Australian government guide to Regulatory Impact Analysis 30 MAR 2020 Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia)

This guide helps policy makers reflect on how regulation affects individuals, businesses, community organisations as well as its broader economic and competition impacts. Regulation can have benefits, but poor, unnecessary or excessive regulation can also lead to obstacles that slow down and even stop business investment and new job creation.

The government’s rigorous approach to policy making seeks to ensure that regulation is never adopted as the default solution, but rather introduced as a means of last resort. Where regulation is demonstrated to be necessary, policy makers must seek practical solutions and ensure that they are well-designed, well-targeted and fit-for-purpose.

The government’s impact analysis framework, enhanced in March 2020, will ensure decision makers are provided with the necessary evidence base to make the decisions that will best support a stronger economy and guarantee the essentials Australians rely on to prosper. It is an expectation of the government that policy makers aim to prepare Regulation Impact Statements that are assessed as exemplary.