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Articles on Regulatory reform

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A policy decision to allow the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway — a company with a poor safety record – to run its trains through a town in Québec with single person crews resulted the fourth deadliest railway disaster in Canadian history in 2013. Eight years later, Transport Canada is still suffering from safety issues. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

To prevent disasters like Lac-Mégantic, private interests cannot be allowed to affect regulations

Industries have blocked or delayed new regulations and pushed to remove or dilute existing regulations by framing regulations as detrimental to creating jobs and wealth.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto hold a news conference before signing the USMCA. The deal, if passed into law, poses dangers to public health. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The new NAFTA’s assault on public health

The collective public health of Canada, the United States and Mexico will take a hit if the new NAFTA becomes law.
ASIC boss James Shipton has signalled a shift to more vigorous enforcement and Treasurer Scott Morrison has bolstered the regulator’s funding to enable this. Luis Ascui/AAP

Embedding regulators in banks can help change cultures of wrongdoing, despite the risks

Putting regulators inside corporations isn’t new, and the US experience highlights risks of regulatory capture, but the move could make a difference if ASIC is shifting to more robust enforcement.
Jules Kim, Zahra Stardust and Cameron Cox at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Zahra Stardust

The stigma of sex work comes with a high cost

Stigma continues to inform legal, social and cultural attitudes towards sex work and remains a barrier to health, human rights and justice. Developing stigma indicators is one step towards change.
Different local or state government laws apply in different parts of the country in Australia, Germany, the US and Mexico. Reuters/Kimberly White

Sex work and the law – it’s complicated

Understanding laws that govern sex work can be complicated and confusing, especially because laws are not uniform globally, or even within each country.
The competition policy review is just another difficult conversation for the Abbott government. Gary Schafer/AAP

Government writing reform cheques it’s unlikely to cash

Big reforms in taxation and competition policy are on the table for the Abbott government, but has it spent too much political capital to get any of them across the line?
There are high hopes that the new head of the Fed, Janet Yellen, will change the culture at the central bank and the lenders it regulates. IMF/Flickr via CC BY-NC-ND

Banking tail often wags the Fed’s regulatory dog

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has her work cut out for her if she hopes to change the culture at the world’s most important central bank. Media reports abound with evidence that the financial industry…
Fetch a bucket. Matluba Mukhamedova/World Bank

Water firms’ failure to invest stores up problems

There’s been much debate this past month about Britain’s rising gas and electricity bills. Price hikes have followed utility companies’ reports of massive increases in profits, such as Scottish Power which…
Reform of medical regulations has become a hot potato being passed from one agency to another. eltpics/Flickr

Consumers lose out as TGA reform turns into a hot potato

Two bills in the national parliament provide a snapshot of our health regulatory system, and just like a smoker’s lungs, it’s not a pretty picture. The bills show that we’re slow in fixing regulatory incapacity…

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