Regulating for NSW's future

About the report

Regulating for NSW’s Future identifies regulatory reform opportunities for NSW by drawing on data and insights from Deloitte’s artificial intelligence and data analytics tool (“RegExplorer” software). The tool analysed publicly available information on the State’s regulation website.

Key findings

• NSW has an opportunity to improve its regulations to facilitate economic recovery and boost the State’s productivity and growth. Even a five per cent reduction in the compliance burden for NSW businesses could save $4 billion per year.
• There are many outdated regulations that can be removed or modernised – for example there are 350 references to facsimile and 27 to telegram in sections in NSW regulation despite these technologies generally being considered obsolete
• 37 per cent of NSW regulations prescribe specific compliance behaviour rather than focusing on the intended outcome. These regulations stifle businesses’ flexibility and ability to develop innovative solutions to achieve intended regulatory outcomes with less compliance costs.
• There are many overlapping and duplicate regulations that can be better streamlined to improve the end-user experience with compliance activities and government’s regulatory services (for example, licensing applications).