Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

In summing up I want to thank the members for Farrer and Wills for their contribution and the great insights that the member for Wills has just provided on the importance of the deregulation agenda of the Rudd government to lifting productivity growth, which is tomorrow’s prosperity. I want to acknowledge the role of the coalition on this occasion in supporting this legislation, because it will make a contribution to microeconomic reform and that task of improving productivity growth in the Australian economy, which certainly in the year 2007 had ground to a complete halt.

Well-designed and targeted regulation is essential to reducing costs and complexity for business and the not-for-profit sector. It forms a key part of the government’s commitment to ongoing microeconomic reform. Well-designed regulation increases Australia’s productivity and international competitiveness, and fosters innovation and structural flexibility. The Statute Stocktake (Regulatory and Other Laws) Bill 2009 underlines the government’s commitment to reduce unnecessary or poorly designed regulation. It proposes to amend or repeal almost 30 acts where the provisions no longer have any function or purpose, including the Income Tax (Franking Deficit) Act 1987 and a number of acts relating to the removal of the digital data service obligations. The redundant regulation was identified through a regulatory stocktake conducted by Commonwealth departments in 2008. It was the first stocktake of its kind conducted since the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments commenced in 2005. The review identified a large stockpile of redundant or potentially redundant regulation. In addition to this bill, the government’s wider regulation clean-up exercise is expected to remove around 200 pieces of unnecessary subordinate regulation over coming months.

Further, in an effort to better understand the impost on business and to identify scope for further regulatory efficiencies, a review of 30,000 subordinate regulatory instruments is being conducted to identify reform priorities and ensure that the current stock of regulation is being adequately managed and tested for ongoing relevance. While it may go unnoticed by many, leaving outdated and redundant regulation increases costs for business. It is harder to identify which rules apply, and resources are diverted to irrelevant and inefficient activities. There is also a higher probability of inconsistent or overlapping rules. This bill represents just one element of the government’s ambitious regulatory reform program. Mercifully, I am not going to take members of the chamber through the 27 areas of deregulation—

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