Chapter 3: A Framework for a National Land Information Infrastructure

As a federated county, Australia’s land administration systems are state and territory based. These systems, which record information pertaining to land ownership, land tenure, land use and land valuation, have supported and continued to support the requirements of the respective states and territories (Bennett et al., 2011). Increasingly however, as initiatives that have a national focus (e.g. carbon trading, environment issues, etc.) come into play, the limitations in gaining current reliable land administrative data at a national level become apparent. Many businesses, some of whom may need access to national land information, are also becoming more nationally focused as evidenced by the 70 % growth in businesses operating across state borders between 2003 and 2007 (OECD, 2010). The push to operate more effectively nationally across a range of activities has increased over the past decade. This was clearly evident when in 2009 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) initiated the concept of a seamless national economy (COAG Reform Council 2009). This resulted in some 27 projects aimed at reducing regulation that were impacting the efficiency of doing business in Australia. Whilst only two of these projects would directly affect land administration in the state and territories, this COAG initiative clearly demonstrated the growing need for many of the systems, which were state-based, to either be replaced by national regulations or achieve similar outcomes through the implementation of an overarching system, which would draw together the state-based systems to form a national view