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

Labor are supporting the Statute Update (Regulations References) Bill 2020, but there are a couple of further comments that we would wish to make in respect of this legislation. As I said earlier in the debate, although it's been suggested by parliamentary counsel and by the government that this is a bill which will improve the usability of quite a number of pieces of legislation, the real purpose of this bill is in fact to remove references to specific regulations that presently appear in quite a number of important acts that are being amended here. They are not obscure acts. They are not acts that no-one ever looks at. They are acts which I would think—looking at the names of them—quite a number of Australian citizens would have occasion to refer to quite frequently.

The first act that's on the list is the Age Discrimination Act. That's a bill that's a matter of deep concern to not just the shadow minister for the ageing but all of our senior citizens. Another one is the Airports Act. Another one is a quite significant piece of tax legislation. Another is an act that I introduced to this parliament in 2011, the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011, which is a significant part of the Australian effort to reduce our carbon emissions. So, we've got quite a number of acts here which are significant acts but which will no longer have references to specific regulations but rather more generic references to regulations made under those acts. As I said earlier in this debate, our concern is that we should always be careful before this parliament legislates to reduce transparency of legislation or of regulations made under legislation. And this is very much a government which is not interested in transparency. We see that every day that this government continues: it is not interested in transparency in any way; it wants to govern as far as possible in secret.

What I would also say about this legislation is that it will no longer be the case—and perhaps we should all be relieved by this—that this government will come into the parliament trumpeting statute update bills, of which this is an example, as some mighty deregulatory effort, or red-tape-busting effort, or perhaps, as we've heard from them before, 'bonfire regulations'. I think that was how the now Treasurer but then parliamentary secretary, the member for Kooyong, liked to boast in 2014 when they embarked on this supposed massive effort to reduce the size of the statute book. In fact, what's happened under this government in its seven years is that we've seen an increase in the size of the statute book and an increase in regulations. Perhaps that's why they're no longer talking about making any kind of deregulatory effort, because they've actually failed in that objective. As I say, perhaps we should all feel thankful that no longer does this ageing government, in its seventh year, pretend that it's engaged in any kind of serious deregulatory effort. Still less, I hope never to hear again that they are trying to boast that an ordinary piece of statute update or statute revision is to be badged as deregulation. I do commend the bill to the House.

(Quorum formed)

See this speech in context