Technical standards in this area are almost completely nationally harmonised. They are fundamentally performance-based and are supported by ‘functional statements’ (in common with the vehicle design standards just mentioned) which clearly state the underlying purpose, or objective, of each of the specific regulatory requirements. Building regulation includes, as part of the published regulatory document, a set of ‘deemed to satisfy’ prescriptive standards aimed at providing certainty of compliance.

This summarises the position in the major areas of social regulation within Australia, in terms of the extent to which process and/or performance-based regulation has been adopted. Of course, the position in Australia is not unique. As I have suggested, there are substantial formal regulatory harmonisation processes in place in some areas, such as vehicle design standards, while in others, such as occupational health and safety, substantially similar regulatory approaches are the results of less formal co-operation between regulators and ‘demonstration effects’.

More generally, a number of recent OECD publications have documented the fact that the trend toward increasing use of performance and process-based regulation is visible in the great majority of its member countries. For example, the OECD reported in 2002 that approximately half of member countries stated that they were making increasing use of performance-based regulations in both environmental and health and safety regulation, while a slightly smaller number reported increased use of process-based regulation in these areas (OECD 2002).