Red tape reduction

Submit your issues below

The Tasmanian Government is committed to cutting red tape and making Tasmania one of the best places in Australia in which to do business.

“Red tape” is usually defined as excessive or unnecessary complexity, regulations, processes and bureaucracy that results in delays or inaction.

It includes a situation where a business or member of the community needs government permission to do something – usually in the form of a permit or approval – and that permission is unreasonable, heavy-handed, slow or outdated.

A significant portion of regulation exists to address legitimate community expectations in relation to protecting people, places, products and property. However, regulation becomes a form of red tape where it fails to adequately, or it disproportionately addresses, these community expectations and should therefore be reformed or removed.

Red tape issues include:

requiring documents to be in hard copy where electronic copies would suffice
where an authority requires certain conditions as part of a licence that are not fit for purposes or are unreasonable in the circumstances
where there are two conflicting or inconsistent requirements relating to the same matter.