If at first you fail...

At Agitate! we have been keeping a close eye on the nation’s business regulator  - the ACCC.

Over the decades it has become a behemoth and is aggregating ever more power and authority with very little debate.

In its latest grasp for more authority the ACCC wants to rewrite the laws so that it can more easily prosecute alleged cartels.

For Agitate! this raises serious concerns: on the basis of one lost case the ACCC wants the laws rewritten to invest it with more power.

With Parliament resuming and amendments to the Trade Practices Act due to be considered it is worthwhile reading our feature piece on the ACCC and the proposed TPA changes and also an accompanying article “Anatomy of a Regulator.”

The Institute of Public Affairs has recently released a paper by Dr Alan Moran which looks at the effect of cartels.

It says that government intervention against cartels is seldom effective and sometimes counterproductive.

Excessive and heavy handed regulation stifles initiative, enterprise and efficiency.

With government’s across the world – and not least here in Australia – looking at a return to statism as a so-called antidote to the economic issues gripping the globe we should be ever more vigilant about increasing regulatory powers.