Victoria Planning Provisions: Adopting a regulatory design protocol (LIJ, APril 2021)

The VPP were a pioneer in regulation by design and the model offers a path to make a wider range of regulation simpler and more accessible by adopting a Victorian Regulatory Design Protocol.

The recession of the early 1990s hit the Victorian economy more deeply than other states and triggered wide-ranging reforms to facilitate investment and create jobs, including one of the most innovative and significant reforms the Victorian planning system had seen, the introduction of the Victoria Planning Provisions (VPP). The VPP created a standard template for all planning schemes and made many common provisions consistent across the state.

Twenty-five years later, the VPP remain an enduring early example of “regulation by design”, created at a time when “design thinking” was only applied to tactile products and Collingwood’s factories were occupied by blue collar workers and not “product” designers.

Victoria’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis will once again require an extraordinary response from its regulatory systems. The experience of the VPP reforms and its legislative architecture give Victoria a unique ability to deliver groundbreaking reform that will facilitate investment and actually deliver the promise and benefits of “digital ready” regulations.

For the full text of the article written by Andrew Natoli and published in the Law Institute Journal (April, 2021) please click this link.

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