Project Description
🧠Red Tape Navigator
Making compliance clearer across Commonwealth, State, and Local laws in Australia.
🚨 The Problem
Running a business in Australia often feels like trying to solve a puzzle without the picture on the box.
A café owner in Melbourne or a tradie in Brisbane can easily spend hours chasing answers to the same question:
Who actually regulates this, and what am I supposed to do?
Some Data on this:
- Up to 15 hours/week spent on red tape by small business owners — The Australian
- 43% of Queensland businesses spend 6+ hours/week on compliance — ABC News
- Median annual compliance cost for businesses doubled: A$25k → A$50k (2021–2023) — ABC News
- National red tape burden estimated at A$110 billion/year — ABC News
- 45% of SMEs considered closing in 2025 due to regulatory overload — Public Accountant
Regulation here is fragmented. Commonwealth, state, and local governments all have their own rules. Some overlap, some contradict, and others duplicate each other. Even finding out which regulator applies can be confusing and error-prone. That complexity costs time, money, and confidence.
💡 The Solution
Red Tape Navigator brings all of this together in one place. Think of it like a GPS for regulation:
- You type in your postcode and your business activity.
- The system automatically knows which state and local government area you’re in.
- It pulls the relevant licences and permits from official sources.
- It shows you what’s required at the Commonwealth, state, and local levels.
- And instead of dumping links on you, it explains the obligations in plain English, with timeframes, costs, documents, and direct links back to the law.
In short, it turns scattered rules into a clear roadmap that people can actually follow.
✨ Features
The Navigator isn’t just a search tool. It provides a Compliance Dashboard where obligations are grouped by jurisdiction, so you can see everything side-by-side. It offers a Roadmap View that walks you step-by-step through federal, state, and local requirements, with progress tracking built in.
For sensitive areas like alcohol, medicines, and hazardous chemicals, it has a dedicated Controlled Substances Module that checks for the extra layers of compliance.
When APIs aren’t available, the system doesn’t stop — a Selenium scraper queries ABLIS behind the scenes to keep the results flowing. And for the mountain of legislation it references, AI-powered summaries cut through the jargon and highlight overlaps so business owners aren’t left reading pages of legalese.
📊 Data Sources Used
Three datasets formed the backbone of our project:
ALRC DataHub gave us the bigger picture. It shows the sheer depth and complexity of Commonwealth lawmaking. By including this, we could place our compliance map in context — reminding users why navigating the rules matters and how heavy the burden can be.
Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) was critical for accuracy. It maps a postcode into the correct state and local government area (LGA). Without this, obligations from ABLIS risk being mis-framed. With it, every obligation is clearly tied to the right jurisdiction.
Australian Business Licence and Information Service (ABLIS) was our workhorse. Using Selenium, we queried licences and permits based on postcode and business activity. ABLIS formed the backbone of our Navigator: it’s where we find the concrete obligations that users need to see.
🚀 Impact
Red Tape Navigator is more than a technical exercise. It’s about confidence. Small businesses should be able to spend their energy on running their shop or serving their customers, not chasing legal requirements across half a dozen websites.
With the Navigator:
Small businesses save hours (and often hundreds of dollars) that would otherwise be lost in confusion.
Individuals can finally trust they’ve seen every relevant regulator and requirement.
Governments get to showcase the real value of their open datasets in a tool that delivers practical, everyday impact.
Instead of red tape, we give people a clear compliance roadmap.
👉 Red Tape Navigator turns Australia’s regulatory maze into something people can actually navigate — with clarity and confidence.
