Australian Standards: Costly rules and regulations hinder productivity and climate action, research shows

A maze of rules on everything from toys to urine storage is costing Australian businesses and their customers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, new research shows, with warnings that without change, the nation’s efforts to lift productivity and cut greenhouse emissions will be stymied.

Just being able to read the necessary standards documentation to install solar panels on a roof sets back tradespeople $1700 in fees, the work by Queensland University economist Flavio Menezes, as part of research for the federal Treasury, has discovered.

Standards Australia, a government agency that was privatised under the Howard government in 1999 and sold its publishing rights to a publicly listed company in which it held a 40 per cent share, oversees around 9000 standards.

Many of its standards