Not so long ago ALP politicians controlled the governments of every state. I think they still did at the end of 07, though I may be wrong. In any event, it was an obvious opportunity an amazingly rare opportunity. For that reason I spent a bit of time on this blog and on the phone trying to see what kind of political project one might erect from it. Because political aspirations are not terribly bold today, and because of the structure of things, it might have been necessary to be fairly modest.  But this post contains a record of 12 ideas which resulted from some blog based brainstorming.

What became of it? Nothing much in a policy sense. But the states did band together in a political exercise to resist John Howard’s soft climate change denialism and it was politically successful, and was a good stroke of policy because it meant that, coming into national government they were about six months ahead of the pace with the Garnaut process.

Otherwise, I don’t think anything much happened, though I’d be happy to be corrected below.

Meanwhile the newly Liberal Governments of NSW and Victoria have announced a reform partnership.  The public material is full of fine sounding intentions, though I expect it’s too early to see what comes out of it. But the fact that they occupy 57 percent of the Australia economy is significant.  Whatever they can agree to harmonise between themselves, and this seems a major focus of the activity, would create quite a strong ‘attractor’ for others to copy. And it does seem that they got the idea of doing something together a little quicker than their ALP counterparts.

You’ll be pleased to hear that the Mortgage Industry Association of Australia is on a campaign to ramp up the qualifications of mortgage brokers.  Just because all they do is sell loans and fill out forms – and otherwise manage the process by which you apply for a loan – is no reason we shouldn’t want them to have higher and higher levels of qualification. There’s already a process of professional development, according to which mortgage brokers must get something like 14 professional development points per year.  Peach’s brokers can get 8 points for learning how to write commercial loans, and since we don’t do commercial loans, it will be totally useless.  But at least it will be a quick way of getting within striking distance of the yearly requirement. A couple more days of workshops where you are told of some lenders’ products (it’s much better to get it live from an instructor, even if you can read) with a nice afternoon’s golf and Bob’s your uncle. Next stop university degrees for all mortgage brokers. And why not?

There’s something of interest in this piece by Cass Sunstein, Obama’s chief of regulation (It has become common to call him ‘Regulatory Czar’ for some reason – not ‘Regulatory Strongman’ or ‘Regulatory Hulk Hogan’, but ‘Regulatory Czar’).  It speaks not just of the costs of regulation but also of benefits. As part of summarising what’s good about the regulatory policy that he is ‘Czar’ of he quotes not only the extent to which they’ve been able to cut the cost of regulation (if you pay close attention to the numbers quoted they’re pitifully small by the way), but also the benefits of regulation.

This insistence on pragmatic, evidence-based, cost-effective rules is what has informed our regulatory approach over the past two and a half years. We have helped to bring highway deaths down to their lowest level in 60 years; promoted airline safety while protecting passengers from tarmac delays, overbooking and hidden charges; sharply reduced the risk of salmonella from eggs; dramatically increased the fuel economy of cars and trucks, promoting energy independence while saving consumers money; and curbed air pollution that kills thousands of people each year. At the same time, we are eliminating unnecessary regulatory burdens and tens of millions of hours in annual red tape.

So there you have it: a social democratic approach to talking about regulation.  The other thing is that Sunstein talks about lowering the costs of overregulation and bad regulation not just for businesses and organisations generally (which is where we focus our energies on regulation review), but also on individuals.

We are taking immediate steps to save individuals, businesses, and state and local governments hundreds of millions of dollars every year in regulatory burdens.

Very sensible too.  It’s hard to see the downside.