Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

What a lot of fuss and feet-stamping and stomping around the place! They are like kids who have just learned how to play in a new playground. They have just been given a new playground in the last 12 months and here the Liberals are in government, stomping around going, 'Look at me, look at me, look at all the great things we are doing.' The only problem is, they are just not doing anything that great. In fact, they are just doing the ordinary, mundane, everyday work that parliaments do and have done since time immemorial. Parliaments do this every single day.

In fact, when Labor was in government we got rid of some 16,734 pieces of regulation. We did not make a song and dance about because there was no need—it is the ordinary work of government. That is what government does. It is meant to introduce new and improved regulations to make people's lives better and allow small business people to enjoy better protections and have more efficient systems of government and taxation and a whole range of things. At the same time, it should take away regulations that are redundant, superfluous, outdated and just do not do anything. To take away hyphens, commas, full stops, dot points and misspellings within acts is fine—all of that Labor supports. In fact, we support the bills that are before us, because there is nothing extraordinary or even ordinary in here; it is less than ordinary.

The three bills we are discussing today are the government's so-called repeal day legislation. There should be a repeal day every single day. Why leave it to just one day? Why should the parliament stop its ordinary work to have this special day where the government says: 'Look at us. Please give us a medal for doing our work'? It is the equivalent of ordinary workers who go to work every day and saying, 'On Monday I want a medal for going to work.' That is what the minister wants. He wants a medal for doing his job. Most people are happy to have the job and do the job. They may get accolades later but not before they have done it. The minister has not even done it yet and he wants the accolades and the medal today.

The country is stopping on the repeal day. This is so important for the government. On top of wanting a medal for it they want to have their own special day. This is the Liberal Party's special day. They go: 'Look at us. We want a special day so we can repeal the sort of stuff that was around in 1910, 1920 and 1930 that does not apply to anyone.' They have this whole hullabaloo over all this stuff. I actually feel sorry for the member for Kooyong because very soon—and it might even be today—he is going to run out of dot points, hyphens, misspellings and commas. He comes in here claiming he is going to fix the budget and the woes of the world comma by comma—'We will fix the economy comma by comma and dot point by dot point. We will take away the misspellings and redundant pieces of legislation.'

All that would be a lot of fun. I would enjoy it and I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would too. You would enjoy it. We could all come in here and have a national repeal day. I know let us have a national turn up to work day. Let us have a national we will talk in parliament day. Let us have a national the sun came up this morning day. Let us have the Liberal Party is really great day. Why don't we just do one of those? It will make them feel a lot better.

Why don't the government actually do something real? This stuff here—and I will be very kind and fair here—is just rubbish. It is rubbish because it just does not do anything. There is a whole heap of fuss over absolutely nothing. The Labor Party are prepared to support this not on the basis that it is great or does anything outstanding or changes the world; just because it is something we would do every day of the week anyway. We will let it slide through. It is nothing special. We do not disagree with the government that we should take away commas that are in the wrong place, fix the misspellings and all the rest of it. It is a shame that the government try to pin badges on themselves and give themselves medals for doing this and say that somehow they are going to save all of us from something they have created in the first place.

The tragedy though—the really bad news—is that they are using this as a mask or a cloak because in other bills they are taking away consumer protection laws and regulations. Those good regulations are designed to protect ordinary mums and dads from losing not just hundreds of thousands of dollars but, for some, their whole life savings. I have seen it. I am tired of it. I am sure some members of the Liberal Party are tired of seeing ordinary working people lose their life savings to scammers and fraudsters. Labor worked very hard with the sector and the industry for many years to change the culture, lift the standards and lift education to make sure that in financial services we can protect people as best we can. It is sad but there are unfortunately people who do bad things and some of those bad things lead to people losing their life savings. What did we see this government do in the name of deregulation? It took away the consumer protection laws that we put in place that were designed to help protect them.

What else did the government do with this so-called repeal of regulations? They took away from small business $4 billion worth of assistance. The member for Kooyong is still in the chamber. It is nice to see him listening to me. I am obviously saying things that are important enough for him to stay, so I thank him. The member for Kooyong should have a very close look at how much money the government—the so-called friends of small business—have taken away from small business. Small business used $4 billion worth of direct assistance. Small business in this country benefited to the tune of more than $4 billion in direct assistance that Labor put in place to help them through a range of things such as tough economic times and to reduce the regulatory burden and red tape to make life easier for them.

On their first day on the job what did the so-called friends of small business, the Liberal Party, do? They smashed it. They took away more than $4 billion worth of direct assistance. There was the tax loss carry back, which meant that small business could improve their cash flow position and could invest in new equipment and people. There was the instant asset write-off, which under the Liberal Party was $1,000. When Labor got to government we gave small business $6,000 because we understood that this was a really important measure. Our policy at the last election was to take that to $10,000 because we know that small business will make best use of that assistance by investing it, and the only way they can get it is by investing in their business.

People can stick badges on themselves. I am getting the drift here too of what the government are actually about—and I thank the member for Kooyong. They want a medal for turning up to work every day. They love to drape the flag over themselves and talk about grandiose things. Now they want to have conversations about the Federation. Where have they been for the last 100 years? We have all been having conversations about the Federation. Is this Rip Van Winkle hour or something? Suddenly they have discovered there is a Federation and there may be some efficiency issues and to deal with those they have to work with the states. Well, hello? Hello, Liberal Party? Is there anyone inside? Is there anyone home?

This is the stuff that governments do every single day of the week. You do not need a special day off for it, a day off from the ordinary work of the parliament, so we can hear the Minister for Small Business. I am listening for him, but there is dead silence. I cannot hear the Minister for Small Business. Where is the Minister for Small Business? Shouldn't he be banging the table and saying, 'We are the best friend of small business.' They love to badge themselves. I am really picking up the theme here. They cloak themselves in defence, national security and the Australian flag. Under that cloak you can do whatever you like and no-one can criticise you. Once you drape the flag over yourself, you are safe. Anything you do is in the name of national security so it is just okay. Where is the Minister for Small Business, who drapes the Australian flag over himself and says he is the best friend of small business? Where is he? I thank those in the gallery. I hope I gave you a little bit of good news and some entertainment.

When the Minister for Small Business remains silent on key issues within his portfolio that directly impact on small business negatively he is being derelict. It is derelict of his duty, derelict of his position and a snub to small business. Small-business people are hard-working people. I hear him, whether he is at the dispatch box or talking to some group, talk about the love that he has for small business. I would say to him: show some, stand up for small business and give them back some of the things that Labor had already put in place that the minister and the Liberal government have taken away. Do not just keep professing your love for small business; demonstrate it, show that love and give them something back because you took it away.

On his first day on the job, the Minister for Small Business's duty was to take an axe and wield it across small business, basically defund assistance programs and then claim credit for all the things we put in place—online reporting, streamlining of the Superannuation Clearing House, business name registrations. The list goes on and on of the hard work, the hard lifting and the stuff we got criticised for because the implementation is always complex and difficult. But, as a government, that is your job. That is what you are elected to do. So we went and did it. The Liberals then came to government, claimed credit for it and now they say 'look at us' while they drape themselves in a badge of repeal day.

It is the Liberal Party day-off day. The interesting thing about the Liberal Party day off today is they had a whole heap of their members on the list to speak on this stuff. They gagged their own members because their own members did not have anything to say. This is outrageous that we have this in the parliament.

Other people might say, and you would have heard this figure thrown around the place, there will be $2 billion worth of savings. Let us have a look for savings today. What are the savings contained in the omnibus repeal day bill as per the Liberal Party and as per what the bills say? Wait for it; it is not in the billions, it is not in the hundreds of millions and it is not even in the tens of millions—we getting down to really small numbers. Imagine the trillions of dollars that are in the national economy. Apparently the savings identified in this bill are a tidy $1.335 million. So all the hullabaloo, all the fuss, all the foot stamping around the place was for 1.1 $.335 million.

I welcome the one million bucks. This is good news, of course it is. But it just does not deserve the Liberal Party having a day off. Today is national Liberal Party day-off day and Tony Abbott wants two of these a year. He has already had a day-off day and now he wants to have another Liberal Party day-off day where they do not have to do much because the bills are here. They do not want speak on it because they have gagged their own speakers. So what are they going to do for the day? They can all just go and have a rest. There will be no divisions on this stuff because Labor is supporting it.

It is the Liberal Party have a day off day. Everybody else has to go to work. Everybody else does not get a medal for turning up on Wednesday to work, except the Liberal Party. They want a day off and they want a medal too. They want a medal for not turning up for work. This is just unbelievable.

Deregulation should be about deregulation. What are we actually looking at? What is in these bills? There are no deregulatory savings attached to the bills. So, minus claimed savings that are so small they are effectively, in budgeting terms, zero, have a look at what this represents in the claimed overall figure. The claimed overall figure they are going to save is $2 billion—there are a lot of zeros attached to that one. But according to the bill today—national Liberal Party day off repeal day—it will be 0.1 per cent. Where is the rest of it—you would have to start asking the question.

Apparently we are going to have two more of these repeal days. On the basis of just two so far, if we want to work down sliding scale, if it starts up here then it hits the floor on day 2. What does day 3 look like? When we get to No. 3 it is going to be the interesting bit. When they run out of commas, dot points, hyphenations and other bits of redundant legislation, what is next? I do not know. Maybe the next Liberal Party speaker can enlighten us on what they are going to get rid of next.

I know what they are doing though. They are slashing funding to small business, slashing funding to universities, increasing university fees to $100,000 and introducing a new GP tax. They said there would be no new taxes and no increased taxes yet what we are seeing are not only new taxes but also increased taxes. And then they claim that increasing the indexation is not an increase. Well, if it is not an increase then why did the Treasurer come in yesterday and say, 'Sure it is going to cost you more but it is only a little bit.' So, yes, it is going to hurt you but it is only going to hurt you a little. I get the nuance. Some in the Liberal Party say it is not an increase; it is actually a decrease. Others say it is going to hurt a little bit. Whether it hurts a little bit or a lot, it is still a broken promise. A broken promise is a broken promise.

The Prime Minister, when in opposition, came in again wrapping himself in the Australian flag, cloaking himself in national security and carrying on about getting rid of red tape. It is going to get rid of so much red tape you get the impression there is going to be none left. They are talking about compliance, defence and all the rest of it. The Liberal Party's trajectory and view on this is: let's get rid of red tape. The impression is that it is going to get down to zero. There will be no red tape, no compliance, no need to adhere to any rules, no regulations. I am with you, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, it would probably be taking it too far, wouldn't it? I agree 100 per cent. If it cannot be down to zero compliance, there must be some compliance. Why do we have regulations and laws? Why do we have compliance? Because it is actually good for people to have laws on the road to protect them and keep them safe, laws for small business to protect them and keep them safe from predators and big business, and a whole range of other really good things. Today is a farce. It is the national Liberal Party day-off day. (Time expired)

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