ARPANSA - Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency

A National Competition Policy review of the radiation protection legislation of the Commonwealth, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory was undertaken from 8 August 2000 to 8 May 2001. Queensland did not participate as it had completed a public benefits test of its radiation protection regulations in 1999. ARPANSA coordinated the review.

The aim of the review was to ensure that the legislation under review did not restrict competition unless it could be demonstrated that,

• The benefits of the restrictions to the community as a whole outweighed the costs; and
• The objectives of the legislation can only be achieved by restricting competition.

An Issues Paper was released for public comment from 16 October 2000 to 15 December 2000 with a list of all provisions in the legislation that could restrict competition and a discussion on competition policy issues. A total of 30 submissions were received.

A Draft Final Report, was then prepared and released for public comment from 1 March to 31 March 2001. The Draft Final Report assessed the impacts, costs and benefits of the restrictions and recommended measures to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of radiation protection legislation. A total of 20 written submissions were received. Comments were also received from focussed consultation meetings in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.

The Final Report was produced on 8 May 2001. It was submitted to the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council (AHMAC), which noted the Final Report at its meeting on 31 May 2001 and agreed to forward the report to the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference (AHMC).

At its meeting on 1 August 2001, the AHMC noted the Final Report and approved the proposal for ARPANSA to coordinate the jurisdictions' responses to the recommendations in the Final Report and produce a national position for submission to Ministers through AHMAC.

On 7 August 2001 the CEO of ARPANSA invited formal responses to the recommendations in the Final Report from departmental heads in all jurisdictions. The deadline for jurisdictions to provide their formal responses is Friday, 14 September 2001.

Upon receipt of the responses, ARPANSA negotiated a national position through the National Uniformity Implementation Panel (Radiation Control) (NUIP(RC)), which is a working group of ARPANSA's Radiation Health Committee. Three of the recommendations were amended to clarify rather than to change the intent of the recommendations. The affected recommendations were Recommendations 1, 3 and 14.

Recommendations 1 and 3 were amended to ensure that references to the protection of 'the public' from the harmful effects of radiation were changed to references to 'people' in order to cover occupational health and safety as well. In addition, Recommendation 1 was re-written from a prescriptive to a performance-based statement.

The original wording of Recommendation 14 (to retain the current prescriptive approach) caused some confusion. It seemed to conflict with Recommendation 5 (which endorsed the use of performance-based approaches, where appropriate). As such, Recommendation 14 was re-written to clarify its intent that 'jurisdictions are to retain the current prescriptive approach while making efforts to move towards a more performance-base approach as required under Recommendation 5'.

The revised list of recommendations (PDF 86kb) was approved by the AHMAC on 31 May 2002. AHMAC also approved an Implementation Plan (PDF 327kb) with 12 projects to meet the final recommendations of the NCP review.

Following AHMAC approval, the National Competition Council was notified on 14 June 2002 that:

• the NCP review had been completed;
• the final list of recommendations and the Implementation Plan was approved by AHMAC; and
• the Implementation Plan will serve as the 'transitional plan' required by the Council of Australian Governments for National Competition Policy reform action going beyond 30 June 2002.

The AHMC endorsed the revised list of recommendations and the Implementation Plan out-of-session in September 2002.

The NUIP(RC) has started to implement the 12 projects in the Implementation Plan.

Four of the twelve projects, Nos. 1 (Legislative Amendments), 5 (Periodic Reviews), 9 (Advertising Restrictions) and 11 (Cost Recovery), are being managed by individual jurisdictions.

Project numbers 2 (Fractionation), 6 (National Uniformity), 8 (Regional Communities), 10 (Trans-boundary Issues) and 12 (National Incident Register) are being managed by Members of the NUIP(RC).

NUIP(RC) agreed that the remaining three projects, 3 (Regulatory Styles), 4 (Third Party Certification) and 7 (Occupational Licensing) be managed by external consultants.

Implementation Project consultancies

Consultancy specifications were developed for each of these projects and a call for Expressions of Interest was advertised (PDF 91kb) in the Weekend Australian of 8-9 February 2003. The closing date for submission of expressions of interest for each project is 28 February 2003.

The three consultancy projects are as follows:

• The project on 'Regulatory Styles' aims to lower costs to industry and regulators through outcome-based regulations and standards. It involves the identification of risks that can be treated more efficiently with an outcome-based approach and the development of principles for regulators to apply in reviewing their legislation. It also involves the development of generic risk management principles for the industry.
  'Regulatory Styles' consultancy specification (PDF 146kb)
• The project on 'Third-party Certification' aims to lower costs to industry and regulators through more competition in providing testing and certification services for radiation equipment and apparatus. It involves the evaluation of the existing arrangements for third-party certification in all jurisdictions and the development of a nationally agreed framework on activities that can be outsourced, accreditation standards and processes.
  'Third Party Certification' consultancy specification (PDF 126kb)
• The project on 'Occupational Licensing' aims to achieve efficient and effective occupational licensing systems for occupational groups that use radiation. It includes a review of the need to licence dentists to operate dental X-ray equipment and the development of nationally uniform criteria for licence categories and occupational licensing and registration requirements.
  "Occupational Licensing" consultancy specification (PDF 136kb)

During the course of the period where Expression of Interest in the three Implementation Projects above was requested, several parties raised questions in order to assist them in preparing their submission. The following questions and answers are provided for all parties:
Implementation Projects Questions and Answers (PDF 111kb)

For further information or clarification, please contact:

Mr Keith Dessent
Telephone: +61 3 9433 2261
Fax: +61 3 9433 2353

keith.dessent@arpansa.gov.au

Top of Page