Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Mutual Recognition Amendment Bill 2021 and on the amendments to the bill, which have been circulated in my name. This bill seeks to introduce a uniform scheme of automatic mutual recognition for licenced occupations across the states and territories. The principle of providing greater ease for those with licensed occupations to pursue their trade across the various jurisdictions in Australia is a worthy principle indeed. The bill amends the Mutual Recognition Act of 1992. This act was born of the economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating era. It was a period of significant microeconomic reform. This reform wasn't headlined 'Floating the dollar' or 'Opening up the Australian economy' but was nevertheless an important piece of microeconomic reform at the time.

About 70 per cent of the Australian workforce today is required to obtain a licence in order to undertake their work, and automatic mutual recognition, as I said, enables those who have licences to pursue their work in other states. Back at the time of the Mutual Recognition Act in 1992, then senator John Button, as the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, said in respect of mutual recognition:

It is a good example of cooperative federalism at work in the national interest. Honourable senators have said that the aim of mutual recognition is to remove artificial barriers to interstate trade in goods and services and to remove the artificial barriers to the mobility of labour caused by regulatory differences amongst the States. We have had many decades of experience in trying to work with regulatory barriers of that kind, and this legislation will go a long way to improving that situation immensely.

If the legislation does that, it will enhance the competitiveness of the Australian economy. It is a major step forward in the achievement of micro-economic reform and will lead to the establishment of a truly national market.

To that end, the bill which is before us today seeks to build on the mutual recognition regime by applying an automatic component to it. I note that it is part of an intergovernmental agreement which has been signed by all the states. The agreement is due to come into effect on 1 July this year.

To describe in its simplest terms the architecture of automatic mutual recognition, it applies a drivers licence model to licensed occupations. That is to say that, if you have a drivers licence given to you in the state of Victoria, it entitles you to drive in the state of Western Australia. Western Australia would, if you were driving there, have all its enforcement arrangements apply to you. Were you to be speeding in Western Australia, that would reflect on your Victorian drivers licence. That, in effect, is the architecture of the mutual recognition which is being proposed in relation to all licensed occupations in Australia and how people would engage in their trade in jurisdictions other than where they obtain their licence. So the principle of this makes sense.

There are, however, a number of issues which have been raised by a number of stakeholders which are present in our mind as we move forward and which underpin the amendment to the bill I will move. The principle of the drivers licence analogy needs to acknowledge that we have consistent road rules around Australia, but when it comes to a number of licensed occupations there is nothing like the same consistency in the way in which those regulations are in place across the jurisdictions in Australia. An example of that is the licensing of electricians, which varies considerably from state to state. So, while one can see what is sought to be done here, given that nothing like the consistency applies in relation to electrical occupations compared to road rules, which is the basis of the architecture here, there is the risk for unintended consequences to apply.

Those unintended consequences could happen in a couple of ways. The first is that people who are in a jurisdiction where the licensing requirements are not as significant as others may go into another jurisdiction where licensing is stricter and find themselves in a situation where they are not able to comply with the standards of the second jurisdiction. Equally, in seeking to comply with those standards, they may well run afoul of them and then find that that flows back in terms of their ability to pursue their trade in their home state.

To that end, it is the position of Labor that we are seeking an inquiry in the other place in respect of this bill to be clear about how this would impact on various occupations where there is significant divergence in relation to the way in which those regulations apply across the jurisdictions. That is particularly the case in respect of high-risk occupations, electrical trade being an example of that but really so are all the occupations which require licences within the building industry. That is where there is a significant degree of risk. Again, to that end, the amendment that I will move today is to have the licensed occupations which are involved in the building industry removed from the application of this bill. That is the intent of the amendment that is being circulated in my name. That is the amendment to the bill that we will move in this place.

While we acknowledge the direction of this bill, while we acknowledge the intent—the significant benefits in relation to deregulation that it implies and the ability for people to move with greater ease in the working of their trades across jurisdictions—it is important that reforms of this kind are done in a way that doesn't have unintended consequences in relation to the health and safety of those working in the industry and the quality of work that is ultimately done for the consumers of this country. It's important that we look at all of those questions very carefully and that there is the ability to have an inquiry of that kind and move through that process over the next few months so that we are at a point within the parliament to consider this in its finality prior to the implementation date of the intergovernmental agreement, which is 1 July this year.

So, noting the benefits, the principle behind this bill, and noting our concerns about the unintended consequences and the detail of that, and the need to have an inquiry in the other place, and noting with all of that the amendments that we will move in order to deal with that here, Labor will be pursuing this bill on that basis.

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