Electricity and gas utilities are businesses increasingly operating across state and territory borders.
The Energy Market Reform agenda has up till now focused on harmonising the economic regulation of the energy sector to encourage efficient investment. This was achieved:
- through changes to the governance framework
- through the establishment of the Australian Energy Market Commission and Australian Energy Regulator
- by harmonising the regulatory framework that governs the energy access regime.
Energy specific technical and safety regulation is a state and territory responsibility and is implemented through separate state based legislative instruments.
In November 2007, the Commonwealth Government committed to work with State and Territory Governments and the energy sector to improve the consistency of state based regulations – such as occupational health and safety requirements – that apply to the energy sector. The Department is the lead Commonwealth agency responsible for this reform initiative, in conjunction with state and territory governments and the energy sector.
Energy technical and safety regulation is important for public safety and to ensure workers operate within a safe environment and enable the provision of safe energy services, taking into account that energy supply industry assets reside in public places.
While recognising that technical and safety regulation is important for public safety, ensuring workers operate within a safe environment, and for the efficient provision of safe energy services, harmonisation of such regulation is also important to enable the efficient and effective delivery of energy services. A harmonised approach to technical and safety regulation lowers the compliance burden for multi-jurisdictional operators and facilitates greater labour mobility and swifter emergency response, especially in the context of skilled labour shortages.
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has also announced reforms for reducing the costs of regulation and enhancing workforce mobility in areas of shared Commonwealth and State and Territory responsibility. This includes an inter-governmental agreement to harmonise general occupational health and safety laws.
Further information on these reforms is available at the Ministerial Council on Energy
website and the Council of Australian Governments website.