NSW to overhaul licences for used-car dealers, beekeepers and more

Kickboxers, second-hand car dealers, beekeepers and boaties are all about to enter the age of digital regulation after the Minns government revealed it will plough $62.5 million into a new digital licencing system that, if successful, could become a national template for other states to adopt.

After decades of states complaining about the difficulty of disparate systems that can’t interoperate on the same level, like Australia’s infamous rail-gauge disconnect at the turn of the 20th century, the New South Wales government has bitten the bullet on a long-awaited overhaul of the state’s fragmented licencing and permits system.

Other states and Canberra are watching what NSW does next because it is substantially ahead of its peers and the federal government when it comes to digitised credentials. NSW created the digital driver’s licences that other states are now emulating.

Quietly revealed in last week’s state budget, Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government Jihad Dib has secured a $62.5 million commitment to transition an additional 80 licenses to the new online Licence NSW system, which will cover the bulk of regulatory permits in the state.

The shift is potentially tectonic because it will create a back-end digital registry that, when integrated, will not only speed up and automate a lot of the drudgery of licence applications but also be able to cross-check eligibility and bans.

There are regulatory licences for almost everything imaginable, from being a cleric or civil marriage celebrant, to a registered brothel keeper, hotelier, funeral director, or mortician. Poker machines have licences, and preferably, greyhound breeders and bookies.

Then there’s the raft of trade and training certifications ranging from mechanics that sign off on the roadworthiness of cars for registration to crane drivers and dog persons, not to mention tow-truck operators, scrap metal dealers and building certifiers.

To be clear, the $62 million being ploughed in is a back-end reform rather than a front-end licence like the vaunted NSW digital driver’s licence; but it’s the groundwork that builds up to that digital credential transferability and ultimately the national portability of credentials — not to mention the ability to screen out predators, crooks and duds.

Notably, the NSW Carers Register, which specifically deals with child protection, is in the mix.

“By collecting information over time, the Carers Register is a reliable source of data about… application and authorisation history, including where applications have been refused or a carer’s authorisation has been cancelled or suspended [and] associations between carers and households, including individual household members, and any movements into and out of households,” the Carers Register website says.

This means that checks for out-of-home care, fostering and adoption checks and screens can be both quickened and tightened.

“The new system replaces legacy technology, enhances security, and makes interactions with applications faster and more convenient,” a statement from Dib said.

The bigger question now is whether both the federal and the Minns governments can continue to push the pace of digitally enabled regulator reform in the face of combatant stakeholders that have for years subsisted in the incapacity of authorities to join the dots.

The security, gaming, liquor and building industries have historically thrived on disconnections between databases that have exploited everything from disparities in criminal records checking to regulatory bans and even the statutory writing-off of vehicles to create so-called cut-and-shut Franken vehicles.

Imagine a used car lot where both the salesperson and the car had to be squeaky clean. What would happen to Parramatta Road? And where would you park a food truck?

This article was first published by The Mandarin.

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