Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

Well, we are back dealing with yet another set of these bills. The same members, and many more besides, are back, including the Assistant Treasurer, spouting nonsense about the supposed economic effects of these pieces of legislation. The Liberal government is back once again going through the motions.

I would invite members opposite in their speeches today to explain to the House just how the repeal last year of amending acts passed between 1970 and 1979 has affected individuals and businesses in their electorates. I want to hear just how much money has been saved by repealing legislation that has not been in force for as much as 45 years. Before we vote on yet another bill of this kind, let them explain what the effect of the last one was. They will not, of course, because even they know what a charade and what a farce these bills are. Is this really the kind of economic leadership the Liberals are offering the Australian people—the repeal of long dead statutes, the correction of typos, the renumbering of regulations? We are supposed to be in the sunlit uplands of the Turnbull prime ministership, but here we are still wading through the detritus of this failed, discredited Liberal government.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

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