The Modern Regulator Podcast

What happens when the process meant to protect the environment ends up killing off the very species it was designed to save?

Danielle Wood is chair of the Productivity Commission, Australia's principal independent policy advisory body on productivity, competition and regulatory reform. She began her career as a graduate and senior research economist with the Commission in 2002, spent nine years at the Grattan Institute, rising to chief executive in 2020, and returned to the PC as chair in November 2023, the first woman to lead the Commission or any of its predecessor agencies in more than a century.

In this conversation, Wood walks through the case study behind her essay The Red Tape Impulse, an endangered frog whose habitat restoration was approved too late to save it, and explains why she treats the tabloid test, now the TikTok test, as the real driver of regulatory risk aversion. She also sets out why fixing planning and housing regulation is the one problem she would solve overnight with a magic wand.

This episode covers:
The green and gold bell frog case study, and what it reveals about regulatory fragmentation and the cost of not knowing which door to walk through
Why 55 per cent of ASX 200 board time now goes to compliance, up from 25 per cent a decade ago, and what that does to business appetite for risk
The tabloid test versus the TikTok test, and why a charter for regulatory honesty could do for red tape what budget honesty charters did for fiscal policy
The case for cutting back excessive stakeholder consultation, a theme from Wood's speech on regulating for growth
Why more than 75 per cent of land in most Australian capital cities is zoned for only one or two storeys, and what gentle density could unlock
Wood's approach to AI, treating it as a last resort for new regulation but a genuine tool for regulators themselves
Wood's magic wand answer: broad scale upzoning for gentle density across Australia's capital cities

Danielle also shares what's on her reading list right now. Her Substack recommendations:
Eating Policy, Jennifer Pahlka's reflections on state capacity
Derek Thompson, of Abundance fame
Zac Gross, for thoughtful takes on Australian macroeconomics

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This episode is made possible with the support of Objective RegWorks – the software for regulators.

What does it actually take to build a profession out of regulation, from scratch?

Marcial Boo has spent three decades in UK public service, running four regulators across entirely different domains – the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Public Health Register during COVID-19, and now the Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA). In 2021, he also founded the Institute of Regulation (IoR), built from a handful of volunteers into the UK's professional home for regulators.

In this conversation, Boo discusses why so few regulators think of themselves as regulators first, what it takes to move a Member of Parliament (MP) expenses system from paper receipts to algorithmic outlier detection, and why he sees a structural gap between policymaking and implementation as one of the system's biggest sources of friction.

This episode covers:
Why regulatory identity is still "in the foothills" of becoming a genuine profession, and what the IoR is doing to build it
The IPSA data story: how Boo took MP expenses from stapled paper receipts to a system that could flag suspicious mileage claims across 650 constituencies
Whether a growth duty and regulatory independence can coexist, and why Boo believes stability is itself pro-growth
The structural tension in the IPA's dual role as both a membership body and a regulator, and why Boo expects it to eventually split, as has happened in law and medicine
Boo's magic wand answer: the understanding gap between the people who design regulation and the people who implement it

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This episode is made possible with the support of Objective RegWorks – the software for regulators.

In part two, the conversation shifts from the reform story to the bigger questions.

Sandra Parker PSM, former head of the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) and now a coach and facilitator for senior regulatory leaders through the Jeff Whalan Learning Group, talks about what she sees consistently in incoming regulatory leaders: the gaps that trip them up, the knowledge that nobody hands over at appointment, and what she'd fix if she had a magic wand.

Sandra also discusses the New Head of Regulator Pocket Guide, a practical resource Sandra helped develop through the Commonwealth Regulator Leadership Cohort. It was designed to give new heads of regulator the grounding the system doesn't otherwise provide. You can download it here.

This episode covers:
The moment she found (or didn't find) her footing as a new regulator
The most common capability gaps in incoming regulatory leaders: legislation, social licence, and the practical skills no handbook covers
The case for mandatory induction, mentoring, and coaching at appointment, and why it should be in the minister's letter
The Commonwealth Regulator Leadership Cohort and the heads of regulator pocket guide
Enforcement philosophy: education vs compliance, and where the balance should sit
The magic wand question and Sandra's answer, which isn't a policy reform
Who shaped her thinking (hint: she went and sat in on other regulators' enforcement board meetings)

If you haven't listened to part one, start there.

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This episode is made possible with the support of Objective RegWorks – the software for regulators.

What does it actually feel like to move from shaping regulation to enforcing it?

Sandra Parker PSM spent eight years as a Commonwealth Deputy Secretary, close to ministers, consulted on everything, and in the room for every major workplace relations decision in Australia. Then in 2018 she stepped across to lead the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), overseeing workplace relations for two million employers and fifteen million workers – and the room went quiet.

In part one of this conversation, Sandra discusses the transition that catches so many regulatory leaders off guard: the moment independence arrives and the informal infrastructure disappears. Sandra describes walking into an agency publicly labelled "toothless," with 18 court matters a year, and what she did about it, including a legal interpretation that had been quietly paralysing the agency's enforcement toolkit for years.

This episode covers:
The isolation shock of moving from policy to regulation and why it's a structural problem, not a personal one
The department–regulator relationship: what it should look like, and what it usually does
The 7-Eleven wage theft scandal, the Fels task force, and the burning platform Sandra inherited
How a capability review and a seconded chief counsel changed the FWO's enforcement posture
Compliance notices: from 220 a year to 2,500, and what that shift actually required

Part two of this episode is available now.

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This episode is made possible with the support of Objective RegWorks – the software for regulators.

Rob Hortle spent more than 25 years in workplace regulation, most recently as the inaugural Commissioner of what is now the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria. In this first episode of In Practice – a sub-series of The Modern Regulator Podcast featuring longer conversations with individual practitioners – Paul Leavoy talks with Rob about what it actually takes to build a regulator's capability from the ground up.
In this episode he talks about the design and governance decisions that shaped the inspectorate from day one, why culture doesn't improve in a straight line, how proportionate enforcement works in practice, and why he thinks trustworthiness is a more useful goal than trust.
The Modern Regulator (TMR) Podcast is for regulators and regulatory-adjacent professionals in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and other stable democracies who care about the craft of regulation: stewardship, capability, posture, and practice rather than just politics.
For more on this conversation, read our previously published feature on Rob and his work on TMR.
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