Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in respect of the proceedings on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014, the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014, and the Statute Law Revision (No. 1) Bill 2014, so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring:

(1) the resumption of debate on the second readings of the bills being called on together;

(2) at the conclusion of the second reading debate or at 5.30 pm on Wednesday, 26 March 2014, whichever is the earlier, a Minister being called to sum up the second reading debate, then without delay:

(a) any necessary questions being put on any amendments moved to motions for the second readings by non-Government Members; and

(b) one question being put on the second readings of the bills together;

(3) the consideration in detail stages, if required, on all the bills being taken together for a period not exceeding 60 minutes at which time any Government amendments that have been circulated in respect of any of the bills shall be treated as if they have been moved together with:

(a) one question being put on all the Government amendments;

(b) one question being put on any amendments which have been moved by non-Government Members; and

(c) any further questions necessary to complete the detail stage being put;

(4) at the conclusion of the detail stage, one question being put on the remaining stages of all the bills together; and

(5) any variation to this arrangement to be made only by a motion moved by a Minister.

I will explain what the government is proposing for today. Members will remember that last week, when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister introduced these bills as part of repeal day, a full week's notice was given to the opposition in order for them to be able to carry out their normal procedural matters within their own party to determine their position on these repeal bills and the repeal of regulations—which of course is the courtesy that we extend to the opposition, as they did to us when they were in government.

Today is that day: it is repeal day. As the government indicated, we intend to pass these bills by the end of the day. At 5.30 we will have a second reading vote on this matter, and I hope the opposition will support the repeal of these bills and regulations. If a consideration in detail stage is required, an hour has been put aside for that to occur, and then the final votes will be taken on any amendments that might be moved by the opposition and then on the totality of these bills at about 6.30 to seven this evening.

I am looking forward to repeal day. I think will be a great success. It is a bit like a school carnival, with these bills being debated today. We are very excited on this side of the House at the prospect of sweeping away many of these regulations and much of the red tape that is strangling business and communities, and repealing bills that are not necessary. The opposition, when they were in government, regarded their successes as the number of bills and regulations that they introduced. We have the opposite view. We genuinely believe in small government. Today's repeal day, of course, is a manifestation of that.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No more nanny state!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the parliamentary secretary interjects, no more nanny state for Australia, and this is the manifestation of our genuine belief that we want less regulation and less red tape on business—regulation and red tape which are strangling the economy.

Many of my colleagues—at least 40—have listed themselves to speak on the debate today, and they will all get the opportunity to do so, because our side of the House is determined to limit speeches to the appropriate period of time that will allow all of my colleagues an opportunity to contribute. I hope the opposition will similarly limit their contributions in order to give as many members as possible the chance to talk about repeal day, the chance to talk about reducing regulation and red tape. In order to facilitate that, I propose to leave my remarks there.

I assume and hope that the opposition will support this debate management motion in order to make sure that repeal day occurs, as was intended over a week ago, and at that today we can pass legislation—

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Historic.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

an historic day—to repeal thousands and thousands of regulations and unnecessary bills and to give business the opportunity, the freedom, that they need to grow the economy, to employ Australians and to do what they do best, which is to grow our great nation.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the House for his entertaining contribution. If there is a correct description of what they call repeal day, we heard it when the Leader of the House described it as a school carnival. If you walk outside you will indeed find that today's school carnival has been rained out. It is one of those school carnivals where people at the end of the day think that the hype and the anticipation was somewhat more exciting than the day they ended up with. We have before us today a debate where I suspect the more people look at the legislation the quicker we will get through the speaking list. It is pretty hard to build a whole lot of passion around what is in the bills before us. For weeks and weeks this parliament had almost no legislation before it at all, and now we have legislation before us we are suddenly going to say we support it being gagged!

I am not going to extend my comments beyond that. I find it amusing that government members have already, by the admission of the Leader of the House, discovered that they cannot make long speeches on this issue, and that is a mercy to them. If I had to play the role of whip in this debate, I would be encouraging people to keep their remarks as brief as possible too. There has never been a fizzer like repeal day is. I will deal with the substance of these issues when we get to the debate but, on the subject of whether or not debate today should be gagged, it ought not to be and I suspect the government are merely covering themselves from the humiliation of their speakers who, when they stood up to speak on repeal day, found they had little to say.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The parliament has had a very short period to deal with what is, on the government's own admission, a significant tranche of repeal legislation. In the time we have had, stakeholders have looked over the regulations that are to be repealed as well as the legislation and have turned up a number of worrying landmines buried in these provisions. We find, for example, not because the government drew our attention to it but because someone else did the digging and found out, that cleaners on government contracts, including potentially to clean this place, stand to have their wages cut by up to 25 per cent if this repeal day legislation passes. That is one thing that has been found out. An estimated 50,000 pages of regulations and some 9,500 regulations are on the chopping block.

The government has the perfect right to say we are going to spend a whole day debating this, but there should be maximum scrutiny applied to this legislation. It might well be that much of it is uncontroversial but it might also be that there are some landmines buried in there, as has been found already. This parliament has the right to scrutinise this legislation. The government has the right to put it up, but this parliament has the right to debate and scrutinise it. One would have thought that, with something so significant, with so many pages of regulations, it would be a perfect opportunity for a committee to look at it to see whether there is anything buried in there and for the parliament to debate the matter fully. A week is not enough, and a week is not enough given that it comes on the back of this government having had us debate virtually nothing at all. There has been plenty of opportunity; there have been plenty of hours to fill.

Apparently closing the debate at 5.30 tonight will give everyone enough time to make their contribution. Looking at those on the speakers list at the moment, if everyone spoke for as long as they are entitled to under the standing orders we would have some 14 hours of debate. Yet this motion suggests truncating it to less than six hours. For what the government says is a signature component of its legislative agenda we should have more than six hours of debate in this parliament. It makes you wonder what else there is buried in this legislation that the government wants to hide. The government talks gleefully about this being a bonfire of deregulations, but everyone knows you do not stand too close to a bonfire or you get burnt, and what you do not do is start chucking kerosene on it and saying we have to get this done very quickly. That is what the government is doing at the moment.

The Greens' real concern is that in this bonfire of regulations the government is hiding its true agenda in the smoke. For that reason, whatever position people ultimately come to on the merits of the bill, we should not be gagging debate, especially when the government has nothing else for this House to debate in its place.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be agreed to.