Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I have listened to much of the debate in respect of the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2015) Bill 2015. I have noted the comments of members opposite, most of whom come into the chamber and claim that this legislation is going to save the community and, in particular, small business substantial amounts of money because it will remove red tape that business and others have to jump over every time they want to do business out there in the community.

The fact of the matter is that there has been no evidence whatsoever brought in by the government to substantiate the claims that this will make life for the community and small business, or any sized business, any better at all. What we are dealing with is legislation that is part of normal government function, whereby legislation is reviewed, its relevance is reconsidered and, if it is considered to be not relevant, it is made obsolete. We go through the same process to ensure that the words used in legislation are still current, bearing in mind that, over time, the interpretation and meaning of words also change, and sometimes that comes about because of court judgements. So it is a function of government across the country at every level to, from time to time, review the legislation that is currently in place and ensure that it remains relevant to the day.

What is also clear from the comments made by those opposite is that, if it were true that this legislation is making a huge difference to the small businesses in Australia, we not seeing that reflected in the economic activity of the country and in economic confidence in particular. I note that only yesterday there was some research out there suggesting that economic confidence, if anything, is actually declining.

Whilst I also note the government comes into the chamber from time to time and tries to jump on any glimmer of economic good news that is out there, the truth of the matter is that most of the economic indicators would suggest that the economy has in fact stalled and has become stagnant. When I talk to business people across the country and in particular in my home state, which I do on a regular basis, I get the same feedback—that is, that the economy is not going so strong.

But if you want to have a really good indicator of how good the economy is going, just have a look at what the Reserve Bank announced yesterday. They announced that the cash rate will be left unchanged at two per cent. My general rule of thumb is this: if the cash rate remains constant, it means the economy is pretty stagnant—that is, it has flat-lined and is not moving, particularly in one direction or another. If the interest rate goes down, the economy is in trouble, and if the interest rate goes up generally it is a sign that things are on the rebound.

I say to members opposite that you have had two years and three months in government and you have come into the chamber on many occasions with these repeal day legislation issues, every time claiming that this is good for the economy and for the country. Where is the evidence to support those claims? The truth of the matter is that the evidence is simply not there. Indeed, the economy is probably going in the opposite direction. Only this week we had the announcement that the budget deficit over coming years will increase by a further $38 billion.

The government's economic strategy is not working, and, contrary to their claims that it is all the fault of the previous government, I put it to members opposite that, firstly, they have not only been in government for 2¼ years, but it is their policies in particular that are causing the economy to go in the direction it is. I can well recall some very good presentations by global experts on this issue. They made the point very clearly and very strongly, based on evidence of what has occurred in other countries, that, where austerity measures are brought in by governments to try to fix up their taxation problems, the truth is that the opposite happens. When you start cutting payments to people, as this government is doing by trying to cut payments to families across the country, when you make employment conditions more difficult and try to push down wages, and when you cut government expenditure in research and development, the ultimate impact of it all is that it affects jobs across the country. When it affects jobs across the country it will also affect the income tax that comes back to government.

In the same vein, in adding 50 per cent to the GST, which this government is obviously considering at the moment, the same applies. All the government will be doing is reducing the disposable funds that families have when they go out to do their shopping and buy products. Again, that in turn means that the government might be picking up tax in the one hand but it will be losing it out of the other. As Labor has made absolutely clear, we will not be supporting that, not only because it is not good economic policy but because it also affects the people at the lower income end within society.

I have seen this done time and time again by this government with all the cuts they have made, right through from health, to education, to industry assistance and the like. I make a point that has been made time and time again: when governments decide they will turn their back on industry, as this government has done, and industry in turn lays off employees, the government loses from both sides. It loses the income tax it would otherwise have retained, had those people kept their jobs, but it will also then adds to the social welfare bill of the nation, so the government is paying out to those very same people money it claims it does not have and that it needs to withdraw from industry assistance funding that had been previously proposed.

I want to bring to the attention of the House some ways in which the House could make some real savings. I will refer to a couple of matters that have been brought to my attention in recent times by constituents in my electorate. The first relates to a matter whereby a person was trying to get their passport and, because of the misspelling of the person's name on their birth certificate, the hoops that the person had to go through in order to get a passport were, quite frankly, extraordinary. It not only took months and months to get the whole process resolved, but it was also costly both to the person and to the government, which was constantly having to correspond backwards and forwards. It seems to me that perhaps the first thing the government should do if it wants to reduce its costs is look at some of the processes that are required of people when they are dealing with government in the first place. To me, that would be a good start as to where you could save a lot of money.

I had a similar case with respect to a person who was born overseas of Australian parents and came to Australia and has lived her whole life in this country. Again, when it was time for her to apply for a passport, because the birth certificate had not been issued in Australia, and there was difficulty in getting the original birth certificate—it was from an Asian country—the hoops this person had to jump through in order to get the birth certificate, and then the passport, would have been far more costly to the government than to the person involved.

The last example concerns a person who also wanted to apply for a passport. The person had misplaced, lost or had never received the citizenship certificate they had been granted several years ago. Because the person had migrated to Australia from another country she required her Australian citizenship documents to be produced in order to get the passport. With assistance from my office, it took the best part of six months or maybe even nine months for the person to jump over all of the required hurdles before finally getting an Australian passport, which would enable them to leave the country and then come back into Australia. Those are some of the examples that the government should really be looking at if it wants to save money, not the pretentious example of what is in this legislation. (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.

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