Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to provide the summing up to these repeal day bills that we have been debating today: the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014, the Amending Acts 1970 to 1979 Repeal Bill 2014 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2014. I thank members on this side of the House who contributed to the debate—the member for Robertson, the member for Swan, the member for Grey, the member for Forde, the member for Bradfield, the member for Dobell, the member for McPherson, the member for Mitchell, the member for Macquarie, the member for Durack, the member for Hughes and the member for Lyons—and members on the deregulation committee on the coalition side: the members for Reid, Bass, Ryan, Deakin, Hindmarsh and Pearce. In every case members on this side of the House gave constructive, concise and comprehensive speeches about why deregulation is important for the future of this country and the health of our economy. We on this side of the House know that cutting red tape matters. It matters to the lives of individuals, the lives of families, the lives and work of small businesses and of course the lives and operation of the not-for-profit sector.

The Amending Acts 1970 to 1979 Repeal Bill will make accessing our law easier. The statute law revision bill will improve the usability and accessibility of our legislation. The omnibus repeal day bill will see, just like the Commission of Audit tasked us to do, the abolition of bodies that are no longer required. The Fishing Industry Policy Council, the Product Stewardship Advisory Group and the Oil Stewardship Advisory Council will all now be abolished. We will also allow ACMA to publish their changes using online services by making amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act. Fuel suppliers and producers around this country will now no longer have to go through the additional requirement of submitting an extra annual report to the Department of the Environment, given that they are already putting in monthly reports.

As we heard from the member for Robertson, aged-care sector processes will be streamlined, thanks to the great work of the member for Menzies, the Minister for Social Services, who is sitting at the dispatch box here. He has ensured that key personnel are not required to phone when there is a change among the many aged-care providers of this country. They are not required to make a phone call to the federal department to say that a nurse has been hired or fired. Last year there were 10,000 such calls. We now will no longer need that red tape requirement.

There are significant changes in these three bills that we have brought on for debate and will vote on now, but they are just a small part of the more than 400 individual measures that we have outlined as part of our repeal day process, with the first repeal day in March and the second now on 29 October. Let me give the headline number—the achievement that the member for Watson hates to hear. We have been responsible for $2.1 billion worth of compliance savings. From agriculture to education, from health to human services and from trade to Treasury we have been responsible for significant red tape cuts right across the economy.

And it matters. That is why groups like ACCI, the Business Council of Australia, Universities Australia, the Australian Industry Group and the Minerals Council of Australia have applauded the coalition for taking deregulation seriously. Those opposite did nothing, despite the pious words from the then member for Griffith, who told us that red tape was out of control. They did nothing but twiddle their thumbs and give us 21,000 additional regulations, tying up the small business people of Australia in red and green tape. Now they have the hide to come into this place and criticise us for making important reforms. On the one hand they say that these are trivial changes and are part of the normal course of business—we are fixing punctuation: full stops and commas—but on the other hand the member for Fraser goes out in print in The Australian saying, 'You are taking away important protections in the financial services sector and you are making some important changes that we do not like in the charities and not-for-profit sector,' when we are getting rid of duplication. You cannot have it both ways.

Why didn't you come up with a proposal to streamline the Comcare scheme and allow companies around Australia who operate in multiple jurisdictions to self-insure under the Comcare scheme? Why didn't you come up with the one-stop shop approval process? Labor states have joined with coalition states in signing onto our one-stop shop, worth $426 million a year in savings. Why didn't you come up with the changes to the Do Not Call Register, which will see more than nine million Australians no longer having to renew their membership of the Do Not Call Register? Why didn't you come up with the changes to the NBN? We are no longer mandating Australian homes have a big, bulky, expensive battery backup because we know that most Australian homes now have a mobile phone. Why don't you accept that we came up with this first and that we have the stomach and the fortitude to make changes in deregulation where you guys patently failed?

When Craig Emerson was the Minister for Small Business he said, 'We are taking giant scissors to red tape' and those giant scissors led to an additional 21,000 regulations.

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