Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak in support of the Mutual Recognition Amendment Bill 2021. With all respect to my fellow Western Australian, the member for Tangney, who is also the assistant minister who introduced this bill, this is not the stuff that gets headlines. It doesn't attract attention. For many people it is pretty dry—just dealing with red tape and improving the regulation of certain occupations and industries. For those who don't work in those industries or occupations, they won't be aware of the problems that it addresses, nor will they be consciously aware of the benefits which will flow. Yet these reforms introduced by this bill will not just impact upon those who work in these industries; there will also be benefits which flow more widely. These reforms are part of the government's economic recovery plan and complement existing work by governments to reduce red tape for business.

Our first point to note is that these changes are the result of cross-government agreement. In August 2020 the Morrison government announced that the Commonwealth, state and territory governments had agreed to introduce a uniform scheme for the automatic mutual recognition of occupational registrations, subject to the passage of legislation. In December 2020 the Prime Minister, the state premiers and the Northern Territory Chief Minister signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on Automatic Mutual Recognition of Occupational Registration, which included a commitment to monitor the implementation of AMR and to support ongoing improvements in the regulatory environment. The changes presented in this bill represent the most significant reform to Australia's mutual recognition arrangements for occupational registrations since they were introduced in 1992.

In essence, this bill improves occupational mobility and helps our skilled workers take up job opportunities whenever and wherever they arise. This bill introduces a scheme for the automatic mutual recognition, or AMR, of occupational registrations. AMR allows carpenters, electricians, surveyors and other registered professionals to do the same work they are licensed to do at home in other states without applying for additional licences or paying further fees. AMR will remove unnecessary tension in labour markets that makes it costly and time consuming for workers to deliver services across state borders.

Over 19 per cent of Australian workers require a registration or a licence to perform their work. Some occupations, including many within the health sector, are registered nationally. But most trades and other professions, such as builders, plumbers and real estate agents, are registered on a state-by-state basis. Regulatory requirements and processes for most registered professions are managed and set differently in each of the eight states and territories. These differences make it harder for tradespersons and other professionals to move across borders for work, raising the cost for employers to fill job vacancies and reducing competition and choice for consumers.

Issues with the current system have been articulated by numerous professional bodies, including the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA, which has noted that the current system creates disincentives for employers to offer their apprentices opportunities to work across multiple states and territories, and, in turn, ensure that they have constant work. This is because it takes time and it is complex to have their existing studies recognised by regulators across multiple jurisdictions.

Mutual recognition under the existing AMR has helped reduce barriers to occupational mobility across borders for a range of occupations. Around 12 per cent of new occupational registrations were made under mutual recognition in 2019. However, a person is still required to apply and pay for additional registration, even though they have already paid for their current registration in another state or territory.

In a 2015 study the Productivity Commission found that the current mutual recognition arrangements generally work well but that there would be cost savings from automating these processes. The Productivity Commission recommended governments give higher priority to expanding the use of automatic mutual recognition of occupational registrations to improve the efficiency of mutual recognition arrangements for individuals and businesses.

Some of the key benefits of the AMR, which is being introduced through this bill, include increased flexibility and mobility for individuals and businesses so that they can easily move across borders and provide services nationally. It will lead to greater competition, leading to lower prices, greater choice and better-quality service for consumers, including businesses. It will allow individuals and businesses to save on registration fees, on paperwork and on the time involved in filling out that paperwork. It will lead to increased output, investment and productivity and less downtime following infrastructure outages or natural disasters. There will be improved safety from improved information and data sharing across regulators to support compliance and there will be improved performance from regulators adopting a more risk based approach and people with disciplinary actions being excluded from AMR.

On the issue of the benefits, PwC took an economic review of the costs and benefits of AMR in 2020, and it estimated that AMR is expected to increase GDP by $2.4 billion over the 10-year period from 2021 to 2030 from a better allocation of labour and capital in the economy. GDP would be higher over the period due to an increase in labour productivity from administrative savings to individuals and regulators no longer needing to submit or assess multiple occupational registrations. This will lead to an increase in GDP of $1.14 billion over the 10-year period.

There will also be labour productivity benefits as more individuals choose to operate across jurisdictions for part of their working year, better matching registered individuals with jobs where they can deliver the greatest benefit. This will lead to an increase in GDP of $462 million over the 10-year period. And the additional savings that the PwC report identified were through capital productivity from returning to business as usual faster following natural disasters as interstate labour is able to more quickly mobilise to respond to critical and immediate large-scale infrastructure outages. This will lead to an increase in GDP of $808 million over the 10-year period. PwC found that over 124,000 registered people will benefit from reduced administrative costs, and a further 44,000 registered people may benefit from increased labour mobility across sectors and jurisdictions.

The PwC modelling indicated that all jurisdictions will benefit from implementing AMR, with gross state product expected to rise over the 10-year period in each jurisdiction. The modelling does not include potential efficiency gains from removing unnecessary or inconsistent registration requirements over time. Cutting red tape may not attract attention; it may never get a headline, but ensuring that there is an appropriate balance in the regulatory environment to ensure that there are not unnecessary, costly or inefficient regulations while maintaining the standards of protection for consumers, the environment, animal welfare and the safety of workers and the public is actually a very important role for all governments. On this basis I am happy to commend this bill to the House.

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