Regulation in Australia

This book provides interesting theory on the regulation which provides the background to what lawyers do every day. The author defines regulation as “intervention by public sector actors in … economic and social activities”. This includes legislation, taxes, registration and licensing in the pursuit of public policy. It opens with a history of regulation in Australia, and largely comprises chapters on why regulate, who regulates, managing the regulatory process, regulatory methods, economic regulation, transactional regulation, authorisation as regulation, informational regulation, structural regulation, compliance, enforcement and sanctions, regulatory strategies and evaluating regulation. The final chapters discuss why regulation may fail, and the future of regulation and regulating the future. There are 24 diagrams such as “when to regulate”, “who to regulate”, “enforcement pyramid” and “regulatory tools”. Appendix 1 contains a list of Commonwealth, state and territory regulators. Appendix 2 contains a Comprehensive Regulation Act 2025 described as “an either aspirational or apocalyptic vision of an all-encompassing regulatory statute”. The book contains a user-friendly glossary of definitions from those familiar to practitioners like “co-regulation” to jargon like “compliance gap” and “wicked problem”. As well, there is a bibliography, including citations of reports by the ACCC, ASIC, BCA, Productivity Commission and governments. This is a useful book which will remind practitioners of their role in the regulatory process. - Paul Latimer, InPrint, Law Institute Journal Victoria, April 2018

Arie Freiberg AM is an Emeritus Professor at Monash University and Chair of the Victorian and Tasmanian Sentencing Advisory Councils.