Regulators

Each regulator gets a grade from A to F. The grade is based on what the law asks it to do and what its own reports show it did.

Regulator	Jurisdiction	Grade	In one sentence
Legal Services Commission (Qld)	Queensland	C	The Commission investigates, starts its own cases and wins them in the tribunal, but investigations take about two years, it has eased the targets it keeps missing, its audit program has barely run and it now publishes less about what complainants wait for and receive. Much of the delay after filing belongs to QCAT and to a scheme that sends every disciplinary matter there, and the Commission has said so plainly. The grade reflects what it controls.
Commonwealth Ombudsman	Commonwealth	D	Strong systemic work, weighed against five years of missed service targets and too little published evidence about what happens to the 98 per cent of complaints that are not formally investigated.
NSW Ombudsman	NSW	D	Good systemic work and a real recovery in investigatory effort, weighed against a complaint service that sets no targets, satisfies one complainant in three, and does not publish what people get from it.
Ahpra and the National Boards	National (scheme)	D	Registration works, but dealing with concerns about practitioners has been found too slow by Parliament, independent reviewers and Ministers for at least nine years, and the measures that would show improvement are the ones Ahpra has stopped publishing.
Australian National Audit Office	Commonwealth	C	Does its compulsory job completely and well, but its discretionary audit program is at a 25-year low and below what Parliament asked for, what the public sends it is not counted, and its reporting about itself went backwards this year.
Cyber Security NSW	NSW	D	Does the visible parts of its job and has tightened the rules since 2024, but on the public record it cannot show whether NSW Government systems are secure.
Law Enforcement Conduct Commission	NSW	D	Hemmed in by its Act, but its own investigations have shrunk as its resources grew, it sets no standard for complainants, and its reports leave out things the Act requires.
Office of the Gene Technology Regulator	Commonwealth	B	The Regulator does its core licensing job on time every year and reports its findings openly, but its checking covers a small part of the field, its formal enforcement powers have not been seen in use, and its performance measures were loosened in 2024-25 without explanation. The office is about to move to partial cost recovery, with its first increase in base funding since 2002, $6.8 million over four years, starting in July 2026. Reform of the Act, recommended by a review whose 27 recommendations ministers endorsed after 2017, is still at the draft bill stage. Those are matters for governments, not the Regulator.
Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services (WA)	Western Australia	B	The Inspector inspects every facility, reports plainly and uses its strongest power when the evidence calls for it, but it has let the statutory three-year cycle slip without saying so and has been slow to get its own reports to Parliament. The worst failures in WA custody over this period, overcrowding, lockdowns and the deaths of two young people in detention, belong to the Department of Justice and the government. The Inspector reported them. What would lower the grade is another missed cycle or a return to year-long reports. What would raise it is a public table of every facility's last and next inspection, and a count of what its recommendations actually changed.