Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I love the Labor Party! There has never been a layer of new or added red tape that they do not adopt wholly, solely and fully and use as a new base to grow that sector of regulation. We have heard all the talk about support for the ACNC, all coming from other levels of regulation. When Kevin Andrews first took this thing, he went around Australia. He came to Townsville and spoke to the people doing the work on the ground, the people delivering the work, the people filling out the forms, and explained to them what we were trying to achieve by getting rid of the ACNC. He had three forums in Townsville in one 24-hour period and there was not one dissenting hand. He asked them to put up their hand if they loved doing the paperwork, and no-one put their hand up. He asked who felt that the paperwork they were filling out was actually being read. It was horrendous the amount of work that they had to do.

An organisation in Townsville—and I will not embarrass them by naming them—had taken over two failing similar organisations: one in Ingham and one in Ayr, about an hour each side of Townsville. They sent in their return to the federal organisation and got a letter back saying that they had received only one return. They said: 'Yes, it is one return. We have three branches, but we are the one organisation.' They were told: 'No. You must produce a return for all three organisations.' They said, 'But the return would be exactly the same for the other two,' and they were told: 'That does not matter. You must supply them for all three.' So they had to photocopy it and send away another two copies with changes to the heading. This is what we have to deal with. The problem people on the ground have is that they know that these returns are not being read. They know all the information is going into a great big stockpile and they simply cannot get through all the detail.

When I was in credit collection there was a story about a US finance company that for one 12-month period just approved absolutely everything. At the end of that period their delinquency rates were exactly the same as if they had applied all their credit scoring methods. This goes to prove that the great majority of people in every sector want to do the right thing.

No matter what happens, no matter what level of security, no matter what level of red tape we apply, there are going to be people in every industry who will come in motivated to do the wrong thing. Should we penalise as the member for Wannon said? Should we put 63 kilos in the saddlebags of absolutely every organisation, knowing that one in every thousand is going to do the wrong thing, or should we bring them all down to 49 kilos, let them ride hands and heels all the way through to the winning post and do the best for their people? How best can our organisations deliver services to the people? Is it by providing information that is never going to be read to federal government departments, or is it going to be to the people on the ground, who deserve the support and the services.

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