Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Statute Stocktake (Regulatory and Other Laws) Bill 2009. Much as the annual stocktake at the back of any manufacturing business or shop takes place every year, this is a similar activity in relation to statutes—and, I hesitate to add, probably about as exciting, but necessary. This bill is the result of a stocktake of Commonwealth business regulation conducted in 2008. Bills of this nature have the full support of the coalition, as they are an essential tool in the process of keeping the Commonwealth statute books accurate and up to date. The acts to be repealed are self-evidently obsolete and have been superseded by other legislation. Of the acts to be amended, most of the proposals relate to transitional provisions for periods that have expired. Schedule 1 of the bill contains amendments to 17 acts. Schedule 2 repeals eight acts and makes consequential amendments to three other acts. The most notable of the changes affect the Trade Practices Act 1974 and the Telecommunications Act 1997.

The amendments to the Trade Practices Act involve the repeal of part VB. These were the GST price exploitation provisions which were enacted following concerns that price rises unrelated to the GST might be represented to be caused by the introduction of the GST. Given that the GST has now been in place for about 10 years, it is unlikely that any such representations will be made from now on. Any misrepresentations as to price would be covered by other prohibitions.

The amendments to the Telecommunications Act relate to the regulatory framework supporting a digital data capability of 64 kilobits per second in which Telstra was the declared provider. Telstra’s declaration has been repealed and the market now provides data capabilities far beyond the rate provided for in the act.

The bill also proposes to repeal the Income Tax (Franking Deficit) Act 1987. This tax ceased to be payable after June 2002. The relevant provision of the Income Tax Assessment Act was repealed in 2006 as inoperative. The 1987 act is therefore redundant.

The coalition supports this bill, as its purpose is to reduce costs incurred by business in understanding and complying with outdated regulatory requirements, giving effect to the coalition’s commitment to reduce the level of poorly designed and ineffective regulation on Australian businesses.

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