Team Name:
PB-Stallions
Team Members:
PB-Stallions
Making compliance clearer across Commonwealth, State, and Local laws in Australia.
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:
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.
Red Tape Navigator brings all of this together in one place. Think of it like a GPS for regulation:
In short, it turns scattered rules into a clear roadmap that people can actually follow.
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.
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.
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.
Navigating regulation in Australia is like solving a puzzle without a map.
We used the ABLIS Activity Search to surface licences and permits across all government levels, and the ABS ASGS to map postcodes to the right state and local government area (LGA). To provide context and credibility, we integrated the Federal Legislation Register and ALRC Commonwealth Statute Book, highlighting the depth of federal obligations.
By combining these datasets with a clear dashboard and AI-powered summaries, Red Tape Navigator transforms scattered legal data into a structured compliance roadmap — turning red tape into clear tape.
Description of Use We use this dataset to demonstrate the depth and complexity of Commonwealth lawmaking and provide broader context around compliance burdens.
Description of Use We use ASGS to map postcodes entered by the user into their corresponding state and local government area (LGA). This ensures that obligations returned from ABLIS are framed in the right jurisdictional context (Commonwealth, state, council).
Description of Use We use Selenium to query licences and permits based on postcode and business activity. This forms the backbone of our tool for mapping obligations across all government levels.
Go to Challenge | 17 teams have entered this challenge.
