To foster better regulation the first thing we need to do is to change our attitude.  

For a long time, there has been a prevailing attitude in the business community that regulation is an impediment to business, and that we must press forward with deregulation.

I believe this deregulatory approach, which focuses on throwing out as many of the old rules as possible, is a retrograde step.  

Despite all the rhetoric about it, very few people genuinely support the idea of blanket deregulation. Instead, we think it would be nice to keep the laws which protect us, and throw out the ones which restrict or punish us. Unfortunately, everybody else feels exactly the same way.

This demonstrates precisely why regulation is important: to keep self-interest in check.

It's common sense that a sound regulatory system upholds and supports the interests of the community. Business needs to realise that this in turn raises the standards in our marketplaces by fostering efficiency and innovation. Whilst it's true that too much or inappropriate regulation can have a negative direct effect, too little is likely to have a far more destructive influence.

Instead of characterising regulation in terms of higher taxes and fewer freedoms we urgently need to get over our gut reactions and adopt a more mature mindset. We need to appreciate the security and infrastructure regulation provides for us to operate within.

Working with business, rather than over the top of them, reduces costs to government, encourages private sector expertise and contributes to economic growth.

Regulatory reform is becoming a common project of governments across the world. As economies and businesses become more sophisticated in their operations, governments have recognised they must become more selective and innovative in the ways they regulate.

It is hard to describe the historical situation in Australia as one of more or less regulation. Relative to Europe there is a less regulated and rigid business environment. On the one hand, the number of pages of regulation has increased substantially; on the other hand governments have deregulated entire industries over the past few decades.

What we are seeing is change in the favoured style of regulation: these days, the focus is on setting the basic (enforceable) rules of the game and letting the market find its own solutions when this is possible. For example, where possible we expect regulation to be expressed in terms of an outcome to be achieved rather than a process for achieving it. This rewards productivity and innovation as firms seek the most efficient ways to comply.

Rather than struggling against government regulation, businesses should be looking for opportunities to use it to their advantage.

The relationship between government and business is often fraught, confrontational and difficult to manage. Government regulation, in theory designed to ensure the smooth operation of our economy and society, is often seen as an impediment by businesses keen to progress its interests on its own terms.

But after years working in both the public and private arena I am convinced it doesn't need to be this way.

Rather than struggling against government regulation, businesses should be looking for opportunities to use it to their advantage. Rather than see regulation as something which needs to be avoided, business should be looking to engage with government and move the debate in a direction which would be more beneficial to their own operations.

The problem with simply attacking and fighting against regulation, is that we eventually reach a point where there is no regulation and therefore no checks and balances in place to prevent a market overheating, or adopting deleterious practices.

A ‘one-in', ‘one-out' approach to new Federal legislation requires that a Minister seeking to impose new regulation must try and find offsetting reductions in regulatory burden.

There can be no doubt we're facing turbulent economic times. Our inaugural budget was designed to put downward pressure on inflation as well as delivering on our election commitments and setting the Australian economy up for the longer term. 

We're addressing Australia's future challenges by funding our election commitments to improve productivity through an education revolution and by tackling the infrastructure bottlenecks which are holding our economy back.

As I pointed out last week at the Australian Trucking Convention we're also prepared to tackle the deeper structural issues effecting our capacity to compete on a world stage, and we especially see deregulation as an important a tool for improving Australia's productivity.