Labor's Tanner takes aim at red tape

Mr Tanner's formal ministerial title includes "deregulation" - the first time that portfolio has been included.

"That sends a very powerful signal to the wider business community that we are serious about this," Mr Tanner told ABC Television.

Mr Tanner said his new title reflected Labor's belief too many regulations would hamper economic activity.

"If they're allowed to get out of control, (they're) a dead weight on our economy and our business," he said.

"We've got a responsibility to engage with business and to try and get the best, most balanced regulatory outcomes."

Mr Tanner said his priority targets included the process financial services reform, which he described as a "mess".

"That's imposed very large paperwork obligations associated with disclosure on financial services companies for minimal benefit to consumers because nobody reads the stuff they're required to produce," he said.

As well, the new minister for finance and deregulation also will pursue the task of harmonising legislation across the states, especially in education and health.

Another area of reform Mr Tanner has identified - as long ago as 1999 - is Australia's sometimes overlapping three tiers of government - federal, state and local.

"If anything the situation is a lot worse that it was in 1999 because of the politicking of the Howard government," he said.

"People don't know who's in charge, they don't know where the buck stops and we've got a great opportunity to disentangle these things."

Mr Tanner said the new federal Labor government wanted the states to run public hospitals within a national and "rational" funding framework.

But if the system could not be made to work well the federal government was willing to step in and take over public hospitals, he said.

"We are committed to getting the efficiencies and the savings that will enable us to have a better health system, a better education system."

Mr Tanner said the fact Australia now had Labor government across all the states and federally was no guarantee for reform and harmonisation of regulation.

"We're always going to have tensions there. The big difference will be that they are approached with a constructive frame of mind."

Mr Tanner said he wanted to restrain expenditure growth in the public sector although he would not be narrowly focusing on a "head count" of staff.

Mr Tanner also stood firm on the ongoing stand-off between Telstra and the federal government on a national high-speed broadband network.

The dispute flared up again last week as Telstra boss Sol Trujillo reiterated the nation's biggest telco was reluctant to take part under Labor's proposed partnership structure.

Mr Trujillo told The Australian newspaper Telstra would never agree to the government's suggestion of a form of joint ownership, mocking it as some sort of "kumbaya, holding hands" theory.

"It's up to Telstra to determine how it approaches this issue," he said.

"As far as I'm concerned we are going to proceed with the position that we put to the Australian people prior to the election.

"We are certainly not going to turn around and change what we propose to do in a broad sense simply because one of the key players says they don't like something about it."