Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I will talk about a classic one that was just mentioned by the member opposite about the universal service obligations. Part of the repeal of these items in the universal service obligation relate to the really successful Howard government initiatives for universal service contestability, which even the International Telecommunications Union concluded was an absolute, utter, 100 per cent dud. So we are actually repealing legislation that the Howard government put in that was not serving any purpose whatsoever.

There is one more question I want to ask the parliamentary secretary. I have gone through the Australian Government Guide to Regulation. As I went through, I thought, 'A lot of this sounds very familiar.' So I went back and had a look at some of my other regulatory best-practice books, including the Australian National Audit Office Best Practice Guide of March 2007 Administering Regulationand the Legislative Instruments Handbook put out by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. All of these look extremely similar. For one of them, I thought, 'This sounds very much like the Office of Best Practice Regulation handbook 2013.' Last night, I went to the Office of Best Practice Regulation's website. There you can click on a link for the Best Practice Regulation Handbook. What happens? You do not get the Best Practice Regulation Handbook; you are automatically referred to this document, the Australian Government Guide to Regulation, despite the fact that, in this document, it explicitly says that the Office of Best Practice Regulation is independent from government. This division is located in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and maintains day-to-day independence from government in its decision making. How is the member for Goldstein's request contained in the legislation before the House, considering he was one of the only ones who bothered to speak on this legislation in the 43rd parliament? Where is the Best Practice Regulation Handbook 2013, or has that been censored because some people might be a bit sensitive about plagiarism?

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

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