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NSW government begins digitising regulations on new rules-as-code platform

Starting with the Community Gaming Regulation 2020.
Written by Aimee Chanthadavong, Contributor

The New South Wales government has launched its open-source rules-as-code platform to help industry and other government bodies digitise regulation for easier compliance.

The state government said through the platform, industry and other government bodies would be able to incorporate digital rules directly into their own IT systems and see any future rule changes be automatically applied.

"Rules-as-code is a game changer for smart regulation. Bringing our statute book into the 21st Century through this technology helps to reduce errors, eliminate paper, save money, and ultimately give precious time back to customers and industry," Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello said.

As part of the platform, new online services will be created to make it easier for businesses and citizens to understand their legal obligations.

The platform has launched with the digital version of the Community Gaming Regulation 2020, which identifies the conditions for running community games by charities, not-for-profits, and businesses. It features a "smart" questionnaire on the NSW Fair Trading website to allow customers to check if their planned gaming activity can be conducted.

"The questionnaire makes it easy for charities, not-for-profits, and businesses to navigate the regulation for conducting various types of community games, such as art unions, bingo and trade promotions," Dominello said.

"It tells them whether their gaming activity would be permitted or not permitted, and whether they need to apply for an authority to conduct a gaming activity."

The Department of Customer Service will now work with other government agencies to bring more regulations to the rule-as-code platform, the NSW government said.

The introduction of the platform is part of ongoing work under the state government's "Beyond Digital" strategy that was launched in November. At the time, Dominello touted it would build on top of the work already performed by the state government. 

"The reason we're talking 'beyond digital' is because when this government was elected in March this year, we fundamentally changed the way the government works. We don't just have a Department of Customer Service, we've got a committee inside of government, you could call them the specialist performance committee, that basically puts people first," he told ZDNet at the time.  

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