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

On behalf of the Leader of the House, I move:

That, in respect of the proceedings on the 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, so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring:

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

(2) at the conclusion of the second reading debate or at 5.30 pm on Wednesday, 29 October 2014, whichever is the earlier, a Minister being called to sum up the second reading debate, then without delay, (a) one question being put on any amendments moved to motions for the second readings by non-Government Members, and (b) one question being put on the second readings of the bills together;

(3) the consideration in detail stages, if required, on all the bills being taken together for a period not exceeding 60 minutes at which time any Government amendments that have been circulated in respect of any of the bills shall be treated as if they have been moved together with (a) one question being put on all the Government amendments, (b) one question being put on any amendments which have been moved by non-Government Members, and (c) any further questions necessary to complete the detail stage being put;

(4) at the conclusion of the detail stage, one question being put on the third readings of the bills together; and

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

Before I allow the member for Watson to respond, can I say that it is so important today that this parliament debate and vote upon the 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. The reason is that deregulation and cutting red tape are a priority for this government and a priority for this nation.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Free the hyphens!

Mr Husic interjecting—

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

The members for Wakefield and Chifley will desist.

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

In the first repeal day, in March, more than 10,000 pieces of legislation and regulation were repealed and more than 50,000 pages removed from the statute books. This time round, in the second repeal day, we will be removing more than 1,000 pieces of regulation and legislation and more than 7,200 pages from the statute books.

The Labor Party cannot have it both ways. They cannot say on the one hand, 'Oh, this is so trivial; this is the normal job of government to correct the statute books,' and on the other hand have the shadow Assistant Treasurer go out there in print this week and accuse the government of removing vital protections for people in the financial services sector and also in the not-for-profit sector. You cannot have it both ways. We are either making substantial reforms or we are not.

The reality is that Universities Australia, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group and many other groups, like ACCI, have come out and lauded this government for taking deregulation seriously. They have lauded the $2.1 billion worth of savings that we have announced and they have lauded us for setting up deregulation units within every minister's portfolio. They have said, 'Thank you for setting up ministerial advisory committees where we bring in outside expertise and advice to help the ministers understand where the priorities are for deregulation.'

We have changed the remuneration KPIs of senior public servants to better align the performance indicators with our priorities and our commitments to capping red tape. We have set ourselves an annual net target of $1 billion a year in reducing compliance for families, individuals, small businesses and the not-for-profits of Australia. It does not help those opposite to know that we have actually got to over $2 billion and we have smashed through our $1 billion target. That is what they do not like about this. They do not like the politics of our success, rather than the substance of our reforms, because, when we passed the omnibus bill through this House in March of this year, it was successful in getting through the Senate.

The member for Goldstein would like to know, as he is a former head of the Farmers' Federation, that we changed the rules and processes around agricultural and veterinary chemicals. We also changed the rules around classification and removed the red tape there by getting our reforms through the Senate. Our changes to the Future of Financial Advice also went through the Senate. We have made a number of other reforms, where we have banked well over $1 billion, which are improving the lives of Australians.

There are a couple of consistent themes you will hear from the dozens of my colleagues today who are speaking on these bills. There are a couple of key themes. Firstly, we are making life easier for people who interact with government. We are saying that a system like myGov, which allows five million Australians to have an account and to access Medicare, Centrelink and a centralised online portal, is making their lives easier. There is myTax, which is allowing up to 1.4 million Australians to get prepopulated tax returns, because the government is already in the possession of key data, like their dividends on their shares, their interest on their bank accounts or their income. That has been prepopulated by the government. That, again, is helping them.

We are saying to the people of Australia and the builders of Australia, 'You don't have to be excluded from government contracts when we are building Defence housing in small regional and remote communities. With changes around the Federal Safety Commissioner's accreditation, you can now participate. We are saying to 32,500 small businesses who do not pay any GST that they no longer have to submit a BAS. We are saying to the 430,000 small businesses who pay their GST and submit a BAS that they do not need to go through the PAYG system. These are significant deregulation reforms.

What about our one-stop shops? The member for Watson, who was the former Minister for the Environment, would have loved to have got that reform introduced with the support of every state and territory, but the member for Flinders has done that and he has got the assessment approvals. We now hope to get the final legislation through the Senate. That is $420 million worth of deregulation. The member for Goldstein made significant changes to the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, Efic, by actually allowing the export of non-capital goods by small and medium enterprises to get the direct support of Efic rather than those businesses having to go through the expensive process of taking a bank guarantee from Efic, going to fill in forms and paying an extra margin to the banks. It is significant deregulation reforms like that that are helping our exporters, helping our employers and helping our small businesses.

I was so proud to be part of a government that released the competitiveness and industry agenda just a couple of weeks ago. Central to that agenda was an important deregulation reform which meant that systems, products and services that are approved overseas in trusted international jurisdictions can now be accepted into Australia much more readily, with only an extra layer of compliance put on when the regulators themselves can prove there is a very good reason to do so. We had the head of Cochlear, Chris Roberts, come out and say that this is making a tangible difference not just to his business but to the thousands of people suffering hearing defects who benefit from his company's products.

This deregulation agenda is the meat and potatoes of this government. It sits alongside budget repair, infrastructure and reducing the overall tax burden. Many of my colleagues in this place are going to make substantial contributions to this House. It deserves to be supported today. We look to the Labor Party to support good reform and not just support their own political interests.

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

Can I open by making it clear that I will be moving an amendment at the end of this speech. I say that now because it is to be seconded by the member for Chifley and I thought if I flagged it early he might still be in the chamber. If he is not, I have the member for Wakefield, but those odds usually are not good either.

Madam Speaker, if you listen to the arguments that were just offered by the member for Kooyong, effectively he has provided all the arguments as to why this gag motion should not be agreed to. In the first instance, he has said that dozens of his colleagues will be supporting him in arguments today. With 15-minute speeches, if he had only two dozen of his colleagues make speeches we would have six hours of debate, which he is about to say cannot happen—and that would presume there were no speeches at all from the other side. To claim that dozens of his colleagues are going to want to speak in support of this at the exact same moment he is moving a motion to deny them the opportunity of that shows the lack of judgement that is being applied in the motion. It is not often you get a gag motion that even the Leader of the House is too ashamed to come in and move. That does not happen very often. But on this one the member for Kooyong has managed to find shame even within the parliamentary principles that are put forward by the Leader of the House.

The member for Kooyong made another thing clear during his speech. He went through all the examples of deregulation that he thought were noteworthy. The problem was that they were not the ones that are before us today. They were not the issues before us today.

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

That's not true! We've got a thousand pieces—

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

Now he is interjecting and wanting to claim, 'Oh no; we've got all these pieces of legislation in front of us.' They are all redundant pieces of legislation. To be cleaning them out, to be getting rid of redundant legislation, is neither here nor there but it is certainly not a reason for wanting to gag debate. If you look at the grand figures for what the government is claiming they are wanting to achieve on deregulation, the Prime Minister's figure is $2.33 billion. That is what he is intending to achieve on deregulation, removal of red tape. Today we have $1.8 million in front of us—and this is meant to be a carnival, a festival, a big bonfire of red tape. If today is an indication of the pace at which the government is pursuing deregulation, there will be 1,000 such days before the Prime Minister can reach his target. It will take 1,000 days like today before the Prime Minister can reach his target. And what have they attached those savings to? They have attached them to issues like the removal of hyphens, the removal of commas. It is going to be, from this government a punctuation-led recovery. What we have from the government here is nothing more than the ultimate example of spin and style over the top of substance.

I believe that we should handle this bill in the way we handle any non-controversial and non-urgent legislation, and that is that we refer it to the Federation Chamber. That is what we do when something is neither here nor there. That is what we do when we are dealing with something controversial. To think that we are going to have fanfare and the dedication of an entire day in parliament to changes in punctuation, to abolishing redundant legislation! That that is worthy of people coming from around the nation, in the spotlight of the media, and saying, 'This is what the parliament's all about,' shows how little the government has to offer. With that in mind, to the motion that has been moved I move:

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

"the bills being referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration, then being returned to the House no sooner than 24 November 2014."

The reason for that amendment is to keep it within the framework of a debate management motion, to keep it within the framework that the government does not want this to be able to drag on forever—but also to provide the opportunity to test whether or not there are in fact dozens of members on the other side willing to support the member for Kooyong, because I reckon there probably are not. I reckon if anyone is wanting to cut this debate short—

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Put your money where your hyphen is!

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

We just had from the member for Chifley: 'Put your money where your hyphen is'! The attempts here from the member for Kooyong are flawed by his own arguments. If he wants to talk about any of the issues that are substantial and decent debates to have, that involve significant savings to business, then by all means have that debate, but that is not what is in front of us. If he believes there are dozens of members from his own side who want to rush to support him, well, let them speak. We would love to hear their passion on punctuation! We would love to hear how hard they want to argue that what is happening today matters.

We would love to also hear the debate management motion that says there are going to be 1,000 sitting days scheduled for the rest of the term—given there are not 1,000 days left in the rest of term—for the Prime Minister to be able to meet the target.

What we have before us today is the ordinary business of getting rid of redundant legislation and bringing some other issues up to date. I have moved the amendment that I handed to the clerks. The debate should be allowed to run in the ordinary course that we give to non-controversial legislation.

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

Is the amendment seconded?

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to second this amendment, because how much of the nation's fortunes has rested on a hyphen; how much has rested on the removal of a comma? We need to be able to debate this properly. It should be referred to the Federation Chamber. To paraphrase the Manager of Opposition Business: debate it and they will come. Let us see, Member for Kooyong and Parliamentary Secretary, this phalanx of red-tape slashers that you believe will be there ready to debate alongside you. Let us give them the opportunity. Let us give them the opportunity in the Federation Chamber to outline how this spring cleaning with a cotton bud is going to liberate the Australian economy and change the way we operate in this nation.

You claim, Member for Kooyong, that there is a headline target of $2.3 billion. As the Manager of Opposition Business has indicated, the legislation before us is only putting forward $1.8 million of savings that we can identify. Headline targets are great to reach. I would love, at the age of 45, to be an NBA draft pick. That is my headline target. It does not mean I am going to reach it. I can always claim a target and try and claim kudos off that target. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of the stuff you are putting forward does not stack up in the legislation that is being put forward.

You want to talk about compliance costs, and we want to be able to debate it. You want to gag the debate. You want to claim the credit and not allow for the accountability. You want to be able to go out and spruik that you are making all these savings, but you do not want us to be able to test it. You do not want us to be able to go through. As the Manager of Opposition Business has rightly said, put it up in the Federation Chamber. Let us debate it. Let us also work out, because you are so big on reducing the costs of compliance, why it is, for instance, that you are now loading up on the 6,300 petrol stations around the country $800 worth of compliance costs in the changes that you have brought forward on fuel indexation. The party that says that it is about less red tape and lower taxes uses Senate arcana and red tape to increase taxes and will not allow for debate on this.

What we are clearly saying is that we welcome the opportunity to test these claims that have been extended by the Manager of Opposition Business in the amendment he has moved. Quite often what happens here is that it is all hype and less detail and less tangible results. We have seen, for instance, claims that red-tape reduction would deliver benefit and then it does not actually follow through. Where they have cut red tape, we have had to come back and clean it up. The government claimed, for instance, that they would cut red tape, and they cut out the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, only to have to come back, embarrassingly, and fix it up. The red tape that was cut had to be fixed with sticky tape in haste to try to clean up what they had done.

We had, for instance, the argy-bargy over FoFA. They came up with their deal on FoFA and they claimed they were cutting red tape, but they were cutting protections to consumers—and they were happy to see them burnt and lose millions, as we have seen in those terrible cases. With this red-tape cutting that they did, they put this terrible deal on FoFA, only now to see the industry clamouring back and saying, 'We actually need to do more.' They are doing a mea culpa and recognising that they need to strengthen protection.

Again, this is a headline chasing for detail. The detail is never there. But let us test it. Let us give them the chance to debate this. Let us give them the chance to see whether or not these savings are fair dinkum. It is for these reasons that I support the Manager of Opposition Business's amendment to ensure that this is debated in the Federation Chamber.

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

The original question was that the motion be agreed to. To this the honourable member for Watson has moved an amendment. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

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

(In division) Madam Speaker, is it in order for members of parliament to bring cups of coffee into the chamber? I am referring to the member for Corangamite, in the front row.

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

No, it is not. Thank you for drawing it to my attention. It is not permitted to bring food or drinks into the chamber. Only water, which is provided, is permitted.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We should cut that red tape!

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

I think that is one piece of red tape we will keep. The ramifications would be just awful!

Honourable members interjecting—

I think the banter is amusing, but I would remind members that, of course, during a division privilege does not apply.

The question now is that the motion be agreed to.