2015-04-28 Planning and Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA    28 APRIL 2015




                                                   Page 203 of 211

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                          28 APRIL 2015

                    1.     Introduction
                    In April 1995, all Australian governments committed to the National Competition
                    Policy to establish a national approach to achieve greater economic efficiency and to
                    improve the overall competitiveness of the Australian economy.
                    One of the key principles of the National Competition Policy was a commitment that
                    all governments, including local governments, would not make laws that restricted
                    competition unless it could be demonstrated that:
                           -   the benefits of the restriction to the community as a whole outweighed the
                               costs, and
                           - _ the objectives of the law could only be achieved by restricting competition.
                    To give effect to this principle, governments agreed to review all laws that restrict
                    competition.
                    Under the agreement, the Queensland Government requires local governments to
                    review anti-competitive provisions in any proposed local laws before the laws are
                    adopted.
                   These guidelines set out the criteria for identifying possible anti-competitive
                    provisions in local laws and establish the process for conducting reviews of those
                    provisions. Local governments are required to comply with these guidelines when
                    making local laws and failing to do so may result in the local law being of no effect.
                   These consolidated guidelines replace the separate identification and review
                   guidelines published by the Department in 1997.

                   2.      Relevant legislative provisions
                                                        zs       s                  2   7

                   Local laws are laws made by a local government and include:
                           -  interim local laws
                           -  subordinate local laws
                           -  local laws that incorporate model local laws.
                           (Section 27 of the City of Brisbane Act 2010 and section 26 of the Local Government Act 2009)
                   An anti-competitive provision in local laws (anti-competitive provision) means a
                   provision that a regulation identifies as creating barriers to—
                          (a) entry to a market: or
                          (b) competition within a market.
                          (City of Brisbane Act 2010 and the Local Government Act 2009)
                   Relevant legislative definitions are included in the Appendix.

                                                                                                      4

                                                                                                        Page 203 of 211