Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The debate that is presently before this House, in many senses, really is the story of this government writ small as perhaps it should be. I ask members present to think about the fanfare that accompanied the introduction of the first of these omnibus repeal days, the first much lauded, much vaunted red tape reduction day the better part of 18 months ago. The Australian people were promised a bonfire of red tape reduction. The rhetoric then was even more grandiose than it has been this evening. But what have we got? At the end of the day, the only bonfire we have seen is a bonfire of vanity—vanity of government members, especially the then parliamentary secretary the now Assistant Treasurer. I think his second reading speech from 19 March 2014 on the occasion of the first red tape reduction day bears rereading because it sets out the scale of the claim made through this process that has not been matched by its impact, in stark contrast to the deregulation agenda conducted properly in a concerted manner by the former government which removed unnecessary regulation without fuss, without fanfare but with regard to the purposes of law-making and the needs of our economy and of our society.

Again, I remind those present and anyone listening—I understand some may be engaged in other debates this evening—to have regard to the claims set out in the second reading speech made in March 2014 by the then parliamentary secretary—the now Assistant Treasurer—and to think about the claims that were made and how they have been matched in reality. Again, this is a sense of government writ very small and, indeed, a diminished sense of our future.

But it is really interesting to see beyond this, how the step-through occurred from that first bill to its second iteration in October of last year, where again we saw very grand promises made by the then parliamentary secretary. There were proud boasts of 'no longer will we deny the men and women of Australia an opportunity to employ more people, to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and, at the end of the day, to boost productivity'. Let us think about how those claims have stacked up. We have unemployment at over 800,000 for the first time in nearly 20 years. We have a crisis in productivity with multifactor productivity lagging at deeply concerning levels. This was described as an absolutely brilliant result for this government. Well, as the government debates its future again, I wonder what a less than brilliant result might have been.

So I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015. The purpose of this bill is to abolish defunct bodies, consolidate previous bodies and repeal spent and redundant provisions and acts. This bill is, of course, introduced with some complimentary legislation—namely, Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015. These are, for the most part, reasonably worthwhile initiatives of the parliament. They simply do not match the description that they have been given nor the rhetoric that accompanies them.

Government members should not take my word for it; they should look at the haste with which this urgent agenda has been pushed through the parliament. Introduced some six months ago, we now find ourselves finding our way towards consideration of these urgent pieces of legislation. We know what a crowded legislative agenda it has been. It does not just speak volumes as to the absence of any vision for Australia's future on the part of this government; it speaks volumes as to its lack of anything to say in terms of a legislative agenda whatsoever.

Essentially, like those two previous omnibus repeal days, this bill is just a bit of PR exercise with a bit of ideological dressing, another exercise in this government wanting to be applauded for successfully putting one foot in front of the other. Well, today of all days, perhaps we can understand that. Perhaps that is fair enough. It all seems very hard for government members at the moment. The path to recovery that they charted out in opposition has met with extreme resistance, to say the very least, in government.

It is telling that the fanfare that was started off 18 months ago has diminished 12 months ago and seems less evident today. This is just something that they are going through the motions with now. Perhaps this is much too late; nonetheless a tacit acknowledgement by government members that simply abolishing long defunct bodies or repealing spent and redundant provisions in acts of parliament is not quite as spectacular nor as transformative as the government in its very, very brief salad days liked to imagine.

Indeed, something that is very interesting in these bills is that the vast majority of provisions in the bills before the chamber do not have any deregulatory savings attached whatsoever. I was interested to look through the explanatory memorandum, which says of the bills before the House that there are no financial implications. Now, that does not make it a bad thing; it just sits rather uncomfortably with the sort of rhetoric we have heard from the previous speakers and, indeed, from government speakers throughout this debate. The rhetoric does not match the reality. This is the ordinary business of government dressed up as something that it is not by a government that literally has nothing to say to the Australian people, a government so wrapped in its own internal conflict that it cannot pay attention to the issues that are facing Australia. That is clear today. It was clear a couple of weeks ago when I thought we were to debate this bill, but the government spent six hours having an internal debate and decided to vacate themselves from the legislative field on a matter of great importance to many, many Australians, as you would be aware, Acting Deputy Speaker Jones.

I do note that while the explanatory memorandum states that there are no financial implications attached to these bills, the parliamentary secretary who was just in the chamber tried half-heartedly in his contribution to this debate—which was quite some time ago, I add—to suggest otherwise. But I will return to that in a couple of minutes. I have spoken on the previous omnibus repeal days this government have introduced. Frankly, I do find it difficult to understand why they have been going through the seasonal charade of activity in this regard. It does not appear that the Abbott government—if it is still the Abbott government, as I am making this contribution—are looking at another spring omnibus repeal day, but perhaps we will see.

At the end of the day, these sorts of low savings should be applauded if they can be identified—and I look forward to that aspect of the debate from government members. The repeals of overdue, redundant legislation have achieved much heat in terms of the parliamentary contributions of government members but very, very little in the way of substance. So I turn to a couple of examples from the substantive bill itself. Others have touched on these matters, but I do think they bear repeating, having regard again to the sorts of grandiose claims we have heard from government members.

This bill repeals seven acts in the agriculture portfolio, all of which are spent and redundant—for example, the Dairy Adjustment Act 1974, which enabled the Commonwealth to enter into arrangements with the states for dairy adjustment programs, has been repealed.

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