Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As long as night follows day there will always be regulations in our society. Whether you work for the public sector, the private sector or for a not-for-profit organisation, you will not escape bureaucracy and you will not escape regulation. That is the reality of business and it is the reality of government. I see the parliamentary secretary in here and I know it is his mission to make it less of a reality and to provide the necessary avenues to enable business to get on with business.

I do not make this statement as a means to criticise either concept, because each has its place and plays an important role in reviewing the work of individual employees and businesses or government markets as a whole, while holding those who do not meet the required standards to account. But while some regulation and bureaucracy is essential for best practice, this government has found thousands of pieces of unnecessary regulation across all government portfolios, and they are strangling the ability of both government and business to work effectively and efficiently. For every piece of unnecessary legislation, hundreds of valuable hours, depending on the size of the business or the department, are wasted every year in employees' time filling in unnecessary and often duplicative administrative paperwork, costing productivity and therefore profit margins much more.

Of course, members in this place know and businesses know that when you hear the word 'regulation' the first word that comes to mind is 'Labor'. As a businessman of 25 years in industry, one of the things I knew, and all businesses knew, was that when the Liberals got in, business was enabled; and when Labor got in, business was disabled. We just had to live in that cycle. That is what the parliamentary secretary has recognised and he has made it his mission to make sure that small business, particularly in Australia, is enabled.

Throughout history, every time the Labor Party has formed government it has systematically destroyed our economy by cash-splashing on ill-informed policies—policies that I can simply highlight: the mining tax, which those opposite could not manage to raise any revenue from, and the carbon tax, which increased costs for every business and household across Australia. These two taxes alone constituted 29 different acts and 1,625 pages of additional burdensome regulation and legislation. They are both gone now: gone from this place and gone from the Australian economy.

This government has promised to cut $1 billion in red tape each year, and the only thing those opposite spent their time doing was imposing onerous red and green tape on businesses who had much better things to do than waste their time and their money filling in duplicative administrative paperwork that benefited no-one. Members in this place know that while Labor has been incapable of supporting business productivity throughout history, no Labor government had ever before reached the level of incessant failure that was seen under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. Twenty-one thousand pieces of additional regulation: that is the only legacy those opposite can claim. I remember back in 2007 when I ran in that campaign, it was one in, one out and it certainly did not happen once those 21,000 regulations came in from the Labor government during that period of time. I think it was about one to 104—104 in and one out. That is a legacy that I would be embarrassed about, and I would not be standing in this place trying to justify it—as we have seen from every Labor speaker who has spoken on these bills.

On this side of the chamber there are former business operators, fine men and women who understand business. They understand the economy and they understand that where money and time is wasted, it costs Australia's economy as a whole.

I know that the member for Robertson is dying to speak on this bill. I congratulate the parliamentary secretary on the great job he is doing in repealing legislation and regulation in Australia to enable business. I commend these bills to the House and welcome the next speaker.

See this speech in context