Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The suite of deregulation legislation for debate before the House is the largest single reduction of federal law in the nation's history. Today, red tape repeal day, is a specific sitting of parliament designed to facilitate the ditching of 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation, saving more than $700 million in compliance costs—10,000 bizarre, redundant and often punitive laws, regulations and guidelines. It is little wonder the Prime Minister has referred to such a mass extinction as a red-tape bonfire. But just as important is what will rise from the ashes—that is, certainty and clearer air for business.

As a result of this landmark day, government will be that much further from sight and will be that much less a practitioner of meddlesome oversight so that our lives are less cluttered, so that businesses, especially, can free their arms and breathe and grow again. That means a stronger economy. It means more jobs for Australians.

The list of redundant and archaic standards headed for the scrap heap is truly astonishing. For example, job service providers will no longer be forced to keep paper records of applications, a requirement that demands thousands of filing cabinets just to hold them. Universities will be spared from submitting reports on the use of lecture theatres, seminar and tutorial rooms, laboratories, academic offices and computerised student workspaces. The saving for each tertiary institution will be about $87,000 a year.

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