Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. Obviously that word 'omnibus' is not used in everyday language so I thought I had better do a bit of research. I notice the member for Flinders is here so I went to his favourite research tool, Wikipedia, and also the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary just to calibrate. The definition of 'omnibus' is given as a volume containing several novels. I do not think that is what we are talking about here. If we combined a couple of novels such as when my third novel comes out and if we were to put all three together, that might be an omnibus. We are not talking about that. The other meaning for omnibus is an old word for a bus. Certainly all lawyers would have heard of the expression 'the man on the Clapham omnibus'. I will read from Wikipedia which says:

… a hypothetical reasonable person, used by the courts in English law where it is necessary to decide whether a party has acted as a reasonable person would—for example, in a civil action for negligence. The man on the Clapham omnibus is a reasonably educated and intelligent but nondescript person, against whom the defendant's conduct can be measured.

In Australia the Clapham omnibus equivalent expression would be, 'the man on the Bondi tram, or 'the man on the Bourke Street tram'. I did not realise that Bondi had a tram, but you get the expression of what an omnibus would be.

Certainly the man on the Clapham omnibus would say of this piece of legislation that has been dragged into this chamber today: 'Who are you trying to kid that this is some big celebratory day, this repeal day, when this is just the everyday work of government.' This is what governments do. When Labor was in government we repealed 16,794 acts and regulations during our time in office, but we did not put out a press release saying it. We did not make speeches, we did not walk the corridors saying, 'Where's my medal for turning up for work?' We did not walk around saying, 'This is fantastic. We are the best government ever.' I see that the member for Gippsland is here, so he would know about this: I think you do actually get a medal in the military for turning up for work, but that is after three years, which is my understanding. The member might be able to inform me on that. I do not think they give out medals just for turning up for one year and just for actually doing your job. This is ridiculous.

We have had press releases saying that this is the best thing since sliced bread. Really, this is just the Liberal Party politicians day off, as described by the member for Oxley. This is not worthy of a press release and certainly is not worthy of members. I heard the member for Kooyong say on Sky this morning that this was spring cleaning. If his job was spring cleaning and he did this, where he said that the three bills are part of the $2 billion delivery of savings, well, the claimed deregulatory savings are $1,855,000 or just 0.1 per cent of the figure claimed by the government. The member for Kooyong said that this is his spring-cleaning effort. If he were a cleaner, he would be sacked. He would not even be performance managed, he would be thrown out of the house and told, 'This is not cleaning'. For him to claim that this is a significant thing is ridiculous. Obviously deregulation, as every sensible politician knows, is the everyday work of government. We can see it, because we are actually debating this piece of legislation, the everyday work of government, in the House rather than in the Federation Chamber. This exposes the facade and exposes the paucity of a legislative agenda of those opposite.

It is great that we see it through the prism of the death of Gough Whitlam, that great reformer. Sure, he had a few years in opposition to craft his agenda. When he came into office, he quickly, within 14 days, had done so much. He had upgraded the Office of Aboriginal Affairs to ministerial level. I say that in the presence of the member for Lingiari. Within 30 days of gaining office the Whitlam government had ended conscription—that birthday ballot—and brought our troops home from Vietnam, and introduced many other significant things that changed society. I will not go back over them because the eulogies and other speeches have detailed them. But that is the prism through which we look at this repeal day, this omnibus repeal day, or more accurately called 'the Liberal day-off day'.

The reality is the government do not have a good, strong, legislative agenda. You would think that after four years in opposition under the Prime Minister's leadership, under the member for Warringah's leadership, they would have mapped out a bit of a plan and had an agenda. They kept saying, 'We're going to be the experienced government, because we'll have experienced Howard government ministers.' Ironically they turned out to be complete duds. It is the new people coming through, the younger people elected after the Howard government, that are actually seen to have a bit of skill and ability. These other people have become a joke almost.

This legislation, claimed by the government to be this magnificent attempt to deregulate and reduce taxes, is really what governments do. Every government does it. The bill before the House has been spun by the government as part of a promise to deregulate $2.3 billion, but they should not be walking the corridors saying, 'Where's my medal?' and lining up at the whip's office when all they have done is the work of every government. It is actually articulating the work of the public servants who do all this sorting out of redundant materials and reviews that have occurred and the like, crossing out commas, changing the old word for 'email' to the new word for 'email'. That is not something that you should be celebrating as a government, seriously. After all those years, while the member for Warringah has been leader, you would think he would have a stronger agenda.

Obviously the government has been a disappointment in so many ways, not only in this legislation, but in the commitment as to what would happen before the election and what happened after the election as there is a great yawning chasm. We have heard it all—there would be no cuts to pensions, no surprises, no cuts to the ABC, no cuts to SBS, no rise in the GST. I think there was a promise about no petrol tax. I am sure the Nationals are still fuming over the way they were tricked by the member for Mayo into bringing a tax onto the bush, because that is really what this will be. We are all paying more at the petrol bowser and that is going to be a tax on the bush. I am sure the National Party are still furious about the way they were tricked.

When we were in government, like all sensible governments, we took a sensible, methodical approach to reducing red tape. What we see here today is smoke and mirrors, and not anywhere near the saving that had been promised by those out in the corridors. They were desperate for something to talk about in their electorates, desperate to be able to say, 'This is something good that we have done.' If you look at the front of their electorate offices, there are tumbleweeds rolling past waiting for the MPs to come out. They are in hiding and they are scared of this budget. Has there ever been more of a stinking carcass of a budget foisted on the Australian people? I do not think so.

The only highlight in the retail of this budget was when the Treasurer was overseas. That was the only time when there was some time for the Australian people to understand it. But, unfortunately for the coalition government, the Treasurer is back. He has already flagged that there might even be further cuts when the budget is reviewed in December.

Before the election, the now Prime Minister and now Treasurer fabricated a crisis around the budget. But everyone knows, whilst there are some challenges coming, the budget was actually in a strong position. Obviously there have been some increases in spending since the coalition—the Liberal Party and the National Party—took government, but the fault for that lies at their door. They misled voters time and time again when they talked about spending on welfare and even something as simple as building submarines in the great state of South Australia. There was a simple commitment from the then shadow defence minister, who said, 'We will build submarines in South Australia.' There was not any spin or weasel words; David Johnston is a straight-shooting guy. I think he should honour that commitment.

The budget has lots of challenges, but I will return to the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) legislation before the chamber—or, as I call it, the 'Liberal Party politicians' day off' legislation. I listened to the few speeches that have been given on this. I see there is a very, very long speaking list. I would have thought those opposite would have been lining up to celebrate this, but perhaps they have been gagged. I notice that they can only speak for five minutes or so each. I look forward to the great contributions celebrating this 'turning up for work' legislation.

I note in this context that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor was one of the so-called bits of red tape that the government sought to get rid of. The earlier farcical repeal day wanted to get rid of this critical oversight office. They called it red tape. They sought to repeal the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, an organisation dedicated to reviewing Australia's counter-terrorism and national security legislation. It is an office that does great work. They say 'red tape'; we say 'checks and balances'. It is appropriate that government have some people monitoring what goes on in the area of particularly security legislation where so often we are compromising freedoms, liberty and individual choices. It is balanced with safety; I understand that. It is not done willy-nilly. It is done for a reason. But we also need checks and balances. We have seen, as the Snowdon documents revelations have shown, that government is not necessarily going to self-regulate well. Sometimes we need that independent oversight.

I note that we have had six or seven months without that office being filled in an environment where we are bringing in lots of important legislation that people have a lot of concerns about. I have been receiving lots of emails. The next wave of legislation, particularly dealing with metadata, has a lot of people in my electorate concerned. It is important that we have that Independent National Security Legislation Monitor role filled. I would urge the Attorney-General to do his job and fill that role. That position has been vacant since April and, in a time of great change, this is not acceptable. It is a hard role to fill, but I am sure that an appropriately credentialled and experienced monitor should be able to be found shortly and put in place.

By insisting on dramatically shortened sunset periods on statutory reviews both by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and by the committee, we improved the legislation that will come before this chamber in the near future.

Obviously red tape can be synonymous with checks and balances. Good government gets rid of unnecessary red tape. That is what good governments do. But, please, do not come in here, beating your chests, saying, 'We turned up for work.' It is ridiculous turning up and asking, 'Where is my medal for getting rid of some legislation?' As I said, when Labor were in office for six years, we repealed 16,794 acts and regulations. Most of that sort of work took place up in the Federation Chamber. I know I spoke on some of those bits of legislation. They were incredibly tedious and incredibly boring. That is the work of government. That is what government should continue to do.

But for the Liberal and National parties to say, 'This is the best thing since sliced bread,' just shows that they have no vision. This fortnight we have talked about what leaders with vision can achieve for this nation, even flawed leaders, as we have acknowledged of the late Mr Whitlam. We need the nation's leaders to have courage, not to be looking in the footlights and trying to spin cutting red tape as a great thing.

At the very same time we have the Prime Minister walking around the country saying, 'We need to have a discussion about Federation,' he needs to show a little bit of leadership in this chamber and in his party room. The reality is that this government does not have a serious vision. They have been disgraceful when it comes to acting on climate change. They successfully won on that at the election, but now we have been betrayed by the lack of action in the Direct Action policy, which seems to have evaporated. Even when it comes in, it will be neither direct nor have any action.

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