating better regulation frameworks, which include KPIs for regulators to reduce red tape and compliance costs.
- Modernising our international trading systems and slashing nuisance and outdated tariffs and trade barriers, which add cost to goods being imported and exported from Australia.
The BCA, alongside an alliance of nearly 30 industry groups, is calling on the Government to commit to a 25 per cent reduction in regulatory costs by 2030 and undertake a national stocktake of red tape and the impact it is having on the economy. The last stocktake was undertaken in 2014.
Mr Black said the Report is intended to provide a tangible pathway to help drive investment into Australia, which will support businesses to grow, increase job opportunities and ultimately boost incomes.
“In Victoria, a café owner needs 36 separate licences and approvals before they can pour the first coffee, while a tradie on the Gold Coast needs to pay hundreds of dollars in permits just to fix a tap over the NSW border. This is the regulation we need to fix” Mr Black said.
“Our report offers simple fixes that ultimately help businesses, workers, and consumers get ahead.”
Mr Black also noted that addressing our broken approvals system is critical to boosting productivity and making sure Australia can deliver on its housing targets and the energy transition.
“Right now, our approvals system is holding back housing and renewable energy projects — if we’re serious about leaving Australia better off for the next generation, then we need to make these systems fit for a modern economy,” Mr Black said.
“Ultimately, we need to remove duplication between the state and the federal systems. We need to be working smarter, not harder.”
