David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to follow my friend the member for Hindmarsh on his remarks on this important piece of legislation. Regulatory burdens are a terrible thing and they should be minimised wherever possible. Of course, you cannot get rid of all regulation. We do need some regulation. But there is an enormous amount of government regulation which is counterproductive. As I said in the House the other day, one of the very good examples of counterproductive government regulation is the whole system of international tariffs, which the world is in the process of dismantling. That is a particularly egregious example, but there are many, many examples of red tape and bad regulation that get in the way of people getting stuff done.

The problem is that in the six years which we have just seen pass from 2007 to 2013—the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era—the regulatory problems in this nation just got worse and worse. That was because the Labor Party do not fundamentally understand how to get rid of red tape and they do not fundamentally believe in their hearts that it is important. Part of the reason for that is that they have absolutely no experience at ever managing an organisation or trying to get something done in the private sector. That big government style of saying, 'We'll set up a committee, we'll talk about some things, we'll establish a few rules, we'll put out a press release and then we'll go and have a cup of coffee at Aussies,' is not the way to govern. We must always govern with the interests of the Australian business community at heart because they are the people who create jobs.

What is interesting is that the last government commissioned an independent review into its approach to regulation and reducing regulatory burdens. I am sorry to say that that review came back with some very, very damning results. It was not a good report card at all that the previous government got from the independent review which it commissioned—so much so that The Australian in October 2012 chronicled some of the shortcomings listed in the Borthwick Milliner review into government regulation. To quote from its article:

GOVERNMENT ministers are flouting requirements that the impact of new regulations be assessed before decisions are made …

That is not at all consistent with the notion of getting rid of regulation, because if the ministers in charge of getting rid of regulation are not considering regulation prior to passing new legislation there is a pretty fundamental problem in the process.

To quote directly from the review:

None of the ministers consulted saw that regulatory impact statements had any real relevance to their, or cabinet's decision-making …

That was from the report commissioned by the previous government into their own process in relation to regulation. The independent panel found that none of the ministers consulted saw that regulatory impact statements had any real relevance to theirs, or cabinet's, decision making. In that one sentence, any shred of credibility that the previous government would lay claim to in relation to reducing red tape is gone, because none of the ministers consulted by this independent review saw that regulatory impact statements had any impact on their decision-making processes.

There are some other interesting quotes in this very well-written review of the regulatory impact process by Borthwick and Milliner. This one is quite intriguing:

… most agencies indicated that in the majority of cases, a RIS is prepared after the relevant decision has already been made …

That is an interesting way of doing it—to make the decision, commit to a course of action and then look at the regulatory impact and the red tape burden you are creating after you have already made a decision. I might be unusual in this sense, but I always find the way to approach things is to consider the issues prior to making a decision. Once you have made a decision, if you have not considered something, then by definition it has not been in your thought process. As I say, most agencies indicated that, in the majority of cases, regulatory impact statements were prepared after the relevant decision had been made.

There is another interesting quote in the Borthwick Milliner review. I commend that review to you, Deputy Speaker. It was published back in April 2012. The authors said:

… the evidence before the Review suggested that things were often left too late with there being a last minute scramble to pull the RIS—

regulatory impact statement—

together. Often this results in ministers being uninformed or frustrated by the time taken to prepare a RIS which is seen as holding up rather than informing their decision.

This is a very difficult image. It is very sad to hear that ministers were upset and frustrated by the regulatory impact process, but the report says there was a last-minute scramble to pull the statements together and that this resulted in the minister being uninformed or frustrated. I am not sure which is worse. You would think it would clearly be good for them to be informed. They should not have been frustrated because this is a fundamentally important task that is central to discharging your duty as a minister to minimise the regulatory impact on society. But they were either uninformed or frustrated, according to this independent review.

It also says in the review:

If the … Process were operating and performing as intended, Ministers … would rely on and refer to the analysis and evidence contained within it in coming to their decisions – however, this rarely happens in the cases discussed during the Review’s consultation.

So, again, there was no actual consideration of the regulatory impact and crushing burden of red tape prior to it being implemented. This is a very, very important point because the independent review commissioned by those opposite into themselves found that they were completely disinterested in the issue of the regulatory burden they were imposing on the Australian community. It is impossible, then, for them to argue that they were, in fact, concerned with that when the independent review found the opposite. I will come to a little more about what the previous government did in this space a little bit later.

The report goes on to make a number of other observations. One of the concluding comments is a bit of a sad note. It talks about the importance of the impact statement being embraced by ministers and then it says:

If this seemingly low hurdle is an obstacle, it begs the question whether there is, in fact, a ‘real’ Government commitment to take ownership of RIA.

No government commitment.

The other point from the review:

It is clear from the consultation undertaken by the Review that none of the participants or stakeholders believe that the RIA Process (and the RIS) is delivering the benefits that the OECD suggests it should.

It is really just an absolutely damning report into the complete and blatant disregard for the crushing imposition of red tape by the previous government. Rarely is there such a black and white, clear-cut independent condemnation of government policy as we see in this sterling report.

Of course we know how bad a job Labor did in this space. We know that the OECD ranked Australia last year 124th out of 148 nations on the burden of government regulation—this is a list that you want to be at the top of, not at the bottom. Our regulatory burden was deemed to be worse than Colombia. It is really quite frightening. We just beat Iran in terms of the level of government regulation, but we could not quite top Colombia. That is a damning estimate of our position.

And of course the Productivity Commission has weighed in on this and said: 'The cost of regulation in the economy is as much as four per cent of GDP.' Getting rid of these burdens would improve GDP by as much as four per cent.

Given the extraordinary record of the previous government in this space, so eloquently confirmed by the Borthwick-Milliner review, it is remarkable that just a few weeks before the election on 24 July 2013—about six weeks before the election—the Labor Party put out a press release. 'Labor delivers real reforms to cut red tape', it grandly announced. It was such an important issue that they had to have three different people release this exciting information. There was Senator Wong, of course; the Hon. Mark Dreyfus QC MP; and someone who is no longer with us in this House, the previous member for Lindsay and Assistant Treasurer, David Bradbury. He has been rightly removed from his role by the people of Lindsay and replaced by a far more effective current member who is a very strong advocate for the people of western Sydney.

We had the independent review that basically said Labor did nothing in the regulatory impact area and did not care about it—to summarise it in a sensible fashion. That is basically what the report said. But Mark Dreyfus QC said:

Reducing red tape and removing redundant laws, particularly in the customs portfolio, improves the efficiency of businesses engaged in importing and exporting and makes things simpler for all Australians.

So why did they introduce 21,000 new regulations? Why would they put out a press release just six weeks before the election when they had done such an appalling job in this space for the preceding 34 months? It really does beggar belief that they would claim any credibility in this area whatsoever.

There are a number of changes in this bill. Frankly, when you look at the bill, you see they are good changes—very sensible changes. You wonder why they need to be made, because you wonder why the previous government would not have sorted this stuff out before. There have been sensible changes such as some technical issues around the definition of 'Australia', which obviously needs to be cleaned up, as well as a range of other matters which include, of course, those provisions around the definition of 'associates' and the reporting requirements in relation to what associates need to do when involved in a transaction—which is an important point.

Also, there is an important area in the superannuation administration removing the pay slip reporting provisions which were to be introduced and which would have significantly increased the compliance costs for small businesses; that is clearly not something that is in anyone's interests. It also removes some of the various redundant and other inoperative provisions, specifically in the area of taxation. So these are good and sensible changes. It is good that the opposition is supporting these changes; we do welcome them to the cause. We do welcome them to the cause of removing red tape so ably led by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. That is what we are entirely focused on.

It is very easy to say red tape; it is two words. It is a whole lot harder to actually do something about it. The Borthwick-Milliner review, that very detailed and considered review from April 2012, is a horrendous indictment on the complete lack of interest in this area by the previous government. They do not have experience in actually running enterprises. They do not have experience in employing people. They do not know what it means to actually be there on the front lines of the economy, employing people, making things happen. They do not know how crushing the burden of red tape can be. That is why they did nothing in the six years they were in government. That is why the Borthwick-Milliner review in its even tone condemned the previous government and all of those opposite so comprehensively. We have to fix up that mess, and that is what we are doing through this legislation.

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