Last month we had the opportunity to support a specialist waste facility operator to enter a new market, while also helping another to standardise processes across multiple states.

One of the areas of support that the new market entry needed was in clarifying the requirements that different states in Australia have in key areas of their business: in state versus state employment regulation, in regard to environmental regulation, and in regard to specific site operational requirements. The second client was interested in industry best practice for standardising business processes but even that review demonstrated differences of what is “the norm” across our country.

The first project provided a great opportunity to further expand our network of collaboration as well – because employment advisory is certainly not something that we do. So we called in another set of experts to assist and it was really fascinating to highlight differences across several areas of regulation when it comes to operating facilities across multiple states.

Did you know, for instance, that there are notification requirements that differ across Victoria, NSW and Queensland in regard to workplace incidents? We all know that there are different prices for waste levies and requirements for reporting – but having to explain these in common language and compare them to a company who operates in 3 states, but has a centralised NSW corporate office, meant that we essentially needed to create a glossary of comparative terms.

We were glad to see the value that we could provide in helping both operators to establish strong processes across state lines, while still meeting the nuances of legislative difference.

If you operate in multiple states across Australia, have you reviewed the risk in your process inconsistencies of regulatory difference lately? We can help!