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

I do thank the member for the question. Taking a lecture from the Labor Party, who introduced over 21,000 new regulations, is insane. Seeing that the member for Isaacs is sitting at the table, I will take this opportunity to talk about things that have a real impact. He called this legislation change 'imaginary' and 'a smokescreen'. I know that Canberra is a bit of a bubble, but I would suggest to Labor members opposite and their advisers, who I am sure are watching on TV, that it is a good thing to get out of this place and go and talk to local businesses around this country about how removing red tape and regulation makes a big difference in their lives. It is one thing to talk about it, but we should walk that walk. I think that the Labor Party's record is very bad: 10 new or increased taxes and over 20,000 regulations.

Let me go through the detail of what this red tape repeal day actually means. As I said, there will be $87,000 of savings for universities—that is a benefit to my electorate. Childcare centres will be relieved of 1,280 pages of law, 345 pages of regulation and 1,149 pages of guidelines—constraints that inevitably have meant fewer services and higher fees for parents.

The coalition promised a deregulation agenda that would slash $1 billion in red and green tape every year. We are delivering, with hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs to be removed today—the first of many dedicated repeal days that this government will bring to this place.

I would like to touch on one more case in point—and the members for Fraser and Isaacs, who are sitting at the table, might want to listen—where I took up the cause, and which I will expand upon during a future and related legislative debate. Under the former Rudd government's Personal Property Securities Act 2009, PPSA, hire firms lending goods for 90 days or more must pay fees to register a security interest in the property, such as construction machinery, with the federal government. That spells red tape, but what is worse is that the bizarre configuring of the law means if they do not register, they risk losing the equipment if the business to which they are hiring the goods becomes insolvent. A liquidator may actually be able to take back a title and sell the property to help pay back creditors.

I took up this case with the member for Kooyong at a local forum. We have managed, as part of this red tape repeal day, to bring legislation to this place that will make this significantly easier for local businesses. It will save those businesses thousands of dollars a year and help them grow and expand. I note that the Labor member from Canberra at the table said to me, 'How does red tape repeal day help local businesses?' This relates to thousands of dollars of savings directly for local businesses. It means they can go out there and they can employ more people.

I know that Labor members, particularly those based in Canberra, think that this place is the wealth of all knowledge for our nation, and that there is not a single problem that can be fixed until a bureaucrat or a politician in Canberra has had a look at it. But what this red tape repeal day means is that we will get Canberra further away from our lives—we will get government out of our lives and we will allow the private sector and businesses in my electorate to do what they do best, which is to go out there, to thrive, to prosper and to employ more people. So, by having less government and less of Canberra in our lives, we can have more jobs and a stronger economy. I commend these bills to the House.

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