Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The reality is that this is a very, very touchy minister, who has had a very rocky start. I said in my opening remarks, in relation to the Lands Acquisition Act, that we are talking about efforts in this bill to remove administration and regulation. The issues of administration and regulation, which go to the core of this bill, are also the substance of what I have been speaking about over the last few minutes. That is what makes these points so pertinent in relation to the government’s so-called fight against regulation.

As I say, the most significant new regulation by the Rudd government has been the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill. There was a clear failure by the government to apply its best-practice regulation requirements. These huge gaps suggest to me that either the government has no plan for reducing red tape or it knows that Forward with Fairness will increase red tape and costs on business.

There are two other significant Rudd government changes which do not contain an RIS—the changes to tax deductibility for political donations contained in the Tax Laws Amendment (2008 Measures No. 1) Bill 2008 introduced into the parliament recently, and the removal of the higher education workplace relations requirements contained in another bill.

What is important in relation to this debate on this particular piece of legislation, particularly in relation to this issue of regulation and the reduction of red tape, is the way in which the government are conducting themselves in the eyes of business. Business certainly want to have confidence to invest in capital and to employ more staff, and that goes not just for large business but, most importantly, for small business as well. They are significant employers across the country and that means that they look to the government to see what actions they are taking, what legislation is coming before the parliament and the way economic statements are made by the respective ministers. It is amazing that Mark Latham is so accurate in his article in the Australian Financial Review today, in which he talks about economic matters such as are contained within this bill. If I could quote from his article:

His laughter came rollicking through the telephone, a man revelling in the discomfort of a parliamentary colleague. It was mid-May 2005, the caller Joel Fitzgibbon, then the assistant shadow treasurer and now Kevin Rudd’s Minister for Defence—

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