On 3 July 2008 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to the introduction of a national licensing system as part of a broader agenda of regulatory reform intended to increase Australia’s productivity and provide the environment for a seamless national economy. As part of its decision, COAG specifically required the establishment of a publicly available national register of licensees.

The NOLS legislation will therefore provide for the National Occupational Licensing Authority to maintain information on licensees and make available a public register of licensee information. The legislation will enable regulations to be made to identify the information that will be collected and included in the public register and any necessary procedures for collection, retention and release of information. It is intended that there will be a consistent standard of information available on the public register for reasons of equity across the initial occupations and any additional occupations that may be included in the new system over time. It is proposed that information will be sufficiently transparent to allow consumers an informed choice over their engagement of licensees. Publicly available information will be a subset of the full information collected by regulators for their management of licensing information.