Business figures have scoffed at state government claims it is reducing red tape.
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“My view is red tape reduction is like the tooth fairy … a myth,” Kirk Pinner, of training provider Outside the Square Solutions, said.
Building consultant Jake Weeda said the Building Act had not, as claimed, cut red tape.
“Governments have an amazing propensity to legislate an act which then has the precise opposite result,” Mr Weeda said.
“We went from two forms that have to be produced to six.”
He said costs had risen and he had offered, without success so far, to turn a TasWater form into plain English.
“Hobart then responded to my inquiry to say that TasWater was prepared to hold a training seminar up on the North-West on how to fill it out,” Mr Weeda said.
Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business, Trade and Red Tape Reduction Roger Jaensch said the government had dealt with nearly every piece of red tape which had been brought to its attention.
He suspected the state would have more regulations now than when the government took power in early 2014, because it had had a “pretty solid agenda of creating legislation for things people want”.
He said not all regulations were red tape, and the red tape reduction process was ongoing.
He said all regulations were made for good reason, but sometimes became out of date.
“It’s the cumulative effect of there being lots and lots of hoops to jump through that really gets people down,” he said.
“That’s the job we’re doing, trying to identify where there’s duplication and unnecessary regulation (and) either streamline or get rid of some of it.”
Shadow Small Business Minister Madeleine Ogilvie said the government’s red tape reduction election promise had not been met.
“The planning system has been made more complex, the building regulations have also been loaded up with unnecessary complexity and all of this costs households and tradies real money and wasted time,” Ms Ogilvie said.
“Not only have the Liberals not delivered on their promises, they've made things worse.
“The Liberals abandoned their promise to cut red tape by 20 per cent soon after coming to power.”
“In fact, their own budget papers confirmed they couldn't work out how to measure whether they were reducing or increasing the amount of red tape.”