REPORT RED TAPE !
We want to hear from you. Tell us about the red tape slowing your business down — what’s unnecessary, what’s unclear, and what’s costing you time or money. Your input helps us identify patterns, escalate real issues, and push for practical changes with decision-makers. It’s how we cut through red tape and fight for a better operating environment for Illawarra businesses.
Red Tape Is Costing Local Businesses HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS
Rising inflation and higher interest rates are already putting pressure on local businesses. Now, Business Illawarra members are telling us that government red tape, taxes, levies and charges are among their biggest threats to business sustainability.
Some of the examples we’re hearing are staggering:
- One local professional services firm estimates new government compliance requirements will cost them $20,000 every year in administration alone.
- Another business considered setting up a second company — not to grow, but to navigate regulation — because it would save them around $300,000 a year.
That’s not productivity. That’s red tape.
Help Us Cut the Red Tape
Business Illawarra is creating a Red Tape Register to capture real examples from real businesses and push for practical reform over the next 12 months.
We want to know:
- What is the red tape?
- How is it impacting your business?
- How much is it costing you in time or money?
“Red tape is a hidden cost,” said Coralie McCarthy, Director – Illawarra, Business Illawarra.
“It doesn’t appear on an invoice, but it drains time, delays decisions and takes money away from investment, jobs and growth. If regulation doesn’t make sense, it needs to be challenged.”
Have Your Say
If something takes longer than it should, costs more than it should, or exists simply because ‘that’s how it’s always been done’, we want to hear about it.
What happens when you report red tape?
Reported red tape will be added to the red tape register (below) and raised with government for change, help Business Illawarra create change, we are stronger together.
LOCAL RED TAPE REGISTER
Worker’s Compensation – Cross‑State Burden on Business
RED TAPE
Worker’s insurance arrangements differ significantly from state to state. For small and medium‑sized businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions, this creates a substantial administrative and compliance burden. Each state requires a separate policy, with different rules, coverage requirements, premium structures, claims processes and operating costs.
For a single employer, this means multiple renewal cycles, multiple audits, and inconsistent coverage arrangements across the same workforce—simply because their staff sit on different sides of a state border.
Business Solution
Allow businesses operating across jurisdictions to access a harmonised or nationally consistent worker’s insurance option, or enable mutual recognition of classifications and premiums across states.
Update on advocacy
Workers Compensation - Industry Classifications (WICs)
RED TAPE
Only allowing one Workers Compensation Industry Classification (WIC) per business creates unnecessary red tape and leads to inequitable premium costs. Under the current system, low‑risk office staff are charged at the same rate as high‑risk labourers or manufacturing workers simply because they fall under a single business entity.
This has forced many employers to set up second companies solely to classify administrative staff correctly, adding legal, accounting and compliance overhead, driven entirely by regulatory design rather than operational need.
BUSINESS SOLUTION
Allow more than one WIC to be applied within a single business so staff can be classified according to the actual risk profile of their role.
Work Health and Safety (WHS) - Site Inductions
RED TAPE
Inductions are a major red‑tape burden. We spend months each year completing site inductions or filling out induction documentation. Every site has its own requirements, forms and systems, and there is no consistency across clients or locations.
IMPACT
“It is a massive time‑killer. Highly skilled, licensed technicians — our most valuable and highest‑paid staff — are repeatedly tied up in basic inductions every week. It pulls them away from revenue‑generating work and devalues their expertise when they are told, yet again, how to lift a box for the 10,000th time - estimated impact over $200k p.a."
BUSINESS SOLUTION
Review of WHS legislation to streamline induction requirements to ensure saftey andd reduce red tape.