Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to the resolution agreed to earlier, the question is that these bills be now read a second time.

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

What we just saw was extraordinary. We had government members en masse voting to take themselves off the speaking list. That is what they all just did. We had about eight people from the opposition on the speaking list so it was all going to happen within the time allotted anyway and we would have voted earlier. The only thing that happened with the gag motion was that government members made sure that they did not have to speak. Government members made sure that they were not forced into the humiliating position of having to defend all the hype that the member for Kooyong has attached to today, because today will be as big a fizzer as the last repeal day was.

We have today, for a full day of parliamentary sittings, a grand total of $1.8 million of savings. That is what they are here boasting about in the same week they have added $5.1 million worth of compliance costs onto motorists throughout Australia. More than double additional compliance costs have been put in place in the same week of their big repeal day that delivers only $1.8 million. And you really have to ask some questions about the $1.8 million.

The role of one of the bills we have in front of us is to change punctuation. Its role is to remove hyphens, semicolons and commas and to return commas to other places. It will correct a spelling error that was made in 1995 that the Howard government had not picked up on and we did not pick up on. The member for Kooyong has found it so we need to set aside a day to be able to deal with the additional costs associated with this!

We are dealing with a number of bills today. The first one is the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014. This one amends or repeals legislation in the Agriculture, Communications, Environment, Immigration and Border Protection, Industry, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Social Services, Treasury and Veterans' Affairs portfolios. The majority of the measures in this bill are not contentious and in fact the majority of them have zero deregulatory savings attached to them. There is nothing in the majority of the measures to suggest that there is some great burden of regulation that is going to be lifted from small business as a result of their implementation.

Let me give you some examples of what we are getting rid of with the omnibus repeal day bill. We are getting rid of the Fishing Industry Policy Council, which was established by law in 1991 and has never met.

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

So why keep it?

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

We had from the member for Kooyong, 'So why keep it?' We are relaxed about getting rid of it but it is not worthy of the fanfare. It is not worthy of setting aside a day in parliament to say: 'There is something no-one has noticed since 1991. Let us all look at it now and make the member for Kooyong seem incredibly important, because the entire fishing industry will no longer be weighed down by a body that they did not know existed and had not met.'

This bill is amending acts in the Agriculture portfolio to reflect the fact that programs and payments described in those acts are no longer operating or being paid. So no-one is getting the money and the program is not operating any more. By all means get rid of it, but this is like asking for congratulations for being able to queue to get a cup of coffee. It is like being asked to be praised for doing the ordinary work of government. What we have today on these issues is nothing more than the ordinary work of government.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority will now be able to publish certain notices in a variety of methods, including on its website, instead of just the Commonwealth Gazette. Fine. That is an ordinary part of the ordinary business of government.

There is the repeal of an act in the Immigration and Border Protection portfolio that relates to particular tariff decisions made between 1996 and 1999 that are no longer relevant and the repeal of the Patents Amendment (Patent Cooperation Treaty) Act 1979 that amended the Patents Act 1952. The amending act was spent once the amendments passed into law. So in 1979 it had its impact and the amendments took place so you do not need it any more. But that is not worthy of fanfare or an entire day in the parliament to say, 'Great, we are now doing this.'

I just do not know why on earth we are not debating this in the Federation Chamber, but I do know that every time the government comes forward now saying something is not controversial and asking, 'Will you please send it to the Federation Chamber,' we will have today to compare it with when we make the decision as to what is controversial and what is not. The government has set a very strange standard here in deciding what the view of the House is on what is controversial and should be sent to the Federation Chamber. Issues only go to the Federation Chamber by mutual agreement. The government have set a very unusual standard of what the threshold is for what is considered controversial.

It is repealing the Skilling Australia's Workforce Act 2005, which has already been superseded, repealing the Home and Community Care Act 1985, which was made redundant when the review agreements were deemed national partnership agreements in 2009, and removing social security payments by amending several acts to reflect the fact that no-one has been able to qualify for them since 2000. It is repealing two acts in the Treasury portfolio relating to the termination payments tax. The last termination payment subject to the tax occurred before 1 July 2005. Here is something that is going to be a big relief to small business—repealing the Papua New Guinea Loan (International Bank) Act 1970, which had approved a Commonwealth guarantee on a loan made to Papua New Guinea which has been fully repaid anyway.

With all of these measures there are no deregulatory savings attached. The government want to talk about how much burden we are taking off small business and they give you the total number of acts they are repealing. Overwhelming all the measures I have just referred to are just tiding up, as government does from time to time and as we did. In fact, there are only five measures in this bill that have any deregulatory savings attached to them, worth a total of $1.3 million. These measures are: abolishing the Product Stewardship Advisory Group; amendments to the Fuel Quality Standards Act 2000, which, among other things, removes the requirement of importers, producers and suppliers of fuel to provide an annual report to environment, saving $30,000; amendments to the Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act, saving $130,000; simplifying key personnel notification requirements for approved aged care providers, saving $1,160,000; and assisting research and analysis using protected information, saving $5,000.

They are all savings worth having but, make no mistake, the decision of the government that they would dedicate a full day of the House of Representatives debating it means we will spend more money by the parliament sitting than we will be saving. It means the net cost to the budget is a negative because they were not willing to deal with this in the way that we would normally deal with noncontroversial run-of-the-mill legislation.

We do not take issue with the majority of measures contained in the bill. There are some advisory groups within the environment portfolio in particular where there will be a Senate legislation committee inquiry. We just want to confirm that those advisory groups are no longer playing a relevant role, so we will check that. But, other than that, we are completely relaxed about what is in front of us. We will vote for it when the vote comes up later today and we will reserve our right on a couple of those committees while the Senate inquiry determines whether or not a couple of those advisory bodies were in fact playing a relevant role. These include the Product Stewardship Advisory Group, the Oil Stewardship Advisory Council and measures in the hazardous waste act. Understandably, we are taking a cautious approach to ensure that the government's claim that these groups are no longer relevant is in fact valid.

We are committed to an organised and ongoing effort to minimise, simplify and create cost-effective regulation. We are not interested in doing it in a way where the Commonwealth comes out with a net negative on savings that were only being ascribed to the Commonwealth anyway. So for some of these groups, the only savings are not to small business but to the Commonwealth and the cost to the Commonwealth, by insisting we have to have the debate in this chamber, is more than what will be saved. This is reminiscent of a government that as soon as they came to office, having spoken about debt and deficit, decided they would double the deficit and make debt unlimited. In the same way, they came in saying that they wanted to get rid of red tape because red tape costs money and in one day they spend more than they will save. In the same week, they more than doubled the total savings that are allegedly going to come to small business by adding a new compliance burden to every petrol station in the country—$800 per petrol station in Australia on the government's own figures.

The second of the bills is the Amending Acts 1970 to 1979 Repeal Bill 2014. It repeals 656 acts from the period 1970 to 1979 that are of no consequence at all. They have decided to do this in a staged way. So on repeal day No. 1, we dealt with everything up to 1969 and now we appear to be going a decade at a time so we can work through each decade as we get closer to the next election. In doing so, we will continue to waste entire days of parliamentary sitting time when there are real issues to debate, when there are issues that are genuinely contentious because the government decided they needed to waste a day in here when a noncontroversial debate can very easily happen in the Federation Chamber and none of this is time critical. If it went through a few weeks later, it would make no difference to anything other than their media strategy.

The bill for the amending acts is filled with the repeal of amending legislation. When you have got a principal bill, an amendment bill comes in to change the bill. The moment the bill is proclaimed and the original bill itself has been amended, the amending bill ceases to be relevant. So all they are doing here is just getting rid all at once of bills that technically remain on the statute books that have done their job. You could do a global search on every piece of legislation containing the word 'amending' and get rid of them all at once. But they have decided to make it look like they are going through this methodically. Every amending bill, once proclaimed, has had its impact. There is no reason to do these a decade at a time. This is so the member for Kooyong can claim to have a three-year program.

I must say, I very rarely read political memoirs from anyone on either side of politics. But if the member for Kooyong brings out a book on his time as parliamentary secretary, I am not going near it. There is no way in the world I am going to read a chapter on redundant legislation followed by a chapter on commerce and finish off with the grand chapter on hyphens for his crowning achievements on deregulation.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

He is referring now to a global figure that he wants to point to, none of which is ever relevant to any of the repeal days that we are allegedly meant to focus on. The Navigation Act 1970 amended the Navigation Act 1968. The amending act became redundant once the amendments passed into law. So, okay, we are going to repeal it. It will make no difference to anyone—other than it may form an additional page in a chapter of the memoirs of the member for Kooyong. The Book Bounty Act 1970 amended the Book Bounty Act 1969. Book bounties themselves were repealed in 1990. So with the principal legislation being amended, gone, the amending act technically remains on the statute books. Now we are going to dedicate a day to getting rid of something like that as well. The Home Savings Grant Act 1975 which, amended the Home Savings Grant Act 1964, itself was repealed in 2006.

So with the substantial acts being repealed, obviously the amending acts are no longer relevant. If you want to clean them up, by all means clean them up. But why on earth is this meant to be an important day in the history of the Federation for a bonfire of regulation for amending acts that have not been relevant for years and, in fact, ceased to be relevant within moments of them being proclaimed decades ago?

The Poultry Industry Assistance Amendment Act 1979 amended the Poultry Industry Assistance Act 1965. Having been a minister for agriculture, I looked at this and thought, 'Well, why was I never briefed on this when I was minister for agriculture?' The answer, of course, is the 1965 legislation, which provided for the grant of financial assistance to the states for assistance to the poultry industry, was itself repealed in 1996. It has been gone since 1996, and we are meant to be excited here that we are cleaning up the records, getting rid of red tape for an amending bill when the principal legislation has already gone. The explanatory memorandum on the amending acts says it all:

None of the corrections makes any change to the substance of the law.

Notwithstanding that, the bill has been calculated to generate $100,000 in deregulatory savings. Exactly how you reconcile those concepts and exactly how you have none of these changes making any difference to the substance of the law, but it saves $100,000, is impressive accounting. I look forward to the member for Kooyong addressing this in his later remarks. Thanks to the vote gagging his own members, they will not get to speak, but he will still get a chance to come back into the House later today to let us know how, when none of the changes make any difference to the substance of the law, you can save $100,000 by doing it. Maybe he can factor that against the cost of parliament sitting today, given that this is the only issue we are dedicating ourselves to.

The Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2014, otherwise known as the punctuation-led recovery bill, fixes up incorrect cross-references, punctuation errors and spelling errors and places words in their correct alphabetical order—all reasonable things to do at some point in time but hardly worthy of saying, 'We're going to dedicate a day in parliament to this.' What other issue do we dedicate a day in parliament to? We do not dedicate a full day in parliament to talking about what the government wants to do to the pension. We do not have a day in parliament dedicated to which side of politics is committed to the future of Medicare. But we do have a day for getting rid of legislation which makes no difference to the substance of the law and which corrects alphabetical order and punctuation! In terms of the priorities of this government, today can only be described as madness.

There are deregulatory issues to be dealt with, but they are not in front of us today. The only thing that is in front of us today that is significant in terms of deregulation is rhetoric and a media release. For example, the Statute Law Revision Bill changes the expression 'servant' to 'employee'. I am glad that change is being made. It may or may not be changed back during later industrial relations ideas that might come from those opposite, but it happens over 49 pieces of legislation and is, obviously, not an unreasonable change—but, once again, it is part of the ordinary housekeeping of government.

The bill changes gender-specific language to gender-neutral language in seven locations in the Acts Interpretation Act and 87 locations in the Defence Act. This is something that should happen, and I am glad it is happening, but it is certainly not making a difference to small business compliance. I do not know where they get that rhetoric from. It also inserts a new dictionary into the Veterans' Entitlements Act. Again, the explanatory memorandum in this bill says it all:

None of the corrections make any change to the substance of the law.

Notwithstanding that you have that statement, 'None of the corrections make any change to the substance of the law,' the bill has been calculated to generate—wait for it!—$420,000 worth of savings. So none of the corrections makes any difference to the substance of the law but—bingo!—you save $420,000 on the way through. It is true! Getting better cross-referencing in legislation is the right thing to do, but how changing semicolons to full stops, capitalising 82 words, bolding and italicising six phrases or removing erroneous commas contribute to $420,000 in deregulatory savings is a mystery to me—an absolute mystery to me! And I gather, from the text messages currently being furiously sent by the member for Kooyong, that it was a mystery to him until this moment as well.

Our record has been about deregulation without the fanfare. We repealed 16,794 acts and legislative instruments when in government. It is part of the ordinary routine functions of government. Examples of the types of repeal of redundant acts that we undertook were: the repeal of the Treaty of Peace (Germany) Act 1919—the one for implementing the Treaty of Versailles—which was still around when we came to office. It was not a disaster that the Howard government or the Fraser government or anyone had not got rid of it, and we never tried to have a grandstanding day. It was silly that it was still on the books, so, as it came to our attention, we got rid of it.

Similarly, in 2012 we repealed the Administrative Arrangements Act 1987, as part of modifications and amendments it had made had already taken effect and there were no instruments or regulations in force under the provisions of that act. So we got rid of it. There was the repeal of the States Grants (Beef Industry) Act 1975. That act had provided for financial assistance to be payable to a state in relation to beef producers. It was redundant. No financial assistance had been paid since 1977. It was redundant and it was repealed in 2011. We also did a routine clean-up of the statute books, in the statute law revision acts of 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, the statute stocktake appropriation acts of 2012 and 2013 and the Statute Stocktake Act 2011—without the fuss or fanfare.

But then there was the greater deregulation agenda—the deregulation agenda that mattered—which was the Seamless National Economy. That was an agenda aimed at reducing costs for business in complying with unnecessary and inconsistent regulation. That was about dealing with red tape that affects people, not red tape that you have to search dusty old books in the library to try to find, because it is not actually affecting anybody.

Completion of only 17 of the Seamless National Economy reforms was estimated by the Productivity Commission to reduce business costs by $4 billion a year—$4 billion a year! That is roughly double what the government are claiming they are going to be able to achieve. And I have to say that, in terms of their numbers, if they are claiming dollar values for punctuation, I think the numbers they are pointing to need to be viewed with a high degree of suspicion.

The Productivity Commission also estimated that full implementation of the Seamless National Economy reforms would increase productivity through increased gross domestic product by $6 billion a year. Those figures are in stark contrast to the $1.8 million that we are debating today. What we are dealing with today is the ordinary work of government.

I said after the prime ministerial statement last week that I hoped the next repeal day would be better than the last. The last was pretty bad, but it takes a very special parliamentary secretary to say, 'That level of humiliation wasn't enough,' and that he can go one step further! And today the member for Kooyong has delivered. Today the member for Kooyong has made the last repeal day look constructive!

I got stuck into the last one at the time, but it at least did better than $1.8 million—it at least did better than that. Make no mistake; some of what they called 'deregulatory reform' last time round was removing essential protections and having changes that actually hurt people. Nothing was clearer than when they referred to getting rid of red tape, but what it meant was to in future cut the wages of Commonwealth cleaners. That was part of what happened last time.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

While the dollar figures where higher, the reality was that they dressed up as deregulation what actually amounted to cutting the wages of some of the lowest-paid workers, including the very workers who clean the offices for the people who did it to them.

I want to remind the House of what happened, because when these bills got to the Senate we made it clear that if our amendment was carried we would insist on it. The government ultimately accepted the amendment and we let the bills through in good faith, only to find that within 24 hours they had found another method to still cut the wages of Commonwealth cleaners. If this government want to talk about the total savings, they need to be honest about the irrelevance of most of the measures that we talk about and the real harm that they have done against some of the lowest-paid workers in Australia. There is nothing this parliament should be proud of when the last repeal day meant future wage cuts for the people who serve all of us, and every department, in some of the lowest-paid jobs.

To hear the interjections that have happened during this part of my speech from the parliamentary secretary, saying, 'Oh, it is all deals with unions', I say that the members of those unions are paid a lot less than us. The members of those unions are serving all of our offices and all of the public service and are doing a hard-day's work or hard middle-of-the-night's work. For their pay cut to be part of the fanfare of so-called 'getting rid of red tape' shows a contempt for those individuals in a way that I had hoped this parliament would never show, no matter who was in office. It is one thing for those opposite to say that they do not agree with those rules and that they want a tender process that allows the lowest bidder, whether or not they are keeping to the guidelines, but the audacity of claiming that cleaners getting better wages was an example of red tape—no, it was not red tape; it was their livelihood. It was not red tape in some small business burden. It was how much money the people who clean our offices had to take home.

The policy that the government adopted was bad enough, but to dress it up with the rhetoric of red tape—and I use the term carefully in this place—was offensive. It was just out and out offensive to claim that better wages for low-paid cleaners was an issue of red tape. If the government wants to pursue lower wages for people, they should have the courage and the guts to do it head-on. But do not have a situation where you dress it up as part of a red tape repeal, reach an agreement with the opposition and then find a side way of doing it anyway within 24 hours. The government treated people with contempt, they then did a deal that gave people hope and then, within 24 hours, they trashed that hope again—and in the rhetoric after said, 'Oh, but everyone will still be paid the same amount at the moment'. Well, they will not be after the next tender, and their wages will be cut because of a deliberate act by this government that was dressed up within the rhetoric of the red tape repeal because the government did not have the courage to deal with it head-on. Decent wages for cleaners should not be viewed as red tape. It should never have happened. The behaviour of the government on the last repeal day was appalling. It is something that will not only affect the view of people in the cleaning industry towards this government; it is also something that will be attached to the character of this government for a very long time to come.

I have gone fairly broadly across the issues relating to red tape repeal. I have done so largely because the rhetoric surrounding this bill goes a long way beyond the actual contents of this bill. Obviously we will be voting for the second reading, but I move a second reading amendment:

That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading the House notes that:

(1) repealing spent and redundant acts and regulations is part of the ordinary, routine function of any government. The former Labor Government repealed 16,794 acts and regulations during its time in office;

(2) the former Labor Government had a strong record of deregulation reform which significantly improved the competitiveness and productivity of the Australian economy. In particular, the former Labor Government through its Seamless National Economy reforms was delivering significant cost savings to businesses – just 17 of these reforms were estimated to lower business costs by $4 billion per year with the full reforms to increase Australia's productivity and deliver a $6 billion boost to GDP per year;

(3) the three bills being debated together provide claimed deregulatory savings of $1,855,000, or just 0.1 per cent of the figure claimed by the Government, with a vast majority of the changes in this bill having no impact in terms of costs or regulatory burden on businesses, individuals and the community sector in Australia; and

(4) the commitment to deregulation should not be used as a cover for threatening fairness, workplace safety, or the protections of our environment."

The principle of deregulation and getting rid of red tape is one that we should be able to have a mature debate about. Unfortunately, the significant issues in red tape are not before the parliament today. And just watch for the people who have tuned into the radio or today or are watching the telecast because they know that this is the member for Kooyong's big day and the parliamentary ratings will quadruple. The people who are paying attention should listen to the arguments that are put up by the remaining speakers from the government. There are not many of them because most of them voted to get them themselves off the list before the debate commenced. But listen to the arguments and you can bet one thing: their speeches will not be about the bill before the House. Their speeches will be about other issues, because what is in front of the House today is almost entirely inconsequential.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Watson has moved an amendment to the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014 that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House I will state the question in the form that the amendment be agreed to. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is it any wonder people are cynical? Is it any wonder—

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the honourable member opposite. We have just spent an hour and a half talking about where this debate should happen. It is just mind blowing.

I follow the member for Watson. He and I attended the same school. He was a year ahead of me. Our paths parted at that point. The member for Watson went to study at university. I am sure he got involved in student politics and unions. He went to the state parliament of New South Wales and then ended up here. I, through university, worked in my family's business, the third generation of my family to do so. Upon completing that degree, I started work full time and had 23 years working for my father. The Prime Minister last night said something that really captured my heart in a speech he gave to the Business Council of Australia. He challenged the business community to not sit in the grandstand, to not stay in the armchair but to engage in the debate.

There has been a lot said this week about mature and sensible debate. I have had 14 months here, and I am sad to say that I think that that is a political oxymoron. The Prime Minister this week has raised issues of our Federation—and I will talk about this later. We stand at a crossroads as a country. When I was sitting in my family's business, life made sense, and what the Prime Minister said last night encapsulates my motivation to be here. Unlike the member for Watson and all those opposite, sitting on this side of the House we have doctors, lawyers, farmers, vets, teachers—people who were in the front lines before they came here, people who have grappled with all that red tape.

I rise to talk against the amendment and to support the original bill, the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill. I would like to thank the Prime Minister, first and foremost, for having the foresight to take this into his portfolio and to put in charge my good friend the member for Kooyong. By running this out of the Prime Minister's own portfolio, he dictated to our side how serious he was about attacking this problem, this most burdensome of problems, that chokes business at every turn. The member for Kooyong did me the great honour of coming to me very early upon my election, knowing that I came from a business background, and asking would I give him a hand. And I was humbled to do so.

The member for Kooyong has worked tirelessly, not just on the first repeal day but on this second repeal day. This is not the start of things; this is the continuation of a journey that this government will not turn its back on and that we will not make fun of. I understand—having been in business and having faced not just federal government but all three levels, which I will talk about later—what this looks like and what hurdles you have to jump through as a result.

I sat here for an hour and 35 minutes and watched those opposite laugh, interject and belittle every business operator in Australia, and treat them with disdain. And I say: shame on you. We are not only delivering—

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Semicolons?

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There it is again, 'hyphens and commas'. It shows you the depth of the business understanding on the other side. We went to the election with the commitment of $1 billion a year. I want to congratulate the parliamentary secretary, the member for Kooyong, because today he announces $2.1 billion in savings. Keep it up, Josh!

This government recognises the importance of cutting red tape. Every day we are looking for ways to build a strong and prosperous economy for Australia, and we are removing the burdens. A report released overnight by Deloitte Access states that government regulations cost $27 billion a year to administer—that is us—and cost businesses $67 billion a year to comply with. That is $94 billion—for those who have not done the mental arithmetic.

We have established deregulation units across government, and each minister has been instructed to undertake portfolio audits and identify areas in his or her portfolio where overregulation is a problem. And there are many of these areas. You have heard about the 16,000 the former government took away; what they omitted to tell you about was the 21,000 pieces of new legislation in their last six-year term. That is just at a federal level, and that is on top of all the pre-existing legislation that already sits in the statute books that businesses have to deal with.

As the Prime Minister said in his speech last night to the Business Council of Australia, 'Our job is to reduce regulations so that business is busy innovating rather than lobbying.'

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

Hear, Hear!

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say 'hear, hear,' to that too, Member for Kooyong. One particular area of note in which we are achieving savings for Australian companies is our competitiveness agenda, where we have streamlined regulatory arrangements. Earlier this year I met with a range of industry representatives from the hygiene and cosmetics industry, and heard case after case of regulatory overlap, inefficiency, pointless bureaucracy, and duplication.

And I will give you an example—I have said this in this House before—NICNAS, the TGA and APVMA cross three ministerial portfolios. Navigating products through those three portfolios was not only at the point of having ground to a halt, there was the absurd situation where a cosmetics company wanted to put some rolled oats into a pack to release for kids as a Christmas promotion. They were notified by NICNAS that it was, under their definitions, a chemical that could not be dispensed to children. Rolled oats? I don't know about you, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta—I know you have a young family—but my kids live on rolled oats, especially in winter.

This cross-ministerial portfolio—and bodies like NICNAS, TGA and APVMA, that operate off budget, that are a cost-recovery model—that is the stuff we are talking about here. That is what the member for Watson has missed completely. I notice he did not mention the one-stop shop for environmental approvals. I heard the member for Kooyong say $426 million in compliance costs—but, thinking as a businessman thinks, here is the kicker: it is estimated that we will gain $120 billion to the GDP of the economy over the next 12 years as a result.

One example the Prime Minister used last week was Cochlear. The member for Kooyong and I have spoken of this. Cochlear is very close to my family's heart for personal reasons. It is an organisation that I have spoken about prior in this place. We have changed the regulation to allow Cochlear to use the internationally recognised European Union certification—isn't that a mouthful—and avoid having to go through another certification process here in Australia. This means thousands of people will be able to access their devices up to a year earlier than they would been able to. These significant life-changing devices count, take it from me, on a personal level. To give you a local example, I met a gentleman in my electorate who closed his factory. It was too late; we could not save him, Member for Kooyong. He told me anecdotally that he has relocated his business and 22 jobs to New Zealand. Why? Because the cost of bringing chemicals into this country was prohibitive, and it was cheaper to do it in New Zealand. We change that today. Unfortunately for this gentleman and for the 22 Australians that lost their job it was too late, but it is not too late, looking forward, to ensure that this does not happen again.

While I applaud the Prime Minister and the parliamentary secretary for their work in this space, I cannot help but think to myself that there is so much more to do. I am not just talking about repealing unnecessary regulations and easing the burden of red tape for Australian business, as important as that is. In a week where we are challenging all in this place to have a mature and sensible debate about the future of our Federation, I believe what lies at the heart of this bill has been in fact a major failing of our Federation. I spoke in my maiden speech of the fact that with six states, two territories and a federal government, this country is like a business with nine head offices. When you add the 564 local governments across Australia, the problem becomes magnified in a way that is unsustainable and must be addressed.

At all three levels of government we are lacking people that come from a small and family business background—people who have a commercial understanding of what red tape looks like because they battle with it every day of their business life. They understand that every business in this country has two sides to their profit and loss statement, revenue and expenses, and that when revenue is soft the management of expenses becomes even more vital. Red tape has a direct impact on the expense side of every business in Australia. When you multiply the impact through each level of government it results in a dramatic increase in expenses and an equally dramatic decrease in business profits. In my mind, this is where the most massive failure of the past 113 years of our Federation lies.

We should not only have a mature and rational debate but also we must act. We must chance our mindset. Today, with my background in family business, I want to attempt to add to this debate in a way that I believe has been missing until today. What I am hoping to see is an understanding in government no matter federal, state or local that we are more than law makers and regulators—and here is the key—we are business partners. The past 113 years has focused far too heavily on the regulatory mentality without looking at the actions we take in this place through the eyes of a business partner, a partner who works to promote business and the enterprising spirit of Australians, rather than a government whose work all too often restrains Australian business.

Through our corporate tax system we take between 30c and 49c of every dollar of profit a business makes, depending on ownership structure. I cannot stress this enough: we are not simply regulators and legislators; we are stakeholders in the profitability of every business that calls Australia home.

To put the $94 billion in some context, if that is a company structure, a third is ours. The $94 billion of costs we are imposing takes $94 billion from business profitability in this country and we get between 30c and 49c in the dollar—to relate it back to the Deloitte Access Economics report released this morning. At this stage in our fiscal process we need to make sure that revenue through taxation is as high as it can be. We must change our thinking to be more than regulators. We are business partners. Rather than just legislators, we are stakeholders.

I am talking about cultural change, Member for Kooyong. In my maiden speech I challenged the ministers in this government to run their departments as you would run a business—lean and efficient. But, in saying that, I was short-sighted—as short-sighted as those that have come before me. Yes, ministers must lead from the front and promote this commercial mentality, but we must also work to encourage their departments to think like they are both regulators and stakeholders. It is the same challenge for them that it is for us. What I am trying to promote here is a complete change in culture. Ministers must continue to challenge their departments to streamline existing regulation and introduce future regulation in a way which makes the cost of complying as minimal as possible, so that profit can be as large as possible and so can our share.

We must have a mindset change across this entire parliament and look at the challenges ahead of the Australian economy with a more commercial approach. I believe it is vital for the Prime Minister to make these issues front and centre of COAG discussions. It should be a priority at the most senior levels of this country, as the more profit our businesses make the more revenue we as a government can collect through taxation and the more we can spend on the states and territories. With a coalition government, that revenue will be spent on large-scale projects that create jobs, improve productivity and promote prosperity throughout the country.

Given the fiscal position we find ourselves in as a nation, there is no doubt we need to address this revenue side of the government as well. But we must be smart about how we increase that revenue. In this respect I congratulate the Prime Minister for undertaking the white paper on reform of Australia's tax system, and I look forward to the discussions ahead in this area. It is time to have a mature and sensible discussion about the future of our Federation, but we cannot do that without pointing out the failings. When the regulatory framework ties up business, adds to their expenses and lowers their profitability to the point of pushing businesses offshore, these issues should be at the core of the debate. In his address last night, the Prime Minister said, 'We can be fans in the stands, we can be armchair critics or we can help to make it happen.' That is the call to arms. I congratulate the parliamentary secretary. That is his call to arms. He has done an outstanding job, and I am honoured to have been involved in this in some small part.

I would like to close with one thought to highlight how important this is. With a World Economic Forum global ranking of 124 out of 148 countries for 'burden of government regulation', it could not be more apparent that these measures today are urgent. They are a start and they need to continue not only for the future of our Federation but also, and much more importantly, for the future of our children.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One thing is clear: this is not much of a tea party. I know the parliamentary secretary is looking for an alternative form of engagement, but I do not recommend he looks to a role in the provision of high tea at the Windsor in that regard. What we see here is the supercharged rhetoric of the members opposite not matching the reality—the second time around. The last time we had this debate, the autumn repeal day—we talked about a bonfire. What we had was a bonfire of the vanity of the parliamentary secretary. It shows the priority of members opposite here that we are devoting today to ideology in place of substance. I think the member for Watson's contribution took us through that quite effectively. I did see the parliamentary secretary paying careful attention to the contribution of the shadow minister, as he should have done.

I was interested to follow the member for Reid's speech for a couple of reasons.

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

Very good speech!

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it was a curate's egg of a speech. The one thing that was clear was the assessment of the member for Watson. The member for Watson's crystal ball worked pretty well, because it showed that the member for Reid had no interest in talking about the matters that are before the House.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He has run small businesses, not like you.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, he has run a small business. That is not the matter which is before the House. He did not devote his speech to these three bills. I will take up the interjection, because he talked about vocations that people have before coming to this place that are worthwhile. I was pleased—and I think I can say touched!—that he recognised the front-line work of lawyers as being an appropriate calling to come here. So I thank the member for Reid for that. I was a little surprised to hear that, but I thank you for that vote of confidence. He talked about the need for a mature debate. What we have seen in the government's deregulatory agenda is anything but that. It is a triumph of stunts over substance.

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

You wish you came up with that.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, no. I will turn to that briefly, Parliamentary Secretary, because what Labor is interested in in this debate are the first principles. I think everyone in this place is opposed to unnecessary regulation. That is an easy statement to make. It is a little harder to give effect to, as this debate is demonstrating. Let us think about first principles. The member for Reid also touched on the Deloitte report, which has been reported on in today's The Age newspaper. I look forward to digesting that report. I noted the comments of Chris Richardson from Deloitte as reported in The Age. He said this:

Let's be clear. Rules and regulations are vitally necessary. They cement the key foundations of our society, protecting the rule of law and a wealth of standards in everything from health to safety and the environment.

He went on to issue a challenge, a challenge that Labor members are up for, to look to the costs and to the benefits in enacting or, indeed, repealing legislation. To look at the costs and benefits—I think that is a pretty firm foundation for our engagement in this debate. It is very disappointing that the government's desire to manage the media cycle and no doubt to appease its ideological backers gets in the way of a proper consideration of the costs and benefits of particular pieces of legislation.

I was invited earlier to look to our record and I am very proud to do so. When you look at a worthwhile piece of deregulation, a worthwhile deregulatory agenda, I look at the former government's work through the COAG Reform Council and the Seamless National Economy. To touch on just one aspect of that which achieved great things in terms of consumer protection as well as productivity benefits and significant savings, I think about the step of establishing a single Australian consumer law—a single set of consumer protections—saving a billion dollars per annum. Sensible, effective, first-principles-informed deregulatory reform. Unnecessary regulation does not constitute the stunts that we are seeing today; it is a considered approach. Sometimes, as the member for Watson said, it is the routine business of government, the tidying up; on other occasions it is about doing hard work, having a mature debate. As has been said previously in this place, I believe by the member for Fraser, it is pretty clear to us that it is not a volume. This is not an exercise of piling up statutes, piling up hyphen-riven amendments; it is about the quality of the regulations, not the volume. That is pretty fundamental.

What we see here throughout this, in the desire to paint a clear ideological picture on the part of the member for Kooyong, are the ideological foundations of the debate going far beyond the practical matters that ought be considered here. Of the three bills that are before us today, I will largely confine my remarks to the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014, which amends and repeals legislation in Agriculture, Communications, Environment, Immigration, Border Protection, Industry, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Social Services, Treasury and Veterans' Affairs portfolios. Of course, it is one of three bills we will be debating today as part of the much vaunted spring repeal day package. But, despite the government's rhetoric, the savings in this bill are calculated to be a very small amount. To say it again: this is not much of a tea party. I note, as the member for Watson did, that this bill does not contain some of the measures that were outlined in the ministerial statement or some that have been featured reasonably prominently in media commentary. I will turn to this later in my contribution.

I note briefly the member for Watson dealt with the other two bills in his contribution and that these bills are largely concerned with repeal of amending legislation that is no longer in effect. I note briefly the irony of the parliamentary secretary effectively adding red tape in terms of enacting legislation that is clearly entirely redundant in terms of its effect.

Back in autumn I had the opportunity to speak on the previous omnibus repeal day during the consideration in detail stage, because, once again, the government lacks the courage of its convictions in this space and gagged debate there. It was not surprising that government members declined the opportunity to contribute to that debate, because then, as now, we have a lot of sound and fury that signify absolutely nothing. The parliamentary secretary then stood in this place, stood up loudly, beat his chest, made all kinds of claims about the Abbott's governments achievements at large. In fact, I particularly remember him invoking the great spirit of Menzies. It is telling that today in a less charged atmosphere he made no such invocations. I already have my doubts about this government being remembered favourably by anyone.

We have been remembering governments past in this place in recent weeks, and I think it bears us all reflecting on the enormous contrast between the breadth of vision, engagement and achievement of the Whitlam government and what we have seen in the past 14 months—achievements of substance by a government that transformed this country for the better or the combination of incoherence and ideology that has characterised this government. This is a government that does not do much, and what it does do it does badly. For instance, the Prime Minister associates this and the previous omnibus repeal bill with savings figures in the billions of dollars—although I note the parliamentary secretary has been dialling this down. Closer scrutiny of the explanatory memorandum reveals this figure to be relatively paltry for this bill. It is pretty small beer.

As the member for Watson has noted, this bill does not contain some of the deregulatory measures outlined in the ministerial statement—for example, ending the requirement to put mudflaps on motorbikes, changing OHS requirements for government building sites and changes to the Do Not Call Register are not among measures which are contained in this bill. Perhaps this may be seen as the Abbott government's competitive agenda in a nutshell: a series of announcements with very large numbers, and what is actually being achieved? Very little of substance.

Yesterday in this place we spent some time drawing out the government's hollow and vain rhetoric as it mutated into something much more sinister with the increase of the petrol tax. We saw the government facetiously cite the alcopops regulation, which took place under the former government, to justify this cynical circumventing of the parliament. This government is, effectively, comparing youth binge drinkers with everyday motorists. There is of course a massive difference between increasing the cost of alcopops to discourage youth binge drinking and this government's breaking of yet another election promise and increasing a tax that will hit people who are just trying to get to work or run some errands.

The Abbott government's own repeal day documents reveal the impact of the petrol tax ambush will be wider, with every petrol station to be slugged an amount of around $800 a year in new compliance costs to collect this tax. According to their own information, the government will hit the nation's 6,300 petrol stations with compliance costs totalling over $5 million. There is little doubt that this increased compliance cost will be passed on to motorists when they fill up at the bowser. They will be hit twice by this new petrol tax.

Make no mistake: this increase to the tax without concurrent spending on public transport will hurt the people I represent in the electorate of Scullin. There are, of course, limited and in many cases no alternatives to driving in Scullin and in outer suburbs right across Australia. We heard yesterday about where the revenue from this increase in the petrol tax will be going in Melbourne: to the east-west tollway, a tollway which does nothing for the people in Melbourne's northern suburbs except divert much-needed money away from investment in our roads and public transport.

I turn to one element of the bill in particular. We do have concerns about the effects of the bill. As well as the tidying up there are some matters of substance which do need to be attended to. In particular I am concerned about the reduction of information required to be contained in permits for the import or, indeed, the export of hazardous waste. I make this point: unlike those opposite, we do not believe that all environmental protection legislation is bad and in need of removal. We look to the evidence. We look to the first principles. I echo the contribution of that renowned socialist Chris Richardson of Access Economics. We look to the first principles to inform the necessity or otherwise of particular regulations. And it is particularly concerning to me that the parliamentary secretary has cited with such glowing approval the attempted repeal by the so-called Minister for the Environment of important environmental legislation in the EPBC Act. This reinforces the concerns I have that require further scrutiny. I note the aspect of the bill that I have touched upon—the proposed changes to hazardous waste—only saves $130,000. In this context I definitely think this is something which deserves much greater scrutiny before we potentially subject our environment to what could be devastating damage.

As the member for Watson drew out quite effectively, the activity of repealing spent and redundant acts and legislative instruments is part of the normal operation of government. It is what every government does. It is what every government should do. It is telling that the achievements of this government are so thin they feel the need to shout this from the rooftops and dress it up in such rich ideological baggage. The Abbott government in putting before us these bills and the show that goes with them seem to be demanding applause for simply walking and chewing gum at the same time. Perhaps when we look at the record writ large that is a reasonable request. I repeat the words of the member for Watson: in government, without fanfare, without a song and dance, without wasting the parliament's time, Labor repealed 16,794 acts and instruments. Labor did not need a special day or days to do it; we got on with the job of government.

Really, underpinning this is a big debate about the role of government, and I do thank the member for Reid for touching upon that and for touching upon serious considerations about the future of Federation. But this is not a mature debate or how we should have a mature debate. What is really interesting about this bill and the related legislation—contrary to everything the member for Reid said—is that it reveals how ideologically driven the government is on the one hand and how narrow the scope of its ambitions are on the other.

This is a government that is obsessed with the notion that all government is bad and that a survival-of-the-fittest, dog-eat-dog world is the best. We have a contrary view. The weak should be protected from the strong. People need the law to be on their side when odds are stacked against them. And, while there is a real debate to be had about deregulation, it is through this first-principles frame that Labor will approach it, looking at what is necessary and not simply asserting it. This is a debate that has been entirely filled with assertion from members opposite. It is underpinned by a fundamental irony. In all this talk about reducing red tape, this package of bills, like the omnibus bills in the autumn, seem ultimately to be about making busywork to keep the member for Kooyong, the parliamentary secretary, busy.

The Australian people are entitled to something that is more than glib, disingenuous assurances that this bill does no harm. More scrutiny is necessary in relation to certain aspects of it, and that is why we have moved to have this bill subject to a Senate inquiry—a good and proper process. Labor continues to be committed to an organised and ongoing effort to minimise, simplify and create cost-effective regulation informed by first principles.

I started this contribution by noting that this does not constitute much of a tea party. This bill is all about ideology, celebrating a particular view of the world without giving that view particular expression, and that is the sad thing on the part of the parliamentary secretary. This is ultimately government members looking in the mirror and liking what they see, and that is fair enough, but the parliament's time would be much better spent debating our real priorities—the future of Medicare, the higher education reforms—not a narrow exercise in ideology dressed up as something that it is not.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. That the member for Scullin does not see this as 'a real priority' is extraordinary, because that just does not reflect the feedback I have been getting from people in my electorate—businesses, organisations and others. As Tasmania's representative on the coalition's deregulation committee, I am pleased to join my colleagues in welcoming this bill which sends another very powerful message to the people of Australia.

I am proud to join this outstanding parliamentary secretary who has been doing outstanding work in this space. Often we talk about leadership and, when you fundamentally distil it, leadership is an influence relationship. It is about standing next to the big problems of most concern to our community and doing something about them. This Prime Minister, the ministers in his cabinet and this parliamentary secretary are standing next to a very big problem that I hear about every day in my community. I hear them tell me that this is indeed a real problem for our community. The combined effect of the two repeal days, the one in March and the one we are having now, represents a doubling of our promised target. We said that we would save a billion dollars each year in red and green tape. This parliamentary secretary and the Prime Minister have delivered $2.1 billion in reduced compliance costs, with 400 measures to cut red tape across all agencies. That is, quite simply, real progress on problems that have a real impact on our national productivity.

What a contrast, in just the first year of the coalition government, with the inactivity in this area from those opposite during six years of 'hard Labor' from 2008 to 2013. You will no doubt recall Prime Minister Rudd's famous one on, one off promise—that for every new regulation that came through from the bureaucracy to the polity and out into our society, he would take one regulation out. He never met that promise. Indeed, what we saw was 21,000 new regulations come in—additional regulations—at the end of Labor's six years in office.

We have heard some comments this morning about lessons in economic history. I know the member for Kooyong is an economic historian. He looks at these things very carefully and he has written quite eloquently about the fact that, in the five financial years from mid-2007 until 2012, multifactor productivity in this country declined across Australia by three per cent. This is a real priority for our country because what we are doing will lift productivity; it will reduce the input costs on business, make them invest more and create more jobs. In my state of Tasmania, which has the highest unemployment rate in the country, that is particularly important.

In my home state of Tasmania I hear this persistent message from businesses, chambers of commerce and numerous other stakeholders. It reinforces what a red-hot button issue this is. They tell me about regulation imposing delays in getting projects approved and of the doubling up that occurs. I have people in the aged-care sector tell me that each year they have to go to hundreds of hours of effort to get their annual certification from both the state and the central government—hundreds of hours of essentially the same work. I have a small engineering firm telling me about an OH&S problem. The proprietor laid a harness down in front of me that is used for working on tall buildings. To me it looked like a new harness—the D-rings were in great shape, the stitching was in great shape—but he had to replace that harness simply because of its age. He had to get it checked twice every year—usually by people associated with the union movement and who imposed a cost on checking that harness—not because it was unsafe but because the binding, stifling regulation imposed by those opposite imposed that additional cost on his business. He would rather have been using that money to invest in his business.

Fixing these things is not a stunt, as the member for Scullin and his colleagues say it is. We are doing what we should do—listening to the people in our community and taking action. It is not as if Labor was not warned about the stifling impacts of their regulatory regime. Julia Gillard's own Borthwick-Milliner review in 2012, which looked at her government's regulation impact assessment processes, said 'a widespread lack of acceptance of and commitment by ministers and agencies' was a serious impediment to their effective use. The Gillard government was warned about the impact of their regulatory regime and they would not change because what we saw, in six years of Labor, was a deeply ingrained cultural foundation of risk aversion and centralised control. Every issue was always likely to get another regulatory sprinkle from Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd. That was seen as the solution to all problems—a little bit more Julia and a little bit more Kevin.

That is not good enough today, and the Abbott government has meaningfully addressed these concerns. We are ingraining a different culture within the bureaucracy and the polity. The Prime Minister himself has taken the lead on these issues. He has made regulatory reform a criterion of success for his ministers—the bureaucrats whose pay is linked to how successful they are at taking away some of those binding coils of regulation that stifle productivity in our country.

What we are trying to achieve is unity of purpose. We are trying to get the federal government and the state governments working more closely together. I will give you two examples of where that did not occur in the past. My predecessor, in mid-2011, opened a $1 million Building the Education Revolution facility at the Ringarooma Primary School at the same time that the state education minister—a Green in the Labor cabinet—was planning to close the Ringarooma Primary School. It was a clear case of left-hand, right-hand, with the Labor-Green government in Canberra and the Labor-Green government in Hobart each not knowing what the other was doing.

Nicola Roxon, I remember, came to Tasmania when she was the health minister to announce new beds for Northern Tasmania at the same time that the state government was disinvesting in health to the point that the Launceston General Hospital was closing two wards. On the one hand, there was the federal government saying, 'Here is money for new beds' and, on the other hand, the state government was disinvesting and taking money out of the healthcare system. We have a better health minister today who will make sure, in consultation with Michael Ferguson—that outstanding health minister in Tasmania—that will never happen again.

As a courtesy to my colleagues, I will keep my remarks much shorter than I intended. There are a huge number of speakers on our side of the House, but I will end where I started by congratulating the member for Kooyong, that outstanding parliamentary secretary who is making a real difference in leading the effort to make sure that red tape does not continue to spiral out of control and we make a real difference with the regulatory regime in this country.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in relation to Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014, the Amending Acts 1970 to 1979 Repeal Bill 2014 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2014. In a day that would rival New Year's Day in the affection of Australians, we are now celebrating yet another of the Abbott government's repeal days; another day that will launch a million-dollar press release—not a billion-dollar press release; another day that borrows from the US Republican playbook, and another day when the government expects a standing ovation for simply doing the everyday task of government: repealing spent and redundant acts and legislative instruments.

This was work that the Labor government, when we were in power, did without fuss and fanfare. I spoke on these types of bills many, many times in the previous six years under the Labor government but I do not recall too many of the coalition members actually speaking. In fact, many times these types of bills were sent to the Federation Chamber, where there was bipartisan agreement—getting rid of a comma or a semicolon, obsolete wording, errors of drafting and the like. Of course the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2014 corrects drafting errors, modernises language, removes gender-specific language and repeals spent and obsolete provisions and acts. It is a bit like what we did when we were in government, but we did not set aside a whole day and issue press releases saying how wonderful we were.

The Amending Acts 1970 to 1979 Repeal Bill 2014 repeals about 650 amending acts or repeal acts between 1970 and 1979. That is all it was. Most of those provisions are spent, obsolete and redundant. Of course that is a big deal, according to this government. I think those opposite must be reading from the talking points of their ministers in relation to billions of dollars, because the truth is that these three bills together provide savings of $1.855 million including, by the way, the largest being in my shadow portfolio area of ageing, which is about $1.16 million in relation to notifications. That is what the explanatory memorandum and the documents associated with this particular legislation show.

That is as the shadow minister, the member for Watson, talks about—just 0.1 per cent of the figure claimed by the government. When we get those opposite talking like this about how wonderful this legislation is, it reminds me that the coalition is great at over-egging and scaremongering but also great at over-egging their achievements. This is what they are doing here today.

We demonstrated our commitment to minimising, simplifying and creating cost-effective legislation. We worked with the states and territories through the COAG process. Remember the COAG process?

In my portfolio area of Indigenous affairs, the coalition does not seem to be working at all through the COAG process. It abolished the COAG Reform Council, which was measuring how the government was achieving the Closing the Gap targets—and it was supposed to be partisan, by the way. It is doing nothing through the COAG process in Indigenous health—in fact, that is the evidence that departmental officials gave to the Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs that I am a member of. The government was supposed to be dealing with the COAG process in agreeing to the bipartisan targets for justice, because of the terrible incarceration rate in this country for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It was supposed to be agreeing with us that, no matter which side of politics got in in September 2013, justice targets and Closing the Gap would be worked on.

However, when we were in government we worked through the COAG process on the Seamless National Economy reforms. These reforms were about reducing the cost of business, and they were a success. In 2012 the Productivity Commission—not an organisation affiliated with the Australian Labor Party—assessed 17 of these reforms for its report Impacts of COAG reforms: business regulation and VET. The Productivity Commission suggested that these 17 reforms would increase the GDP by about 0.4 per cent, over $6 billion, and reduce business costs by about $4 billion a year. They estimated that the full implementation of those reforms that Labor pursued in government would lead to a dramatic increase in national productivity.

In contrast, we have the coalition government talking about their wonderful work, without acknowledging—and speaker after speaker today has not acknowledged—the nearly 17,000 acts and legislative instruments that Labor got rid of when we were in government. Often the changes we made were minor, but we did not break into a tap dance at the dispatch box when we made them. We removed redundant regulations, sunset clauses and other provisions that needed correction. We did it because that is what any government does. We did it without pointscoring, and it was often a bipartisan approach.

As I have said, I have spoken many times in relation to this legislation. I cannot say I gave my best speeches in the House of Representatives on it, but this legislation often was passed without any razzamatazz at all, to be honest. The majority of measures in this particular omnibus repeal day bill simply involve, as I said, repeal of redundant provisions. They are not contentious. They do not have any deregulatory savings attached to them. It is somewhat curious that the Prime Minister mentioned in his ministerial statement certain things—which were later reported in the media—that were going to be put in this particular legislation, including, for example, the requirement to attach mudflaps to motorbikes, changes to the Do Not Call Register by removing the requirement to reregister every eight years, and changes to occupational health and safety on government building sites. Many of these measures remain.

No matter how much the government keeps talking about these things and over-egging these measures, the truth is that none of them will change the world in any dramatic way and they will not save much in terms of dollars in compliance costs. For example, we see in the bill the abolition of the Fishing Industry Policy Council of Australia. Just briefly, the Fishing Industry Policy Council of Australia was established under the Fisheries Administration Act 1991 to provide a forum for the Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries Services Australia and fishing industry officials. The forum has not convened, by the way, since the enabling legislation commenced, so abolishing it will not save a dollar. Also in the agricultural portfolio, the bill amends the Australian Meat and Live-stock Industry Act 1997 to reflect certain payments to industry marketing and research bodies that are no longer made and, in fact, have not been made since 2008. The amendments will not save a dollar in compliance costs.

In the communications portfolio, Australians will no doubt be relieved to learn that the bill will amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 so that ACMA can publish its notices in a variety of methods. Currently, the Broadcasting Services Act requires ACMA to publish notices in the Commonwealth government gazette. This bill enables ACMA to publish these notices on its website and in newspapers. Gee! That is groundbreaking stuff. Thank goodness we have devoted a whole day in the chamber to this sort of stuff. The bill also repeals a redundant section in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, as SBS has assumed television production and supply of activities previously undertaken by the National Indigenous TV Limited.

In relation to other areas, another measure that is unlikely to set the cat amongst the pigeons is the abolition of the Oil Stewardship Advisory Council. From now on, the Department of the Environment will be able to engage with industry experts on a needs basis to gather advice and guidance on review process and other matters relating to the Product Stewardship for Oil Scheme.

In the immigration portfolio, the bill repeals the Customs (Tariff Concession System Validations) Act 1999. The purpose of this act is to validate particular decisions in relation to tariff concession orders that were made between 15 July 1996 and 31 May 1999. Decisions outside the period that ended 15 years ago are not affected and are therefore redundant. The omnibus bill repeals and amends a whole range of acts in relation to industry.

In terms of my shadow portfolio area, we are seeing some changes in relation to HACC. There is the repeal of the Home and Community Care Act. The act was redundant when the bilateral Home and Community Care program review agreements were deemed national partnership agreements—remember those national partnership agreements? Those opposite do not really like them—under the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009. We are getting rid of provisions in an act of parliament that are no longer necessary. So that is great; it will save a lot of money! A provision in the Aged Care Act that the sector really like, that we support and that is the largest deregulation savings in this bill—$1.160 million of $1.855 million will be saved—removes the obligation for approved providers to notify the secretary of the Department of Social Services of certain changes to key personnel within 28 days. We support that. We think it is a sensible measure in relation to the act, and so we support this provision. We are going to be as bipartisan as best we can. It is pity that the coalition has not adopted a bipartisan approach on the dementia and severe behaviours supplement or the dementia and cognition supplement. One program is oversubscribed and the government has been incompetent in relation to it; the other is undersubscribed and the government is not rolling out support for people with dementia in their homes. So it is good that government can actually focus on this stuff—but how about them focusing on the stuff that counts in the aged care portfolio.

We will see some amendments in relation to Indigenous affairs. This goes back to the days of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. When ATSIC were in operation, they used to make certain grants and loans to individuals and bodies and also to guarantee certain loans made to those individuals and bodies. When ATSIC were abolished, that power was passed to organisations like the Indigenous Land Corporation and the Indigenous Business Australia. What the proposal in this bill does is change the vesting of the statutory consent so that those bodies or, indeed, the Commonwealth, by the way, can waive the exercise of its statutory consent power by providing written notice to that organisation that its consent no longer be required. It is going to save a lot of money. To be honest, I think it is a pretty basic provision, and we will support it.

I have some real concerns about the amendments to the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act, because one of the first acts of the Northern Territory government was to get rid of the Banned Drinkers Register, which the Northern Territory Labor government had successfully implemented. It was making a difference in the Northern Territory in reducing the shocking rate of alcohol abuse, which is directly linked to assaults on women and children and other Indigenous people in the Territory. Indigenous women in this country are 31 times more likely to be hospitalised because of assault by a partner or from familial abuse than non-Indigenous women; in the Northern Territory, it is about 80 times. We tried to implement alcohol management in the Northern Territory, which was supposed to be supported by the coalition government when they were in opposition. However, they have gone slow on alcohol management plans. Also, they have not said a peep about the CLP government in the Northern Territory, whose policies have opened the door to more alcohol abuse and more assaults in the Northern Territory.

A submission given to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs by the Northern Territory police—that is, a union submission—mentioned by the way in relation to this legislation before the chamber that there is a direct correlation between alcohol abuse, assaults, violence and criminality in the Northern Territory. What is the government doing here, in relation to this legislation? They are saying, 'We don't think an independent review is required under the legislation for the operation of Commonwealth and Northern Territory laws relating to alcohol in the Northern Territory.' That takes from the transparency and accountability that a review of how those policies are impacting in the Northern Territory would provide. This is what they are saying. As a member of the standing committee looking at alcohol management in Indigenous communities, I say that the trouble is that the Northern Territory government is not cooperating with this standing committee. It has stifled evidence again and again and has been stopping us from getting that evidence

We have had non-cooperation from their colleagues and comrades in the Northern Territory and they are proposing that, because we have got an inquiry now and there is another formal review that the government is doing with the Northern Territory, that is good enough. I do not think it is good enough, to be honest with you. The other thing is simply getting rid of a provision that we think has some merit in relation to getting rid of the minister's power to request the Northern Territory government to appoint an assessor to conduct an assessment where they have not got the power to enforce the assessment in relation to licensing premises in certain circumstances. We think that is appropriate. The government has really over-egged itself in terms of this legislation before the chamber.

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it quite amusing that the member for Blair came to us today and said that Labor have done a great job with deregulation and taking out so many regulations. If that was the case, why have we got so many industry associations and so many businesses that come and speak to me and to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and say, 'We need to change this: we need to get rid of the compliance here and reduce the red tape there'? If they did their job properly, we would not be here today.

What are we doing? We are making some really significant changes in so many areas and it is important to our country because the reduction of not only red tape but also compliance costs will make it easier for businesses and easier for government departments. I have been working with the parliamentary secretary, as many of us have over the year, to address these blockages and get some real results. So whether I speak to those associated with the health industry or the freight and logistics councils at a national level, they say to me, 'Yes, we're talking to Josh, yes, he's moving on this and making some real inroads.' That is why we are here today to announce some of these important changes.

In my state at a local level I have been talking to many industry associations such as resources and energy, the freight council, restaurant and catering, aged care, building and construction and local government. All of them say that there are areas of red tape and compliance that we need to do better with. That is what we have done.

On energy and resources, I want to talk about the environmental approvals. We have two of the key players here. The Minister for the Environment has done very well working with the South Australian Labor government. I do not often have reason to give credit to the South Australian Labor government—the member for Makin might be interested in this as well—but they have done well to sign a bilateral agreement to streamline environmental assessments as part of the Commonwealth government's one-stop shop reform. As we know, these new agreements create a single environmental assessment process and, in particular, they remove the duplication of federal, state and territory planning, which adds to time and costs for environmental approvals. Importantly, they save around $420 million a year.

We have even got a former Labor minister, Martin Ferguson, who sees the wisdom in this policy who says it is a priority to implement. We hope all will get on board with this important initiative so that it can progress important projects such as job creation projects in my home state, including many in the mining sector, that require approvals at the environmental and planning stage. We have seen delays happen at Olympic Dam with BHP Billiton. This has been an issue in the past and we need to get our head around it and make some changes, as we have proposed, going forward. We had two-and-a-half years after the initial release for public consultation of the environmental approvals to when it was actually approved. This is the type of situation we need to prevent.

On key areas of importance for my state in terms of defence: the Defence Materiel Organisation will benefit from e-tendering project facilities to facilitate the electronic communication of tender requirements—$2.6 million in compliance costs saved. The Australian Standard for Defence Contracting templates is another important initiative that will reduce between five to 10 days of work for industry—another $1 million of compliance costs removed. I mentioned resources and energy before. The non-defence use of the Woomera prohibited area has been put through and it is an important initiative to simplify the process by which mining and resources businesses gain access to this area by introducing standard permit arrangements.

In terms of small business, as outlined in the 2014 autumn repeal day we have got a helpline to assist small business owners with advice on employee wages and workplace laws. I know from my wife's experience and others who talk to me in small business that these changes in laws and the information they need in some of these more technical areas are sometimes beyond them. So that is where this helpline is of great importance.

Finally, I just want to refer to a couple of other things affecting other sectors of our economy. One is the financial reporting for the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, so that they submit the same financial reports on their annual information statements, and the other is ATO's new online tax service, myTax. Generally across government there are a whole lot of different initiatives in terms of online point of access for government services that are important changes. Local clubs and organisations who are limited by guarantee with less than $1 million in revenue no longer require an auditor. This was previously required through audited financial reports. Again, these are important changes. Today Deloitte released a report showing the impact of red tape—costing $27 billion to administer.

We need to keep chipping away, keep making inroads and keep getting results. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Josh Frydenberg; the Prime Minister, who is driving this as well; and ministers, like the environment minister who is here, are doing a great job of getting results and helping businesses and government organisations for a better society.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a lot of fuss and feet-stamping and stomping around the place! They are like kids who have just learned how to play in a new playground. They have just been given a new playground in the last 12 months and here the Liberals are in government, stomping around going, 'Look at me, look at me, look at all the great things we are doing.' The only problem is, they are just not doing anything that great. In fact, they are just doing the ordinary, mundane, everyday work that parliaments do and have done since time immemorial. Parliaments do this every single day.

In fact, when Labor was in government we got rid of some 16,734 pieces of regulation. We did not make a song and dance about because there was no need—it is the ordinary work of government. That is what government does. It is meant to introduce new and improved regulations to make people's lives better and allow small business people to enjoy better protections and have more efficient systems of government and taxation and a whole range of things. At the same time, it should take away regulations that are redundant, superfluous, outdated and just do not do anything. To take away hyphens, commas, full stops, dot points and misspellings within acts is fine—all of that Labor supports. In fact, we support the bills that are before us, because there is nothing extraordinary or even ordinary in here; it is less than ordinary.

The three bills we are discussing today are the government's so-called repeal day legislation. There should be a repeal day every single day. Why leave it to just one day? Why should the parliament stop its ordinary work to have this special day where the government says: 'Look at us. Please give us a medal for doing our work'? It is the equivalent of ordinary workers who go to work every day and saying, 'On Monday I want a medal for going to work.' That is what the minister wants. He wants a medal for doing his job. Most people are happy to have the job and do the job. They may get accolades later but not before they have done it. The minister has not even done it yet and he wants the accolades and the medal today.

The country is stopping on the repeal day. This is so important for the government. On top of wanting a medal for it they want to have their own special day. This is the Liberal Party's special day. They go: 'Look at us. We want a special day so we can repeal the sort of stuff that was around in 1910, 1920 and 1930 that does not apply to anyone.' They have this whole hullabaloo over all this stuff. I actually feel sorry for the member for Kooyong because very soon—and it might even be today—he is going to run out of dot points, hyphens, misspellings and commas. He comes in here claiming he is going to fix the budget and the woes of the world comma by comma—'We will fix the economy comma by comma and dot point by dot point. We will take away the misspellings and redundant pieces of legislation.'

All that would be a lot of fun. I would enjoy it and I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would too. You would enjoy it. We could all come in here and have a national repeal day. I know let us have a national turn up to work day. Let us have a national we will talk in parliament day. Let us have a national the sun came up this morning day. Let us have the Liberal Party is really great day. Why don't we just do one of those? It will make them feel a lot better.

Why don't the government actually do something real? This stuff here—and I will be very kind and fair here—is just rubbish. It is rubbish because it just does not do anything. There is a whole heap of fuss over absolutely nothing. The Labor Party are prepared to support this not on the basis that it is great or does anything outstanding or changes the world; just because it is something we would do every day of the week anyway. We will let it slide through. It is nothing special. We do not disagree with the government that we should take away commas that are in the wrong place, fix the misspellings and all the rest of it. It is a shame that the government try to pin badges on themselves and give themselves medals for doing this and say that somehow they are going to save all of us from something they have created in the first place.

The tragedy though—the really bad news—is that they are using this as a mask or a cloak because in other bills they are taking away consumer protection laws and regulations. Those good regulations are designed to protect ordinary mums and dads from losing not just hundreds of thousands of dollars but, for some, their whole life savings. I have seen it. I am tired of it. I am sure some members of the Liberal Party are tired of seeing ordinary working people lose their life savings to scammers and fraudsters. Labor worked very hard with the sector and the industry for many years to change the culture, lift the standards and lift education to make sure that in financial services we can protect people as best we can. It is sad but there are unfortunately people who do bad things and some of those bad things lead to people losing their life savings. What did we see this government do in the name of deregulation? It took away the consumer protection laws that we put in place that were designed to help protect them.

What else did the government do with this so-called repeal of regulations? They took away from small business $4 billion worth of assistance. The member for Kooyong is still in the chamber. It is nice to see him listening to me. I am obviously saying things that are important enough for him to stay, so I thank him. The member for Kooyong should have a very close look at how much money the government—the so-called friends of small business—have taken away from small business. Small business used $4 billion worth of direct assistance. Small business in this country benefited to the tune of more than $4 billion in direct assistance that Labor put in place to help them through a range of things such as tough economic times and to reduce the regulatory burden and red tape to make life easier for them.

On their first day on the job what did the so-called friends of small business, the Liberal Party, do? They smashed it. They took away more than $4 billion worth of direct assistance. There was the tax loss carry back, which meant that small business could improve their cash flow position and could invest in new equipment and people. There was the instant asset write-off, which under the Liberal Party was $1,000. When Labor got to government we gave small business $6,000 because we understood that this was a really important measure. Our policy at the last election was to take that to $10,000 because we know that small business will make best use of that assistance by investing it, and the only way they can get it is by investing in their business.

People can stick badges on themselves. I am getting the drift here too of what the government are actually about—and I thank the member for Kooyong. They want a medal for turning up to work every day. They love to drape the flag over themselves and talk about grandiose things. Now they want to have conversations about the Federation. Where have they been for the last 100 years? We have all been having conversations about the Federation. Is this Rip Van Winkle hour or something? Suddenly they have discovered there is a Federation and there may be some efficiency issues and to deal with those they have to work with the states. Well, hello? Hello, Liberal Party? Is there anyone inside? Is there anyone home?

This is the stuff that governments do every single day of the week. You do not need a special day off for it, a day off from the ordinary work of the parliament, so we can hear the Minister for Small Business. I am listening for him, but there is dead silence. I cannot hear the Minister for Small Business. Where is the Minister for Small Business? Shouldn't he be banging the table and saying, 'We are the best friend of small business.' They love to badge themselves. I am really picking up the theme here. They cloak themselves in defence, national security and the Australian flag. Under that cloak you can do whatever you like and no-one can criticise you. Once you drape the flag over yourself, you are safe. Anything you do is in the name of national security so it is just okay. Where is the Minister for Small Business, who drapes the Australian flag over himself and says he is the best friend of small business? Where is he? I thank those in the gallery. I hope I gave you a little bit of good news and some entertainment.

When the Minister for Small Business remains silent on key issues within his portfolio that directly impact on small business negatively he is being derelict. It is derelict of his duty, derelict of his position and a snub to small business. Small-business people are hard-working people. I hear him, whether he is at the dispatch box or talking to some group, talk about the love that he has for small business. I would say to him: show some, stand up for small business and give them back some of the things that Labor had already put in place that the minister and the Liberal government have taken away. Do not just keep professing your love for small business; demonstrate it, show that love and give them something back because you took it away.

On his first day on the job, the Minister for Small Business's duty was to take an axe and wield it across small business, basically defund assistance programs and then claim credit for all the things we put in place—online reporting, streamlining of the Superannuation Clearing House, business name registrations. The list goes on and on of the hard work, the hard lifting and the stuff we got criticised for because the implementation is always complex and difficult. But, as a government, that is your job. That is what you are elected to do. So we went and did it. The Liberals then came to government, claimed credit for it and now they say 'look at us' while they drape themselves in a badge of repeal day.

It is the Liberal Party day-off day. The interesting thing about the Liberal Party day off today is they had a whole heap of their members on the list to speak on this stuff. They gagged their own members because their own members did not have anything to say. This is outrageous that we have this in the parliament.

Other people might say, and you would have heard this figure thrown around the place, there will be $2 billion worth of savings. Let us have a look for savings today. What are the savings contained in the omnibus repeal day bill as per the Liberal Party and as per what the bills say? Wait for it; it is not in the billions, it is not in the hundreds of millions and it is not even in the tens of millions—we getting down to really small numbers. Imagine the trillions of dollars that are in the national economy. Apparently the savings identified in this bill are a tidy $1.335 million. So all the hullabaloo, all the fuss, all the foot stamping around the place was for 1.1 $.335 million.

I welcome the one million bucks. This is good news, of course it is. But it just does not deserve the Liberal Party having a day off. Today is national Liberal Party day-off day and Tony Abbott wants two of these a year. He has already had a day-off day and now he wants to have another Liberal Party day-off day where they do not have to do much because the bills are here. They do not want speak on it because they have gagged their own speakers. So what are they going to do for the day? They can all just go and have a rest. There will be no divisions on this stuff because Labor is supporting it.

It is the Liberal Party have a day off day. Everybody else has to go to work. Everybody else does not get a medal for turning up on Wednesday to work, except the Liberal Party. They want a day off and they want a medal too. They want a medal for not turning up for work. This is just unbelievable.

Deregulation should be about deregulation. What are we actually looking at? What is in these bills? There are no deregulatory savings attached to the bills. So, minus claimed savings that are so small they are effectively, in budgeting terms, zero, have a look at what this represents in the claimed overall figure. The claimed overall figure they are going to save is $2 billion—there are a lot of zeros attached to that one. But according to the bill today—national Liberal Party day off repeal day—it will be 0.1 per cent. Where is the rest of it—you would have to start asking the question.

Apparently we are going to have two more of these repeal days. On the basis of just two so far, if we want to work down sliding scale, if it starts up here then it hits the floor on day 2. What does day 3 look like? When we get to No. 3 it is going to be the interesting bit. When they run out of commas, dot points, hyphenations and other bits of redundant legislation, what is next? I do not know. Maybe the next Liberal Party speaker can enlighten us on what they are going to get rid of next.

I know what they are doing though. They are slashing funding to small business, slashing funding to universities, increasing university fees to $100,000 and introducing a new GP tax. They said there would be no new taxes and no increased taxes yet what we are seeing are not only new taxes but also increased taxes. And then they claim that increasing the indexation is not an increase. Well, if it is not an increase then why did the Treasurer come in yesterday and say, 'Sure it is going to cost you more but it is only a little bit.' So, yes, it is going to hurt you but it is only going to hurt you a little. I get the nuance. Some in the Liberal Party say it is not an increase; it is actually a decrease. Others say it is going to hurt a little bit. Whether it hurts a little bit or a lot, it is still a broken promise. A broken promise is a broken promise.

The Prime Minister, when in opposition, came in again wrapping himself in the Australian flag, cloaking himself in national security and carrying on about getting rid of red tape. It is going to get rid of so much red tape you get the impression there is going to be none left. They are talking about compliance, defence and all the rest of it. The Liberal Party's trajectory and view on this is: let's get rid of red tape. The impression is that it is going to get down to zero. There will be no red tape, no compliance, no need to adhere to any rules, no regulations. I am with you, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, it would probably be taking it too far, wouldn't it? I agree 100 per cent. If it cannot be down to zero compliance, there must be some compliance. Why do we have regulations and laws? Why do we have compliance? Because it is actually good for people to have laws on the road to protect them and keep them safe, laws for small business to protect them and keep them safe from predators and big business, and a whole range of other really good things. Today is a farce. It is the national Liberal Party day-off day. (Time expired)

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring) Bill 2014. The measures in this bill will have a significant impact on reducing red tape across a range of portfolio areas. In the time available to me, I would like to make three points: firstly, unnecessary red tape is a serious problem facing our nation and our economy; secondly, the Abbott government is determined to reduce red tape; and, thirdly, in the communications sector—for which I have some portfolio responsibility as parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Communications—the minister and I have a strong focus on reducing red tape.

Let's start with the general proposition that red tape is a serious problem in our economy. It is clear that the prevalence of red tape has a negative impact on productivity. If you compare how Australia performs against other nations in the world, in 2014 we ranked 124th out of 148 countries for the burden of government regulation in the World Competitiveness Index. The cost of doing business in Australia relative to other nations is too high—simply too high. The Productivity Commission, for example, estimates that regulatory compliance costs could amount to as much as four per cent of Australia's GDP—that is a staggering number.

And I would like to acknowledge here the outstanding work done while the coalition was in opposition by our red-tape reduction task force, chaired by Senator Arthur Sinodinos, with deputy chairs Kelly O'Dwyer, the member for Higgins, and Senator David Bushby. In particular, I would like to quote from something that Senator Sinodinos said in a speech in 2012:

Unnecessary red tape is a contributing factor to Australia's productivity challenge. The Productivity Commission estimates that reducing red tape will boost national GDP by $12 billion a year. Across industry, it's believed red tape accounts on average for four per cent of business costs.

The second reason why red tape is a serious problem is its tendency to continue to grow. If government does not take decisive action the unfortunate reality is that red tape tends to be ever expanding. Reporting obligations which are in place and which have been put there for all the best reasons tend to grow and grow and grow. The great virtue of the promise that this government made—or that the coalition made when in opposition and that we are implementing now that we are in government—to have two repeal days a year is that you have a systematic and continuing focus on the growth of regulation and opportunities to remove regulation—regulation that has outlived its usefulness or regulation, the cost of which exceeds the benefit.

The need for this action in relation to regulation and in relation to red tape is only increased because we have the misfortune of succeeding a government in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government which showed an extraordinary enthusiasm for adding regulatory burden to the Australian economy. The Labor government—the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government—added over 21,000 new regulations and repealed 105, notwithstanding the promise made by the former Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, in 2007 that his government would have a 'one regulation in, one regulation out' policy. That was a promise that was never honoured.

And there is plenty of evidence of the pressure that this was imposing on participants in the economy. Let me refer you, for example, to the October 2012 National Red Tape Survey conducted by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This was a survey of 870 businesses across all states and territories, which found that 73 per cent of businesses believed that the overall regulatory compliance burden had increased in the previous two years and that 60 per cent of businesses spent more than $5,000 per annum directly on costs related to regulatory requirements. And there is a long and depressing list of regulatory burdens that were in place at the time that the previous government had completed its handiwork—for example, the national child care law of 180 pages plus an additional 345 pages of regulations and 1,149 pages of guidelines. There was the reality that universities typically have regulatory compliance departments with 15, 20 or more staff dedicated to ensuring compliance with over 100 separate state and federal acts. In Indigenous service delivery, as at the time that the previous government left office, there were more than 200 Indigenous related programs administered by 17 Commonwealth agencies. Each program had its own application form and processes. And there is the example from the resources sector of one particular project which required 4,000 meetings before approval was granted and on which 12,000 state and 300 Commonwealth conditions were ultimately placed.

So under the previous government we had a very enthusiastic set of regulators who added substantial new regulatory burdens on a continuing basis every day they turned up for work. The previous speaker, the member for Oxley, spoke about turning up for work. There is no doubt that the previous government saw its role as being to increase regulation. Indeed, the previous Manager of Government Business, the member for Grayndler, used to enjoy telling the House how many pieces of legislation had been passed, because the only metric that he seemed to think was important was how many new laws and how much additional regulatory burden had come into force. On this side of the House we take a different perspective. We want to carefully look at the laws and regulations that are in place and ask, 'Are they still fit for purpose? Are they still delivering benefits which exceed their costs?'

That brings me to the second proposition that I want to put today: the determination of the Abbott government to reduce red tape; to have a process which acts as a corrective to the institutional factors which drive red tape to increase. The approach that we have taken has been warmly welcomed by many sectors of the community. But I want to quote particularly somebody from the non-profit sector—the community sector. Tony Nicholson, the executive director of the Brotherhood of St Laurence said, 'We warmly welcome the government's red-tape reduction agenda. Streamlining our reporting and compliance requirements makes a real difference as it frees up resources to be directed towards helping disadvantaged young families.'

I think that is a very powerful reminder, in the context of that particular organisation's mission, that time and resources which are allocated to meeting compliance requirements and reporting requirements are time and resources which are diverted from the core mission of any organisation which is subject to regulation. That is something those on the opposite side are very happy to ignore but it is something that those on this side of the parliament are acutely conscious of.

That is one reason why in coming to government we have set a very aggressive target in terms of the dollar value of the savings we want to deliver in reduction in compliance costs. Pleasingly, we are at a point where we have reached a net reduction of over $2 billion in compliance costs so far. The bill before the House today continues this work by removing almost 1,000 pieces and some 7,200 pages of legislation and regulation. And it builds on the work of the first repeal day in March of this year, when over 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation and over $700 million of compliance costs were removed.

Thirdly, I would like to turn to some of the specific initiatives in the communications sector, where we are taking very seriously the importance of working to identify items of regulation which have served their purpose and are no longer required and where there is a capacity to remove that regulation and deliver benefit to industry participants and to consumers. That is of particular importance when you have a sector like the communications sector which is very heavily regulated and which is changing very quickly. As the technology is evolving at a rapid rate there are multiple instances of regulatory provisions which are no longer fit for purpose. They simply deal with, for example, industry practices or technologies which are no longer used. There is good potential to identify deregulatory initiatives in the communications sector and that has been the focus of the Minister for Communications and myself as his parliamentary secretary.

I want to highlight one set of measures in the legislation before the House this morning which is of importance in this general deregulatory thrust in the communications portfolio. Throughout the legislation in the portfolio there are extensive and prescriptive requirements in relation to consultation. For example, section 87A(9) of the Broadcasting Services Act requires the Australian Communications and Media Authority to seek public comment before imposing, varying or revoking conditions of a community TV license. Section 126 of the Broadcasting Services Act requires the Australian Communications and Media Authority to seek public comment before determining, varying or revoking a program standard under part 9 of the act. There are similar provisions in the Interactive Gambling Act, the Radiocommunications Act and the Telecommunications Act—all of them quite prescriptive and detailed. But this is the point: at the same time there is a general regime applicable to all regulators, including the Australian Communications and Media Authority and other agencies within the communications portfolio. Section 17 of the Legislative Instruments Act requires that a rule maker, subject to limited exceptions must be satisfied that appropriate and reasonably practicable consultation has been undertaken prior to making a legislative instrument. That is a good principle. Of course, there ought to be reasonable and appropriate consultation before a legislative instrument is made. But when that principle is in place and has the force of law and applies as a general principle across the activities of all regulators and all rule makers, it really does cause you to ask the question: why do we additionally have a series of specific provisions which do exactly the same thing? One of the changes contained in the bills before the House this morning is to remove a series of provisions in the communications portfolio pieces of legislation which set out specific consultation requirements on the basis that the general requirement to consult, in section 17 of the Legislative Instruments Act, will remain in place.

I want to emphasise that there is not going to be any variance of the general principle of the importance of consultation, but that duplication will be removed and potentially there will be more flexibility in the mode of consultation, provided it meets that overriding test of being appropriate and reasonably practicable.

The measures in the bills with regard to the communications portfolio are important ones and they complement other measures that we are taking as part of this second repeal day. For example, we are moving to a one-time sign-up system for the Do Not Call Register. The importance of this is that there are some nine million telephone numbers on the Do Not Call Register and it would hitherto have been a requirement, had we not made this change, that all of those people who are on the register would have been required to renew their registration, because there was a time limit on the previous status of having your number on the register. We have removed that requirement and that reflects the fact that millions of people have exercised a choice; they have made a conscious choice and we have removed the requirement for them to have to reregister. That is going to save a lot of time and money.

Another reform which reduces red tape in the communications portfolio is a relaxation of the requirements applying to so-called battery backup for the National Broadband Network. Under the previous government's approach, consumers were required to have a battery backup system installed, regardless of their desire or need to have one. It was decreed by the then minister, Senator Conroy. He knew best and all consumers needed to have a battery backup system. Of course, many consumers may not want or need one. Many have indicated that they would be happy to rely upon their mobile phone connection for voice services in the event of a power failure. Indeed, the statistics show that only 75 per cent of Australian adults had a fixed line in the home as at December 2013. In other words, a quarter of Australians today have made an active choice to rely on their mobile phones for voice services—including, of course, in an emergency. Our approach is very different to the centralised Conrovian compulsion which characterised the previous government. I am pleased to say that on the question of battery backup, the fresh daylight of choice and freedom is rising and banishing the grim and leaden darkness of Conrovia. We are enabling informed choices on battery backup installations, leading to an annual saving estimated at over $20 million in compliance costs.

The coalition government is seizing the opportunity to reduce the regulatory cost of business across many sectors, including the communications sector. Let's remember why we are doing it: as a means to stimulate business activity, economic growth and jobs.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. Obviously that word 'omnibus' is not used in everyday language so I thought I had better do a bit of research. I notice the member for Flinders is here so I went to his favourite research tool, Wikipedia, and also the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary just to calibrate. The definition of 'omnibus' is given as a volume containing several novels. I do not think that is what we are talking about here. If we combined a couple of novels such as when my third novel comes out and if we were to put all three together, that might be an omnibus. We are not talking about that. The other meaning for omnibus is an old word for a bus. Certainly all lawyers would have heard of the expression 'the man on the Clapham omnibus'. I will read from Wikipedia which says:

… a hypothetical reasonable person, used by the courts in English law where it is necessary to decide whether a party has acted as a reasonable person would—for example, in a civil action for negligence. The man on the Clapham omnibus is a reasonably educated and intelligent but nondescript person, against whom the defendant's conduct can be measured.

In Australia the Clapham omnibus equivalent expression would be, 'the man on the Bondi tram, or 'the man on the Bourke Street tram'. I did not realise that Bondi had a tram, but you get the expression of what an omnibus would be.

Certainly the man on the Clapham omnibus would say of this piece of legislation that has been dragged into this chamber today: 'Who are you trying to kid that this is some big celebratory day, this repeal day, when this is just the everyday work of government.' This is what governments do. When Labor was in government we repealed 16,794 acts and regulations during our time in office, but we did not put out a press release saying it. We did not make speeches, we did not walk the corridors saying, 'Where's my medal for turning up for work?' We did not walk around saying, 'This is fantastic. We are the best government ever.' I see that the member for Gippsland is here, so he would know about this: I think you do actually get a medal in the military for turning up for work, but that is after three years, which is my understanding. The member might be able to inform me on that. I do not think they give out medals just for turning up for one year and just for actually doing your job. This is ridiculous.

We have had press releases saying that this is the best thing since sliced bread. Really, this is just the Liberal Party politicians day off, as described by the member for Oxley. This is not worthy of a press release and certainly is not worthy of members. I heard the member for Kooyong say on Sky this morning that this was spring cleaning. If his job was spring cleaning and he did this, where he said that the three bills are part of the $2 billion delivery of savings, well, the claimed deregulatory savings are $1,855,000 or just 0.1 per cent of the figure claimed by the government. The member for Kooyong said that this is his spring-cleaning effort. If he were a cleaner, he would be sacked. He would not even be performance managed, he would be thrown out of the house and told, 'This is not cleaning'. For him to claim that this is a significant thing is ridiculous. Obviously deregulation, as every sensible politician knows, is the everyday work of government. We can see it, because we are actually debating this piece of legislation, the everyday work of government, in the House rather than in the Federation Chamber. This exposes the facade and exposes the paucity of a legislative agenda of those opposite.

It is great that we see it through the prism of the death of Gough Whitlam, that great reformer. Sure, he had a few years in opposition to craft his agenda. When he came into office, he quickly, within 14 days, had done so much. He had upgraded the Office of Aboriginal Affairs to ministerial level. I say that in the presence of the member for Lingiari. Within 30 days of gaining office the Whitlam government had ended conscription—that birthday ballot—and brought our troops home from Vietnam, and introduced many other significant things that changed society. I will not go back over them because the eulogies and other speeches have detailed them. But that is the prism through which we look at this repeal day, this omnibus repeal day, or more accurately called 'the Liberal day-off day'.

The reality is the government do not have a good, strong, legislative agenda. You would think that after four years in opposition under the Prime Minister's leadership, under the member for Warringah's leadership, they would have mapped out a bit of a plan and had an agenda. They kept saying, 'We're going to be the experienced government, because we'll have experienced Howard government ministers.' Ironically they turned out to be complete duds. It is the new people coming through, the younger people elected after the Howard government, that are actually seen to have a bit of skill and ability. These other people have become a joke almost.

This legislation, claimed by the government to be this magnificent attempt to deregulate and reduce taxes, is really what governments do. Every government does it. The bill before the House has been spun by the government as part of a promise to deregulate $2.3 billion, but they should not be walking the corridors saying, 'Where's my medal?' and lining up at the whip's office when all they have done is the work of every government. It is actually articulating the work of the public servants who do all this sorting out of redundant materials and reviews that have occurred and the like, crossing out commas, changing the old word for 'email' to the new word for 'email'. That is not something that you should be celebrating as a government, seriously. After all those years, while the member for Warringah has been leader, you would think he would have a stronger agenda.

Obviously the government has been a disappointment in so many ways, not only in this legislation, but in the commitment as to what would happen before the election and what happened after the election as there is a great yawning chasm. We have heard it all—there would be no cuts to pensions, no surprises, no cuts to the ABC, no cuts to SBS, no rise in the GST. I think there was a promise about no petrol tax. I am sure the Nationals are still fuming over the way they were tricked by the member for Mayo into bringing a tax onto the bush, because that is really what this will be. We are all paying more at the petrol bowser and that is going to be a tax on the bush. I am sure the National Party are still furious about the way they were tricked.

When we were in government, like all sensible governments, we took a sensible, methodical approach to reducing red tape. What we see here today is smoke and mirrors, and not anywhere near the saving that had been promised by those out in the corridors. They were desperate for something to talk about in their electorates, desperate to be able to say, 'This is something good that we have done.' If you look at the front of their electorate offices, there are tumbleweeds rolling past waiting for the MPs to come out. They are in hiding and they are scared of this budget. Has there ever been more of a stinking carcass of a budget foisted on the Australian people? I do not think so.

The only highlight in the retail of this budget was when the Treasurer was overseas. That was the only time when there was some time for the Australian people to understand it. But, unfortunately for the coalition government, the Treasurer is back. He has already flagged that there might even be further cuts when the budget is reviewed in December.

Before the election, the now Prime Minister and now Treasurer fabricated a crisis around the budget. But everyone knows, whilst there are some challenges coming, the budget was actually in a strong position. Obviously there have been some increases in spending since the coalition—the Liberal Party and the National Party—took government, but the fault for that lies at their door. They misled voters time and time again when they talked about spending on welfare and even something as simple as building submarines in the great state of South Australia. There was a simple commitment from the then shadow defence minister, who said, 'We will build submarines in South Australia.' There was not any spin or weasel words; David Johnston is a straight-shooting guy. I think he should honour that commitment.

The budget has lots of challenges, but I will return to the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) legislation before the chamber—or, as I call it, the 'Liberal Party politicians' day off' legislation. I listened to the few speeches that have been given on this. I see there is a very, very long speaking list. I would have thought those opposite would have been lining up to celebrate this, but perhaps they have been gagged. I notice that they can only speak for five minutes or so each. I look forward to the great contributions celebrating this 'turning up for work' legislation.

I note in this context that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor was one of the so-called bits of red tape that the government sought to get rid of. The earlier farcical repeal day wanted to get rid of this critical oversight office. They called it red tape. They sought to repeal the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, an organisation dedicated to reviewing Australia's counter-terrorism and national security legislation. It is an office that does great work. They say 'red tape'; we say 'checks and balances'. It is appropriate that government have some people monitoring what goes on in the area of particularly security legislation where so often we are compromising freedoms, liberty and individual choices. It is balanced with safety; I understand that. It is not done willy-nilly. It is done for a reason. But we also need checks and balances. We have seen, as the Snowdon documents revelations have shown, that government is not necessarily going to self-regulate well. Sometimes we need that independent oversight.

I note that we have had six or seven months without that office being filled in an environment where we are bringing in lots of important legislation that people have a lot of concerns about. I have been receiving lots of emails. The next wave of legislation, particularly dealing with metadata, has a lot of people in my electorate concerned. It is important that we have that Independent National Security Legislation Monitor role filled. I would urge the Attorney-General to do his job and fill that role. That position has been vacant since April and, in a time of great change, this is not acceptable. It is a hard role to fill, but I am sure that an appropriately credentialled and experienced monitor should be able to be found shortly and put in place.

By insisting on dramatically shortened sunset periods on statutory reviews both by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and by the committee, we improved the legislation that will come before this chamber in the near future.

Obviously red tape can be synonymous with checks and balances. Good government gets rid of unnecessary red tape. That is what good governments do. But, please, do not come in here, beating your chests, saying, 'We turned up for work.' It is ridiculous turning up and asking, 'Where is my medal for getting rid of some legislation?' As I said, when Labor were in office for six years, we repealed 16,794 acts and regulations. Most of that sort of work took place up in the Federation Chamber. I know I spoke on some of those bits of legislation. They were incredibly tedious and incredibly boring. That is the work of government. That is what government should continue to do.

But for the Liberal and National parties to say, 'This is the best thing since sliced bread,' just shows that they have no vision. This fortnight we have talked about what leaders with vision can achieve for this nation, even flawed leaders, as we have acknowledged of the late Mr Whitlam. We need the nation's leaders to have courage, not to be looking in the footlights and trying to spin cutting red tape as a great thing.

At the very same time we have the Prime Minister walking around the country saying, 'We need to have a discussion about Federation,' he needs to show a little bit of leadership in this chamber and in his party room. The reality is that this government does not have a serious vision. They have been disgraceful when it comes to acting on climate change. They successfully won on that at the election, but now we have been betrayed by the lack of action in the Direct Action policy, which seems to have evaporated. Even when it comes in, it will be neither direct nor have any action.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill is about good governance. As times change, many issues of governance change with those times. Rules and regulations become obsolete, and the coalition government is taking steps to ensure business and the Australian people are not weighed down with needless imposition by government into their lives. Not only that but rescinding these unnecessary measures saves money for the government and business. This means the coalition government can once again proceed to pull Australia out of the deficit disaster and financial mire in which we were left well and truly bogged by Labor and ensure business has more time and more money with which to employ Australians.

Interestingly, I had the pleasure to be on Mornings with Steve Austin on 612 ABC Brisbane last week with the member for Oxley. He commented, as did the member for Moreton just now, that these repeal bills were nothing special—that repealing unnecessary legislation was just a part of governing. He also said that while in power Labor had repealed thousands of pieces of redundant legislation but had done so without fanfare. The lack of fanfare could have been because, at the end of the day, there was a net increase—21,000 extra pieces of legislation—under Labor.

The member for Moreton called repealing redundant legislation 'a politician's day off' and said that they had done everything without fanfare. In fact, however, then Prime Minister Rudd had a red-tape website. Under his smiling face, you could apply to get a fact sheet about red tape. So perhaps there was not as little fanfare as the member for Moreton recalls. The claim that they quietly cut red tape with a lack of fanfare is hard to believe—because the previous Rudd, Gillard and Rudd governments would turn up to the opening of an envelope if it got them media coverage. They even organised media for events that never occurred, such as when they published glossy brochures announcing they had delivered a surplus, which we know they never did. Lastly and most significantly, these repeal days actually save money—and we know that those opposite know nothing about saving money.

If what the member for Oxley said were true, then why is it necessary for this government to abolish the Fishing Industry Policy Council? Formed in 1991 by the last true Labor leader, Bob Hawke, it has met precisely zero times since its creation 23 years ago. Why is it necessary for us, the coalition, to repeal the Papua and New Guinea Loan (International Bank) Act 1970 when the loan it refers to was finalised and paid back 20 years ago when Keating was Prime Minister? Perhaps, though, we should leave that act in place as a reminder to those opposite that loans do need to be repaid.

If, as the member for Oxley—if no-one else—claims, Labor are so good at cleaning up, why are Australians of all ages, from those born today to those passing today, indebted to the tune of $15,000 each to the former Labor-Greens alliance government? A child born right now, this very minute I am speaking, is in debt because of the reckless inability of Labor and their Greens henchmen to stop burning a hole in the national credit card. We have heard a lot in this place, since the passing of Gough Whitlam, about legacy. That debt is the legacy of the last Labor rotation behind the wheel—the car crashed sideways into a tree because too many people were trying to drive and our economy was whisked away from the scene of the crime to be placed on life support.

Those opposite drone on endlessly about rising costs, about students maybe having to pay extra for their education. That would not even be an issue if mum, dad and their two children did not have a $60,000 millstone around their necks courtesy of 'the best Treasurer in the world'. Perhaps we need an omnibus edition of a new bill, one that garnishees the member for Lilley's parliamentary salary to pay the Australian taxpayer back for his hubris. I would dub the member for Lilley the Icarus of economics—except that Icarus at least made it off the ground.

The coalition government has realised more than $2 billion in savings in just two repeal days—more than double our savings target and enough money to build hospitals, to build schools, to give a pension increase or to help pay off a tiny fraction of the economic chasm left by those opposite. Frankly, listening to the other side of the chamber attempting to blame-shift is becoming as trite and transparent as the emperor's new clothes. The coalition government would prefer to spend money on those things that enhance the lives and experiences of Australians, yet we remain hobbled by a debt not of our making.

Despite the economic shambles we inherited, the coalition is governing for all Australians, not just the vested interests of Labor and its union puppeteers. I urge those opposite to remove the puppeteer's arm from the back of their shirts and support this bill for the good of Australia—to free up business to spend more time on creating wealth and jobs and to save government a significant amount of money. I congratulate the member for Kooyong on this bill and for the significant savings it will make in time and money, savings which will in turn boost productivity. I commend this bill to the House.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know why the member for Ryan is in here crowing about the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014 and its related bills. I was not going to respond to her comments, but since she made some insensitive car crash analogies, I think it is appropriate to remind her about the extra $5.1 million in compliance costs for business that this government has just added with its new petrol tax arrangements. These are the small businesses—the franchisees—for whom the coalition claim to be reducing red tape. They have now imposed extra red tape on every service station in my electorate. My electorate is located in Western Sydney where, contrary to the Treasurer's understanding, we rely on cars—all of us. In some suburbs where public transport is at a premium or nonexistent, there are households with two cars in the double garage and two more on the driveway. If I were the member for Ryan, I would not come in here and crow about this bill when her government has today added to the compliance costs of hundreds of small businesses and franchisees, including those in her own electorate.

I am very pleased to continue my tradition of appearances in debates on statute stocktakes and other spent legislation repeal instruments. Back in the day, there would only ever be one or two speakers on these bills. How delightful to see that we have so many people listed to speak on these bills today. Because I am a former lawyer with a deep interest in statutory interpretation and administrative law principles, I always try to make these debates interesting and have provided some wide-ranging comments in the past. Members might like to cast their minds back to, for example, the debate on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2012, in which I recalled an Irish stocktake where they repealed thousands of pieces of legislation. Their review identified a staggering 63,000 statutes as spent legislation or statutes that should be repealed. I discussed the development of Hong Kong competition law. My gem was 'why commas matter'. There was a very interesting case from 2006, Rogers Communications v Bell Alliant, where a comma made the difference in a contract dispute worth a large amount of money. I had the opportunity to comment on High Court appointments. To my great delight, on one occasion the now Minister for Communications commented that 'such bills do not elicit great oratory' but that my contribution had been an exception. You take compliments where you can get them!

Speaking of great oratory, just to be instructive about what we are dealing with here today I want to quote not myself but someone else who has spoken on similar bills that have come before the House previously:

This stocktake bill, being the seventh since 1934, forms part of an ongoing process to clean up the statute book by repealing legislation that is simply redundant. That is all it does: repeal 84 old annual appropriations acts, as has been done for appropriation acts from 1901 to 1999 … the current stocktake bill is not a controversial bill by any stretch of the imagination; it is simply housekeeping …

While this bill is worthwhile and we support the nature of the bill and the removal of those acts from the statute law, again this is tidying up and housekeeping. This bill does not make any changes with regard to the easing of regulatory burden on business as suggested in explanatory memorandum. It can hardly be described as a feature of a meaningful deregulation agenda to remove some appropriations acts that applied over three years some 20 years ago. Things from 20 years ago are some of the things we are tidying up.

They are very true words—it was a great speech and I have taken the opportunity to read it. It was made by the member for Wright on 29 May 2013. We can apply the words of the member for Wright here today, and I thank him for bringing these thoughts to my attention on a previous occasion. He is spot on when it comes to what these housekeeping bills actually are.

I would like to focus on some of the specific elements of schedule 2 of the legislation, dealing with the communications sphere—specifically the Broadcasting Services Act and the Radiocommunications Act. I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications talk about some of these provisions and I too would like to pick up on some of them. Part 2 of the amending legislation deals with repealing certain consultation requirements before certain legislative instruments are made—removing what are called amendments relating to consultation requirements in the Broadcasting Services Act, and also the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 and the RadComms Act. I understand from the EM and from the bill itself that this is because the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 contains, in part 3, section 17, a requirement that rule makers should consult before making legislative instruments. There are related provisions dealing with circumstances where consultation may be unnecessary or inappropriate and also consequences of the failure to consult.

Whilst I understand the legislative intent is that we already have the Legislative Instruments Act which contains those provisions, and therefore there is no need for duplication in those specific communications related pieces of legislation, I want to question from a practitioner's point of view whether that is desirable. I am happy to stand corrected if this is indeed a precedent in other pieces of legislation that the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and the drafters have recommended, but I did have a cursory overview about whether such repeal is commonplace and I could not see anything to support that. As I said, I am happy to stand corrected. I would have thought that one of the golden rules of statutory interpretation was that you should be able to pick up a piece of legislation and read it on its own without having to go to other instruments or other pieces of legislation to deal with very particular aspects of that specific provision. I do not see, in this proposed amendment, that there is going to be, for example, a box with a note saying, 'For consultation requirements refer to the Legislative Instruments Act, part 3, section 17.' I would have thought that, in light of our emphasis on plain English drafting, that would have been something that was desirable. It is not too hard to read a piece of legislation—and you should always, of course, have the Acts Interpretation Act next to you—but if you have to have a third act next to you, just in case, I wonder whether that will affect the way the bill is interpreted in everyday legal practice and in everyday regulatory practice, not only by the industry but by practitioners themselves. I note the comments from the government that this is not a reduction in consultation requirements but I do query how it is to be read and, seriously, whether it would be desirable for there to be a reference to consultation provisions being in the Legislative Instruments Act. To give this a bit of strength from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, I did quote them in a contribution on 28 May last year:

The Office of Parliamentary Counsel states some of the drivers of complexity in legislation and give some common examples …

Those examples include:

a tendency to respond to events with legislative changes even when legislation is not necessary to address the issues …

I do not know whether this was a specific item the industry said needed to be taken out, but the point I make is that this could end up being more complicated in practice for practitioners to deal with because all those provisions are removed from those three primary acts and now we simply have a reference—not even a reference, as far as I can see—to the Legislative Instruments Act.

The parliamentary secretary also mentioned changes to the Do Not Call Register which are part of the deregulation agenda. ACCAN's media release of today says that ACCAN welcomed indefinite registrations on the Do Not Call Register. I am sure that all my colleagues here are well aware that the issue of unsolicited telemarketing by any electronic means is by and large not welcome. OIAC research, that it appears from the release was commissioned by ACCAN, found that only two per cent of survey respondents indicated that they enjoyed receiving unsolicited marketing information. Of course they love hearing from us!

On this point I draw the House's attention to a suggestion which I think has merit and I know has been considered elsewhere by the member for Bowman, which I noted in the press recently—and that is the notion of adding small businesses to the Do Not Call Register. My electorate office has a number which obviously used to belong to a small business, because just about every day we receive calls from the same marketing company. I can see that the member for Deakin shares my pain. I would have thought that this would be a sensible measure. I mention it quite seriously to suggest that, when we do look at this particular provision, is there a reason why we cannot consider having small businesses opt in to the register if they think that is going to be of benefit to them? We are talking about productivity when we talk about reducing regulatory burdens. As everyone here I think would know, one regulatory burden and something that affects productivity is if your staff are constantly being interrupted to do things that are not productive.

Some of the substantive provisions in these amendments go to part 15 of the Broadcasting Services Act, which deals with special provisions for retransmission of programs. Part of the amendments deal with the fact—I know the member for Lingiari will be interested in this—that NITV, National Indigenous Television Ltd, is now part of the SBS family; it has been for a little while. I think the portfolio budget statement for Communications provides a very good summary:

As part of the SBS family, the National Indigenous Television service (NITV) is broadcast free-to-air with national coverage …

Isn't that a great thing, member for Lingiari?

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is fantastic.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It continues:

… including through the Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service. NITV is an important platform for the celebration of the unique languages and culture of Indigenous Australians, produced by Indigenous Australians, and now available to every Australian household.

The reason I mention this is in the context of not only NITV but also the future of community television in this country. As the CTV sector recently found out, the minister has determined that they will be moved online—that is the platform for them. The reality is—and this is what the sector is saying as well—that there is an acceptance that that is where they need to go, but to be rushed into it without the amount of preparation and support they need is a very detrimental thing. That is not specifically why I raise this.

One of the biggest gripes that the CTV sector has is this apparent obsession with ratings as the only indicia of the value of their content. As the sector pointed out, there are many networks with shows that have under 6,000 viewer ratings points. Unfortunately, some NITV programs regularly feature in those low ratings—things like SARL All Stars Carnival, Maori TV's Native Affairsand NITV News Week In Review. A lot of these end up rating lower than the threshold at which some in this place think should be the threshold of support. But no-one would be suggesting, would they, member for Lingiari, that that is the sole criterion by which you should judge the value of any programs?

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You would think not.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, you would think not.

We need to be very careful when we rush in to repeal. Remember the last regulatory repeal day. On 19 March this year the parliamentary secretary came in and commended to the House repealing the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. We know how important that is. Subsequently, as Labor had called for, we had committee recommendations on this very issue, saying that, at a time when we need to make sure we have proper oversight of these laws for the benefit of our citizens, we need to ensure that the monitor remains. I put that out there just as a final warning of the dangers of rushing into these kinds of things.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. In particular I want to start by congratulating the Prime Minister and his parliamentary secretary, the member for Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg, for the outstanding work they have done in pushing forward our second red-tape repeal day.

We have already taken significant steps towards repealing red tape for Australian businesses and individuals with our first red-tape repeal day. We made a commitment prior to the election to hold regular repeal days, because we have always believed that by getting off the back of business we assist them in getting on with what they do best, and one of the things they do best is creating jobs in this economy. Removing outdated and unnecessary regulation is something that many parties in opposition propose. They promise to do it should they be elected. However, it is only this government which is getting on with the job of actually reducing the regulatory burden now that we are in government.

The Labor Party are a classic example of this. Before the election in 2007, under former Prime Minister Rudd, they committed to a policy of one-in one-out when it comes to regulation. The small business minister at the time, the Hon. Craig Emerson, even promised to take 'a giant pair of scissors to the red tape that is strangling small businesses'. However, talk is cheap. We know that under the Labor Party in those six years, more than 21,000 new regulations were introduced. So much for the one-in one-out policy. So much for taking a big pair of scissors to red tape. It would be laughable if it were not so serious.

We stand in contrast to the false rhetoric of those opposite. We are not changing department names or making glib statements; we are actually doing what the former minister said: we are taking a giant pair of scissors to the red tape that strangles small business. The reason for this is that the coalition believes that reducing red tape is going to be one of the most important elements of driving economic growth. And we do not want economic growth for economic growth's sake. But improving the ability for our economy to grow will improve the lives of our citizens and create more jobs. It will hopefully mean people can fulfil their lives in the way they want.

Unfortunately, in 2014 Australia was ranked 124th out of 148 countries for the burden of government regulation in the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. The Productivity Commission has estimated that regulation and associated compliance costs could amount to as much as four per cent of Australia's GDP. Today, for the second time, we seek to repeal that lamentable legacy. This repeal day removes almost 1,000 pieces of regulation and more than 7,200 pages of legislation. This follows up from the work down in March, when the government removed over 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation, which delivered over $700 million worth of compliance cost benefits. Together with today's repeal day, this will lead to a total net deregulatory saving of over $2.1 billion, an important achievement for job creation in Australia.

Already, we have made big steps. We now require cabinet submissions proposing legislative changes go through a regulatory impact process, something the Labor Party in government abandoned. We have established designated deregulation units within ministers' departments and, where appropriate, linking the remuneration of senior members of the Public Service to their performance in reducing red and green tape.

In addition to all those changes, and that is only a few, we are also seeking to eliminate the extensive duplication and regulatory overlap that exists between different layers of government, particularly between federal and state regulation. In my electorate of Deakin, I constantly hear the cry from businesses and individuals that they have to meet, in many cases, competing regulatory requirements at a state and federal level, and it is infuriating. It strangles innovation and entrepreneurship, and that is why this is so important.

Another key way in which we will be removing red tape will be by streamlining and improving the regulatory obligations and reporting methods. There will be $88 million a year in compliance cost savings, including with respect to the Australian Taxation Office, Medicare and Centrelink. Something I have heard about constantly in the last few weeks is that five million Australians have created their myGov account. I have been getting extraordinary feedback on that.

I am going to end my contribution early to enable other speakers to speak on this omnibus repeal bill. Understandably, as a government, we are very keen to all have a say here, because this will be the future for driving economic growth in this country, not economic growth for its own sake but economic growth for the sake of the lives of our citizens and improving jobs.

Now that Parliamentary Secretary Frydenberg is in the chamber, I want to congratulate him again for driving this process. I have business men and women in Deakin who shake my hand and say, 'Please thank the parliamentary secretary for driving these changes.' I commend the bills to the House.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Former Prime Minister John Howard has spoken about the issues that shaped him to get into politics and one of the chief ones was the impact of regulation on service stations. His parents, former Prime Minister Howard has written, felt that the Labor government maintained wartime petrol rationing for too long and they were frustrated by regulations that applied to local petrol stations from local councils. As John Howard once put it: 'What happened was my father had a garage near Dulwich Hill station and he got an edict from Marrickville council to remove the bowsers on the kerb. It accelerated a downward spiral for him and I guess it was something that helped to politicise me in the direction of profound sympathy for small business.'

One can only imagine what Mr Howard would make of a decision which sees the nation's 6,300 petrol stations hit with a compliance bill for $5.1 million for the privilege of collecting the Abbott government's new petrol tax. It is extraordinary that the so-called parties of Menzies has cast off so much of the values that Menzies stood for and is now rebuking the Howard legacy. What does the Liberal Party stand for any longer if it does not stand for the party of John Howard, if it is willing to spit in the eye of petrol station owners and slug them with new, unnecessary regulations? On the very day we are here talking about red tape, this is a government putting more red tape on to petrol station owners. You can just imagine John Howard shaking his head, 'First, they have undone the freeze in fuel indexation and then they are adding red tape to 6,300 small businesses.'

The government claims that the red tape measures are necessary and significant. And they are right, it is just that the necessary ones are trivial while the significant ones are unfair. Let me start with the trivia. Having crowed about the benefits of its first repeal day back in March, the government failed to tell the Australian people that that first red tape repeal day included 39 individual amendments changing the name 'electronic mail' to 'email'—difficult to see how that makes life easier for any Australian business—and hundreds of amendments adjusting spelling, grammar and punctuation.

To have a day on which you remove spelling mistakes from the statute books is like saying we are going to have a 'national showing up for work and having a cup of tea day'. It is just the regular business of government to clean-up the statute books and it is exactly what Labor did during our time in office, without the preening and the crowing that has accompanied the exercise from the coalition.

The first red tape repeal day encompassed the repeal of such noted business obstacles as the Dried Fruits Export Charges Act 1927, the Lighthouses Act 1949 and the Nitrogenous Fertilizers Subsidy Act 1969. The coalition crowed about the fact that it was removing a raft of amending acts, failing to tell Australians that an amending act ceases to take effect immediately after it has amended the principal act.

As my Senate colleague Senator Ludwig has recently discovered, the government set up teams at a cost of millions of dollars through the Australian Public Service in order to add to its preening exercise. The Treasury team cost $2.1 million. The teams based in the industry and social security departments cost around $700,000 a year. All of that is so the government can have a biannual preening exercise about simply doing its job. When we were in office, Labor removed over 16,000 redundant acts, regulations and legislative instruments. We did not declare a 'war on bad punctuation'; we just figured that fixing typos is part of the work of good government.

Then there are the important reforms that the government is removing under the guise of red tape repeal. They attempt to gut Labor's future of financial advice consumer protection reforms, reforms that were backed by organisations such as Choice and National Seniors. These consumer protections were put in place in the wake of collapses such as Trio Capital and Storm Financial—and the minister at the table might chuckle, but these were crises that saw thousands of Australians lose their life savings and, in some cases, end up in debt, as a result of bad financial advice. That is why Labor put in those financial advice protections; not to impose additional red tape, but to ensure that older Australians are not scammed out of their life savings.

The government too is trying to kill off the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission was set up to protect Australians from door-to-door scammers. Thankfully, there are relatively few such scammers, but those who exist are in fear of an organisation which allows householders to check up on whether a charity is legit. It allows someone to type in the details onto the acnc.gov.au website and quickly check whether the person at the door is a dodgy scammer or a legitimate charity.

We believe that transparency is appropriate in the sector and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission is delivering for charities. That is why four out of five charities support the charities commission, a figure which has remained unchanged in the year since the Abbott government has been in office. If the Abbott government's campaign against the charities commission had worked, you would think that charities might be less supportive. But actually this is the rare case of a regulator backed by its sector. What share of charities believe that charities regulation should return to the Australian Taxation Office? Just one in 20. Nineteen out of 20 Australian charities do not support the return of charities regulation to the tax office.

So, where Parliamentary Secretary Frydenberg might see red tape, we see measures that stop Aussies from being ripped off by dodgy financial advisers and unethical charity scammers. We believe that we need to have an appropriate level of regulation. What the coalition will not tell you about is the 690 new regulations they put in place since the last red tape repeal day. For a government that says it is declaring war on red tape, it certainly seems to be waving the white flag.

Since the first red tape repeal day, some of the regulations that have been brought in include: the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation (Warlike Service) Determination 2014 (No. 4); the National Health (Botulinum Toxin Program) Special Arrangement Amendment Instrument 2014 (No. 2); the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Confidentiality) Determination No. 15 of 2014; the Australian Public Service Commissioner's Amendment (Notification of Decisions and Other Measures) Direction 2014; the Broadcasting Services (Licensee Audit Exemption) Instrument 2014; the Currency (Royal Australian Mint) Determination 2014 (No. 7); the Therapeutic Goods (Listing) Notice 2014 (No. 6); the Defence Force (Home Loans Assistance) (Warlike Service – Operation OKRA) Determination 2014; the Horticulture Marketing and Research and Development Services (Transfer of Industry Assets and Liabilities) Declaration 2014.

I could go on, but I have merely listed one-seventieth of the new regulations put onto the statute books by this government between their so-called regulation repeal day No. 1 and No. 2. A government that is declaring war on red tape is littering the statute books with new regulations. How hypocritical is that? The government claims to be getting rid of regulations but instead it is passing hundreds of them. Regulations are being passed at a rate of three or four a day since red tape repeal day No. 1 under this government; that is what they will not tell you on red tape repeal day No. 2. This is a stunt, pure and simple.

The charities commission has received significant support. I spoke before about the support it has from the sector. And the charities commission is reducing the regulatory burden on Australian charities. I stood up with Andrew Barr in the ACT and Gail Gago in South Australia. Both represent sensible governments which recognise that the charities commission can reduce regulatory reporting duplication for Australian charities.

In both those Labor jurisdictions we have governments keen to reduce the reporting burden on Australia's charities, by working with the charities commission. And yet governments in coalition-run states and territories have been unwilling to work with the charities commission.

This government needs to stop declaring a war on an organisation overwhelmingly backed by charities. That is not just my view; Ernst & Young has noted in a report on the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission:

A core component of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission's reporting framework and efforts around reducing red tape is the 'report once, use often' principle. This principle is consistent with recommendations issued by the Productivity Commission, the National Commission of Audit, the Australian National Audit Office, the Treasury and the Department of Finance.

Serious reform-minded organisations take the view, as charities do, that the charities commission is cutting red tape and that abolishing the charities commission would increase the paperwork burden on Australian charities.

The government has got it wrong. Minister Andrews's only argument for abolishing the commission has been debunked by this Ernst & Young report and it has also been debunked by independent submissions. The Australian Institute of Company Directors has said:

We understand the government has made a commitment to abolish the ACNC. While we do not agree with this approach, we would strongly encourage the government to maintain elements of the ACNC that were delivering improved outcomes for the sector.

It has noted the 'light touch' regulation that is embodied in the charities commission, the value of a charities register that provides valuable information for a range of stakeholders, the central reporting mechanism and the harmonisation across jurisdictions.

The Australian Institute of Company Directors supports keeping the charities commission. The Queensland Law Society, in a detailed submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics, has discussed the flaws in the regulatory impact statement for the government's attempt to repeal the charities commission. It has described the regulatory impact statements for that repeal bill as being:

Less than rigorous, and not meeting the usually high standards and disciplines of the Commonwealth legislative process.

The Queensland Law Society have noted a claim in the regulatory impact statement that the ACNC repeal is said to give effect to a government election promise, but have said:

We can find no direct reference to such a promise in the Coalition's formal election platform 1 and it was not included as a policy commitment in the Coalition's election costings.

The Queensland Law Society further say that the regulatory impact statement states:

… 21,000 unincorporated charities are required to report to the ACNC where they previously were outside a regulatory framework. This appears not to take into account that these charities are already subject to federal regulation which is fragmented and uncoordinated.

And goes on to note that the critique of the charities commission for not becoming a reporting point 'fails to acknowledge the progress made in setting up a framework for streamlined reporting in the ACNC's first 15 months.'

They also note the speed with which the charities commission has managed to register charities—exceeding the 85 per cent benchmark within 28 days with a 95.6 per cent success rate.

The charities commission is doing good work to reduce the reporting burden on Australian charities. Australians benefit from the charities commission and from financial advice protection. The removal of extraneous hyphens and commas should not be the subject of a bill before the House and crowing by the government.

Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Cutting red tape matters. Overregulation hinders productivity, deters investment, stifles innovation and costs jobs. I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014 and two related bills, knowing that this is an important day for Australians and Australian businesses. Today we erase 7,200 pages of regulations from the statute books. This is in addition to our first repeal day where we removed more than 10,000 pieces of legislation and over 50,000 pages of regulations. This year alone the government has announced more than 400 individual reduction measures resulting in exceeding our initial $1 billion compliance saving target and achieving savings of over $2 billion. This is a significant achievement.

By identifying and removing red tape which adds financial burden without delivering benefit we boost our nation's competitiveness to help create jobs and cut the costs of business. We are determined to ensure that interaction with government for individuals and businesses is less complex, less costly and more time efficient. Labor talked big on cutting red tape, with symbolic gestures such as adding 'deregulation' to the title of the Department of Finance. They promised a one-end one-out rule for regulation. History instead shows that, after six years, the former Labor government added 21,000 new regulations. In contrast, in just over 12 months, this government has not only exceeded our target in cutting red tape and compliance costs but also achieved savings of over $2 billion.

We have set about changing the regulation culture within government. This government is taking this task seriously. Our senior ministers have established advisory councils on regulation, and every federal department has created a deregulation unit to calculate the cost of complying with regulations administered by the department and its agencies. Further, regulatory impact statements are required for cabinet submissions, to ensure that the cost of regulation is weighed against its benefits. Deregulation will be a standing item on the COAG agenda, to enable federal and state governments to cut duplication and overregulation.

We are working to improve the quality of consultation between the government and those who will be affected by any new regulations. It is only fair that a robust discussion occurs when government proposes new regulations that adversely impact on how individuals go about their lives or their business. Furthermore, we will also ensure rigorous and mandatory post-implementation reviews to determine the effectiveness of new regulations. If it is determined that regulations no longer effectively meet their purpose repeal will be considered. For individuals and businesses dealing with government departments and agencies, this news is most welcome.

The cost of compliance is a major barrier to growth. The average Australian business deals with eight regulators in a given year. Businesses spend close to four per cent of their total annual expenditure on complying with regulatory requirements and spend approximately 19 hours a week on compliance related activities. This impacts businesses' capacity to grow and drive job creation.

In an electorates such as Dobell small-business operators are the engine room of our economy and they deserve support from government in order to grow. Many of the businesses I have spoken to in Dobell constantly tell me about the burden of compliance. An estimated 447,000 small businesses will benefit from a reduced tax compliance burden, with administrative changes to GST and pay as you go reporting. Businesses with no payable GST will no longer be required to lodge a business activity statement, and this represents compliance savings for small business in the vicinity of $76 million.

One of Dobell's largest growing industries is the aged care sector. Repeal changes will mean aged care providers will no longer be required to notify the Department of Social Services of staff changes unless it materially affects the provider's suitability to provide care. The Department of Social Services has estimated that this will lead to an annual saving of $1.16 million in compliance costs. Such measures are positively contributing to a stronger and more prosperous economy.

Our Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda is promoting lower costs and better skills. Central to this renewed focus is deregulation and reducing red tape, with the guiding principle that if a system, service or product is approved under the trusted international standard, then Australian regulators should not impose additional requirements without a demonstrable reason to do so. The Prime Minister recently advised the House of our success with his approach. The Therapeutic Goods Administration has advised Cochlear, the makers of the bionic ear, that its products are now eligible to use European Union certification. This decision streamline certification will enable Australian consumers to have access to the latest devices, sometimes up to a year earlier than previously anticipated.

Individuals are also benefiting from our deregulation agenda as we minimise and simplify interaction with government. The creation of MyGov has seen more than five million Australians establish accounts to access government services, including the ATO, Medicare, Centrelink, Child Support, Veterans' Affairs and the NDIS. This has seen an annual compliance cost saving of $88 million. MyTax, which is linked with MyGov, will save close to $160 million each year while assisting 1.4 million Australians by pre-populating tax returns.

This government is helping more Australians find and keep a job by reducing the time spent by job service agencies dealing with red tape. This will be achieved by removing the requirement for job service providers to collect extensive evidence about a job seeker who finds work, because this information is ready collected by the Department of Human Services. Similar changes will be extended to Australian Apprenticeship Support Network providers, who will no longer have to maintain over three million paper files. Furthermore, the Department of Employment estimate this will lead to an annual saving of $24.7 million in compliance costs.

For the households of Dobell and throughout Australia we are also introducing common-sense reforms, making dealing with government easier. We are changing the length of registration on the Do Not Call Register to an indefinite period, meeting more than 9.2 million individuals and families will no longer be required to reregister their phone and fax numbers.

Local clubs and organisations registered as a company limited by guarantee, with less than $1 million in revenue, will no longer require an auditor. Our deregulation and red tape reduction goals do not end with today's repeal day. There will be more to come in the future, because their remains so much more to be done. It is important that we continue to talk with individuals, families and businesses to identify where we can further reduce the compliance burden. As I have often said, government does not create jobs, business creates jobs. As such, it is important that the government provides a sufficient regulatory presence without restricting productivity and growth.

I commend the work of the parliamentary secretary, the Hon. Josh Frydenberg, and congratulate him on his commitment on behalf of this government to our deregulation agenda. I commend this bill to the House.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was not going to speak on this bill, because I find these red tape repeal days or stunts of the government to basically be a sham. They are nothing but cheap tricks trying to distract the community. Quite often the bills that we have before us deal with minor things like fixing grammar and spelling, yet they claim that these changes are making massive savings to the budget. This particular red tape repeal charade only contains $1.8 million in savings of the total $2.33 billion that they are claiming. What a charade—to guillotine, to gag other debate on legislation to rush on a bill which is about correcting minor grammar, spelling and punctuation within existing bills and legislation.

So, why am I speaking? Because what has been revealed in these documents is the further extent of the ambush that this government has had in the last 24 hours in relation to increasing the petrol tax. It is an ambush on Australian motorists, in particular an ambush on regional families, because we all know that if you live in the regions you spend more on petrol because you have further to drive. In the government's own documents that we are debating today it is revealed that the impact of the petrol tax ambush is even wider, with every petrol station now being slugged an extra $800 a year in new compliance costs to collect tax for this government. I thought this bill was about reducing compliance and red tape, yet this government is whacking a further tax, slugging compliance costs, on every petrol station, including many of those in regional Victoria. According to its own documents this government will hit the nation's 6,300 petrol stations with a compliance cost of $5.1 million. They will pay for the privilege of collecting this government's increased petrol tax. There is little doubt that this increased compliance cost will be passed on to motorists when they fill up at the bowser—and by 'motorists' we mean mums and dads, we mean pensioners, we mean small businesses. We mean everybody that needs a car or truck that relies on regular petrol to get from A to B.

This Prime Minister is addicted to taxing Australians. There is just no other way to go about it. Quite often, as we are seeing, rather than debating it properly in this House and in the Senate, they are simply ambushing the Australian people. This new tax increase to the petrol stations is not the only problem that we are seeing with their whole approach to petrol. As I have said, the increase in the petrol tax will hit local motorists. The fuel excise will mean that central Victorians and regional Australians will pay more for their petrol.

And it comes from a government that also tries to claim that poor people do not drive cars or drive far. Let's leave for a moment that some of our poorest households struggle in their pay cycle to put money in the car to get from A to B when it gets to day 11 or day 12 in their pay cycle. Let's leave for a moment the fact that for many regional Australians the car is the only way that they can get from A to B. It is the only transport available, because we do not have public transport in large chunks of regional Australia. Let's also leave for a moment that this statement by the Treasurer is not only elitist but somewhat patronising. Poor people do not drive cars? Isn't it a problem if people cannot afford the very basics in life? Hasn't this government failed? Hasn't the Treasurer failed to support the most vulnerable people if they cannot put petrol in their car to get from A to B, particularly when it comes to regional Australia and regional MPs? They should be standing up and speaking against the changes to petrol. They should be speaking against the increases to the petrol tax—increases which are in this red tape repeal day hitting petrol stations—because that would just be a further increase to motorists. Petrol stations will simply pass that on.

How do we know that low-income households pay more for petrol than those on higher incomes? It comes down to percentage. We need to talk about the percentage of income that low-income households spend each year on the basics such as petrol.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Member for Bendigo, whilst we have allowed a very broad-ranging debate in this House on this amendment, she might consider the amendment before the House.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, thank you for pointing that out. My comments relate to page 5 of the government's October 2014 red tape repeal documents, table 1c, the summary of key regulatory costs reported or announced since September 2013, the line item which talks about the resuming of the indexation of the fuel excise to the consumer price index. So I am speaking to the documents which are being talked about in relation to these bills. I have just outlined the fuel excise to consumer price index increase, what it will cost petrol stations and also what it will cost Victorian motorists, particularly those on low incomes.

The fuel excise increase will in fact hit low-income earners the hardest. The percentage of their household income spent on petrol will increase due to the extra that they will have to pay. Lower income groups tend to live in the outer suburbs and regional areas because housing is more affordable. As a result, however, their transport costs will increase. This is kind of simple mathematics; if you live further out because it is cheaper, it is only natural to assume that you will have to pay more to get into town to get to work, to drop your children off at school or to get around. Infrastructure has not caught up with these areas yet. The public transport has not been built or the state or federal governments have no plan to build the public transport so that these households and families have the opportunity to have a viable public transport option. All they can do is rely on their car, and that is the problem when this government increases the excise on petrol. It hits those in the outer suburbs and the regional people disproportionately. It hits them the hardest because they do not have the opportunity to take public transport.

The public transport debate is something that we have seen this government turn a blind eye to. They are not interested in doing their bit to invest in public transport—

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really struggling with your presentation on this red tape repeal bill as to where you are headed with this with regard to relevance to the bill. You might consider that in the rest of your address.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I remind the Deputy Speaker that I am speaking in relation to the resumption of indexation of the fuel excise to the consumer price index, which is part of the government's own October 2014 red tape repeal documents. These are the documents that the government is bringing before the House and contain their great charade around red tape repeal. Perhaps the Speaker and members of the government do not like me talking about the fuel excise because of the impact that it will have on regional communities. If they have their own Facebook pages, they have probably exploded in outrage—like my page has in the last 24 hours—at the increase of the fuel excise and how that is going to impact on our families.

Fuel prices are high in regional Victoria, higher in regional Australia, which is—

Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to relevance. This bill is talking about 256 regulations being repealed. If you could draw the member's attention to those regulations and her capacity to talk about those regulations that are being repealed today.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, the member for Bendigo has clearly indicated how she is speaking with relevance to the repeal day bill and associated documents. This has been a very wide-ranging debate and the member for Bendigo is speaking in order.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order in relation to standing order 75, on relevance or tedious repetition. You have drawn the member's attention to her relevance to this bill on two occasions and she continues to go on about nothing at all. Standing order 75 prevents irrelevance or tedious repetition of the same point.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think there is a point of order there. I call the Manager of Opposition Business.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was listening to the points of order as they were raised. When these amendments were moved, the parliamentary secretary who introduced them referred to the full range of all issues relating to deregulation. Something in the order of 80 per cent of the speech given by the parliamentary secretary had nothing to do with the bills before the House. At no point—

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business, what is your point of order?

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

My point of order is on relevance and the breadth of this debate. That was established by the parliamentary secretary at the beginning of the debate. If members of the government want to change the rules midway through then those relevance rules which were not applied—with no points of order at all—to the parliamentary secretary's introduction will change the nature of this debate for the rest of today.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bills I am referring to today are the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill, the Amending Acts 1970 to 1979 Repeal Bill 2014 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2014. Comments made by previous speakers also outline clearly that these particular bills before us—and today's entire charade around red tape repeal day—does in fact relate to the resumption of indexation of the fuel excise in line with the consumer price index.

As I continue to repeat, the government has put the increase in the fuel excise back on the table. Yes, they are doing it in a sneaky way. They have put it into their red tape repeal documents; they have listed it here in their red tape repeal documents. They do not want to debate this issue. They do not want the Senate to have the opportunity to talk about increasing petrol tax because they know how much of a stinker it is in regional Victoria. It is an absolute stinker to be increasing petrol prices. It hits small business, it hits our farmers and it hits our families. That is what is before us today. It exposes how this government likes to hide behind its own red tape. It likes to create this charade. Contained in their red tape repeal day bill is the fact they are increasing compliance costs for petrol stations. That is what I have tried to highlight in this speech. With their charade of, 'We're going to repeal red tape; we're going to make it easier for business', they are making it harder for petrol stations. Through this particular measure they are making every single petrol station become a tax collector for this government.

This is what their red tape repeal day is all about—it is all about smokescreens and increasing pressure on families. Rather than being up-front about it, whether before the election or now, this government is trying to ambush the Australian people. Petrol costs are a big issue. They are a very big issue to people in the country and in 12 days time the price of petrol for regional Australians will increase.

Guess what is also going to happen in 12 days time? Prepolls for the Victorian state election will also happen. Perhaps that is why this government does not want to talk about what is really going on and why people do not like the increase to the petrol tax. People do not like the fact that this government will resume the indexation of the fuel excise in line with the consumer price index, a measure which is contained in this document. (Time expired)

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to speak to the amendment to the government's amendment bill, rather than speaking on any topic of my choosing and making the same point over and over for the same 15 minutes. I encourage the new member to read standing order 75(a). It was very generous of you, Deputy Speaker, not to use your power to have her discontinue her speech—

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mitchell will address the bill.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

which was completely irrelevant. We could open up a whole range of irrelevancies, including your performance in government—

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Mitchell will address the bill before the House.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to comply with the relevant standing orders, unlike members opposite. This amendment bill is extremely important. It is not a charade. It is not a sham. It is not a pretend bill. This is a real bill amending all of the different statutes which require a reduction in red tape in our society—and there are many. We heard from the previous government they did this as a matter of course. We have heard, from many speakers, that they did it secretly in many cases: 'This was just an ordinary day in the office for us—we came into parliament, we moved a bill and we changed spellings and deregulated by stealth.' It was so effective you never even saw it! That was the problem. It was so effective you never did see deregulation from the previous government. You never did hear about it; it was deregulation by stealth, the opposition would have us believe.

We know, of course, there is no such thing as deregulation by stealth. The previous government added enormous amounts of statutes and regulations to the bill—20,000 new acts and repeals—and that was a great addition to the burden of red tape on the Australian people. We do not accept the deregulation by stealth argument the opposition has put forward. We do not accept that this deregulation and removal of red tape is unnecessary in Australia today, because when you talk to businesses or people in the community, they are calling for many of the things that are in this amendment. They are saying: 'These are the things that are delaying our days, when we trying to get business done, when we are trying to employ people and trying to expand our business and its impact on the community.' These are the sorts of things that are taking up their time.

There are many good features you will find in this particular bill. In fact, this particular spring session is the second. I think the Manager of Opposition Business is about to pull a very big tactic because he is so frightened of deregulation. What have you got to hide, as an opposition, about deregulation? (Quorum formed) I am grateful to the Manager of Opposition Business for bringing in such an illustrious audience to hear about why the Abbott government is doing so much to cut red tape and cut regulations off Commonwealth statutes. I know that the members who have joined us are great advocates of deregulation and the government's deregulation agenda. Really, if the Manager of Opposition Business would spend as much time drafting questions—there is something coming up called question time—as he has mucking around tactically here, calling a brilliant House quorum on me, you might have a better standard of questions in question time. It is just a thought—not that I am trying to help over there. More time drafting questions is probably needed.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Talk about the bill!

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mitchell will address the bill.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, I got awfully distracted by this whole affair. Back to the bill, the bill in question, the omnibus repeal bill, which I am very, very happy to address. This is part of the government's ongoing deregulation agenda, and it is important that twice a year we have deregulation. It is common in the United States of America, where many statutes and other laws will expire with people leaving office. They will expire automatically. They have many mechanisms to reduce and remove the amount of red tape, laws and regulation in America. However, here in Australia we have not had mechanisms like this that are regular, thorough, complete, that ensure that constantly we remove inactive legislation and regulation that is of no effect that brings the total net regulatory burden down.

Of course we know that the total regulatory reduction in savings for individuals, businesses and the not-for-profit sector will be something in the order of $2.1 billion. It is not about spelling, it is not about a few dollars and cents. It is about $2.1 billion of savings for the individuals, businesses and the not-for-profit sector. It is actually double the target that we have set. You will find in this bill in particular, as well as the repeals of redundant provisions in the acts that are going, the streamlining of many processes. We are also abolishing three bodies in this bill: the Fishing Industry Policy Council, the Product Stewardship Advisory Group and the Oil Stewardship Advisory Council. Getting rid of all these bodies federally—we do not know how many there are, we do not know what they do—is a good thing to do. It is good to downsize the role of government in our society.

On coming to office the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance asked, 'How many Commonwealth government bodies are there?' It sounds like a simple question; for anyone listening you would think there would be a simple answer. Maybe it would take a period of time to get an answer. How many Commonwealth government agencies does the Commonwealth government administer? The bottom line is that they cannot get a proper answer about how many bodies the Commonwealth government administers. That is how disorganised and how large the Commonwealth government has become: we cannot even identify the number of bodies that we are responsible for. So repealing these three bodies is yet another part, and we are going to be going through more government agencies to reduce the number of committees, bodies and things that we do not need; things that we do not need the government to be involved in or where there are duplicate services available at state level or duplicate services available at other layers of government.

We know, of course, that many of these things are duplicated at state level. The introduction of one-stop shops for environmental approvals is perhaps one of the biggest changes in the way our Commonwealth, our federation, does business in this country.

One of the most significant problems that we have had as a society has been the knock back of huge amounts of investment, including in states like South Australia, which lost a massive uranium mine because of the overregulation of state and federal governments. There is the time taken when you apply for environmental approvals. There are the multilayers of environmental approvals. There is the reluctance of certain governments to approve big projects, even though they are to the great benefit of their state or the Commonwealth. The one-stop-shop process will ensure that we have better and more streamlined approvals.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the honourable member will have leave to continue his remarks at that time.