Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014 is just another example of how this government is committed to making the right choices to get the job done. Unlike Labor and the Greens, this government understands how business works and that extra costs arising from needless red tape can be detrimental to productivity. We know that a stronger economy, competitive business and lower costs mean more jobs for the Australian people. We also know that one of the greatest threats to a strong economy and free enterprise is an overbearing government.

That titan of freedom, President Ronald Reagan, once remarked:

… the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.

I agree. He knew, as do I, that state regulation and involvement can stifle creativity and free enterprise. He was also a great reformer known for his commitment to deregulation and removing red tape.

Red tape and over-regulation are the two blights on any economy. It rears its head whenever politicians think they know what is best for others and best for business. Regulation should only be considered when backed up with sound policy and only after all other alternatives have been exhausted. It should be as efficient as possible and only retained where it is proven to work in a cost-effective way. Just as the nation is being asked to trim the fat and double down productive efforts, the same should be true of our regulatory approach. We must do away with needless regulation and burdensome red tape. It is for this reason that I stand here today in support of this bill.

The whole-of-government approach, as seen through our successful red tape repeal days, has done wonders when it comes to ripping away red tape. We have seen progress through government red tape repeal days, and further efforts to ease the compliance squeeze on Australian business are encouraging. The current state of reporting requirements for payslips illustrates the sort of smothering government red tape that I despise.

Under the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act, employers are required to include information in the payslip as per other regulations. The Labor government at the time indicated that these regulations would be made in due course. They said that these regulations would require employers to report the amount of superannuation contributions as well as relevant dates. The regulations that would require such reporting never came into existence. Labor created regulations mandating action as defined by another set of regulations—regulations that never came into existence. What a joke! We know that Labor cannot run a budget properly. They even struggle to run their own party properly. But worst of all they even broke promises to themselves. Employers are required to include information in their payslips, but instead of providing any solid details in the legislation about what to include all we have is a large 'watch this space' in big red writing. Employers have been waiting for years. Businesses are required to include information in these payslips, but there is no document anywhere to give an indication of what this information should be.

This is shocking for two reasons. First of all it means businesses in Australia lack certainty when it comes to reporting requirements. In theory, if those reporting requirements actually had substance, then employers nationwide would need to update their software, creating unnecessary compliance costs and needless headaches. The fact that Labor did not see the problem indicates how clueless they are when it comes to business. Not a skerrick of financial acumen can be found in their party room. The Labor Party just does not get running a business. Any compliance task costs money and work hours. These all build up and create major costs and disadvantages for our businesses.

Let us take a small-scale business that competes with foreign companies as an example. How can we expect them to maintain a competitive edge when they have to dedicate employee time and company money to complying with needless regulation and red tape? Foreign businesses in the same field do not have to worry about red tape like we do here. They do not have to waste time and resources ticking boxes and jumping through hoops. They are free to get on with the job while our companies languish in a sea of red tape. We are talking about Australian jobs and Australian money. No wonder the Labor Party could not make an accurate budget projection in their six years in office. They simply do not understand how it all works. This leads to the next problem with the current payslip regulations.

Most absurdly of all, the current arrangement is a duplication of other regulations. With the bizarre payslip red tape, which has no actual substance, we see the brand of red tape that the Labor Party holds dear: duplication. The reporting requirements that we propose to repeal already exist in the Fair Work Act 2009 and Fair Work Regulations. The purpose of the reporting requirement that we will repeal is already covered in other legislation. What a terrible indictment of the Labor Party—as clear and as bright as day. It is absurd that after six years of Labor we have to remove duplicate legislation and regulation.

In opposition Labor still takes joy in doing everything they can to keep burdensome red tape in place. We have seen this recently with the carbon tax and the mining tax. We see it here with the undefined reporting requirements that this bill will repeal. Only with the passage of this bill will we be able to see the rear end of such useless and burdensome legislation. In keeping with the government's agenda to clear away red tape, this bill also serves to remove old, outdated and burdensome taxes from various taxation acts and consolidate them into a single set of provisions in the Taxation Administration Act.

Red tape is a disease. Instead of innovation we get legislation. The business of government should be governance—nothing more. Government should not be pretending to be butchers, bakers, or candlestick makers. There is no good economic reason why government should be interfering in the normal, healthy functioning of the market and crowding out investment capital. My coalition colleagues also agree that governments should not be running businesses—hence the successful float of Medibank Private. I am encouraged and anxious to see more assets disposed of as soon as possible. We have a debt problem and, more troublingly, a spending situation. If Labor was all about bringing government into business, then the coalition is about bringing business into government.

Small business is the engine room of growth in our economy. This is particularly true of our regional areas and our smaller towns and villages. Small business is critical to a sustainable, high-value export orientated growth strategy. That is why the Minister for Small Business set up the small business helpline. The helpline assists small business owners to improve their knowledge and operate in line with relevant laws. The core of Liberal philosophy is: fewer forms and more reforms. One simply cannot tax a country into prosperity, and by extension one simply cannot regulate a country into growth, innovation and creativity.

In Tangney, my constituents have one clear message: please make things simpler. This spring, I had the pleasure of speaking in support of the government's second red-tape repeal day. On that day, I detailed my strong and continued support for innovative, new measures being introduced to address red tape and speed up the business of government. We are listening and we are acting. Over five million people have already created a myGov account, which provides a centralised, online point of access for reporting and claims for seven government services: the Australian Taxation Office, Medicare, Centrelink, eHealth records, child support, veterans affairs and the NDIS. Around 1.4 million MyTax users will now be able to use automatically pre-populated tax returns with information already provided to the ATO, such as income from employment, interest on bank accounts and share dividends.

We need to reduce the footprint of government to enable the community to get on with creating jobs and building a stronger society for all. The fundamental recipe for economic success that so underpins the basic functioning of our social contract is not rocket science; it is a question of incentives. Regulation, while necessary in certain and restrained circumstances, should be the last resort, never the quick-fix solution. Education is by far a cheaper, more efficient way of doing things. The provision of this education to consumers can be done in cooperation with business. Government should focus on the root cause of a problem, not the symptoms of a problem. That is the economic way; that is the common-sense way.

This great sunburnt country is dying from regulation suffocation. Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets. When Australia ranks 124th out of 148 countries on the World Economic Forum burden of government regulation ranking list, it is not a problem; it is a crisis. The only time a ranking of 124 out of 148 would not be a crisis is if it were in net terms of government debt and rate of government spending—neither of which are true today thanks to the lost years of Labor and their internecine intifadas.

Deloitte's Building the lucky country report calculated that rules and regulations cost the country $250 billion annually, with one in 11 employees now working in compliance. In fact, Deloitte estimates that one million Australians are employed in compliance. Australia is becoming a high-cost place to do business. A recent ACCI red-tape survey found that 42 per cent of businesses spend more than $10,000 per year on complying with government regulations and 44 per cent spend five hours per week complying with government regulations. If you look at the Business Council of Australia's submission to the Harper review of competition, you will see that hardware stores cannot open before 11 am on Sundays if they stock light bulbs and light fittings. In WA, a petrol station can sell pantyhose after 9 pm on Thursdays, but it is illegal to sell underpants. A petrol station can sell flashbulbs on Sundays before 11 am but not a digital camera memory card. These are points made time and again by Deloitte Perth partner Monish Paul.

I wish to highlight in particular schedule 3 of this bill, which amends the Financial Sector (Shareholdings) Act 1998 so that persons who do not hold a direct control interest in a financial sector company will no longer be deemed to have a stake in that financial sector company as a consequence of their associates' direct control interest. Currently, the law requires that the associates of a person, such as a person's relatives, partner or related companies, who is seeking a shareholding in excess of 15 per cent to also seek approval from the Treasurer for the shareholding. This is required irrespective of whether an associate has any actual shareholding or financial interest in the company in which the new shareholding is sought. Associates will no longer be caught in a technical trap that requires them to hold approval from the Treasurer.

I commend this bill to the House.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014. I acknowledge the contribution of the member for Tangney and his knowledge of the challenges that small businesses face in this country today. Since coming to office, this government has been committed to doing what it can to tackle red tape and tackle the burden that business is confronted with every day in getting on with the business of business. I am proud to say that I have spoken previously on this subject, on the first repeal day, which we had in the autumn this year, and more recently. In every portfolio area, each responsible minister and each department has been asked to do their bit. Truly, the work that Parliamentary Secretary Frydenberg has done in this area is an absolute credit to him in being able to coordinate across so many portfolio areas all of those, admittedly, small things in many cases—but small things add up to big things and this is about ultimately making it easier for Australians to get on with their day-to-day lives but also businesses to get on with the business of business.

There has been a range of measures since the first repeal day. In respect of Treasury, which is the focus of the debate tonight, there has been a range of measures—some with savings to the budget, admittedly. But, more importantly, the objective here always is, and always has been, right from day one—from 8 September 2013—to give business the capacity to do what they do best, and that is to get on with business and employ Australians.

We have been doing things such as amending the franchising code of conduct and exempting tradable water rights from the definition of derivatives under the Corporations Act 2001. I had a career in the wool industry at one time and I was once called up by the ACCC. I remember the managing director ringing me on a Friday night. He said, 'Can you give me a little bit of information?' We were offering an over-the-counter product and it was thought, under the Corporations Act at the time, to be walking very close to an area where you needed to be able to give advice in respect of futures contracts. Interestingly, we subsequently found out that it was one of our competitors that raised the issue with the managing director. We sorted that out. Fortunately, neither he nor I had to spend any time in the big house. But it was an interesting conversation on that Friday night; I remember it well.

We have done things such as reduce and clarify the APRA compliance measures, which will save the budget, over the forward estimates, $13.4 million in compliance costs. We have simplified the tax return lodgement through MyGov credentials. We have streamlined the income tax returns using MyTax. Keeping superannuation trustees' websites up to date has meant an annual saving of $29½ million. There have been so many measures, and this is one of those measures.

This measure in this legislation is part of those measures which, since we came to government, have amounted to a saving of $2 billion. That has well exceeded the $1 billion that we thought we could do—the election commitment that we made. We have delivered on the election commitment twice over now. There have been 57,000 pieces of legislation removed from the statute books across every portfolio.

I will go to the focus of the bill before the House tonight. It is not so much the large corporates in this country that will benefit from some of the amendments, although the amendments are relatively small. The large corporates have the systems. They have the HR departments. They have the payroll offices. They have the staff and the software to be able to make those adjustments to payslips, or to report on those payslips, or to handle multiple superannuation funds, for example. Those things are quite simple for larger corporates like the one that I spent much of the last 15 or 16 years working with.

The impact here is really on small businesses. They have the extra cost of updating the software—if they even have that software available to them. Many small and micro businesses do their payrolls manually still. If they have multiple employees there may well be multiple superannuation funds. It is right and proper that people have choice but it may well be problematic for the small business.

There are unnecessary burdens that are placed on small businesses. Small businesses form the engine room of our nation. It is interesting to reflect on the six years of the previous Labor government with respect to small business. There were five ministers responsible for the engine room of our nation. There were more small business failures under the previous administration, and fewer start-ups. To me that reflects, ultimately, on confidence. In the case of those long six years, the number of start-ups of small businesses in this country decreased enormously. I think that that reflected the chaos and confusion that Australians felt about the direction that this country was going in.

We need entrepreneurs in this country. We need people who are prepared to risk their own capital to follow the dream of no longer being an employee but being one's own boss. While I have never run my own small business, my wife has. She has recently sold her business and she is like a cat on a hot tin roof. She is on wages at the moment and she is beside herself, but that—I hope—will not last for too much longer.

In respect of the small business portfolio one of the election commitments that we made was that we would see the minister responsible for small business put into cabinet. And what a fine job Minister Billson is doing in that area! There were a number of commitments that we made—not least of all, making the process of tendering for government procurements easier. Those processes were designed so that only the large corporates in this country could tender for that business. But that has changed. I have had personal experience of that, even within the Defence portfolio. Within my electorate, a constituent put a proposal to the Defence department. Initially that proposal was sent back. They said, 'Look, we suggest you contact these private businesses.' However, since coming to government, they have been asked to make a presentation, because they are reviewing their whole procurement policy around making sure that small and medium enterprises have an opportunity to participate in the large amounts of money that government spends each year in procuring from the private sector.

Indeed, one of the other commitments we made in respect of small business was the root and branch review of competition. I will say that I do not think the minister is making too many friends within the banking sector or within the big retail end of town. But it was a commitment and there is nobody who is more dedicated to the task of making sure that large supermarkets deal with their suppliers in a way that is consistent with what I think every Australian would consider fair and reasonable practice. It is about making sure that small businesses are not precluded from supplying some of the bigger retailers, if they are competitive and have a product to offer.

The work that is being done on the Franchising Code of Conduct is very important for many businesses around Australia. When the franchisor and franchisee go to the wedding, so to speak, with starry eyes and a look of love their eyes, only to realise a few weeks or a year later that it was pretty well a one-way street and not a partnership at all but was actually being dictated to. This is about getting some balance back into that.

I note the member for Tangney's comment about bringing business into government It is certainly not the business of government to be getting into business. That is essentially what we have tried to do right from day one with the things that we made commitments to the Australian people about before the election to ultimately reinvigorate this nation with our Economic Action Strategy as the first stanza of measures to clean up the horrible mess we were left with.

None of us like this challenge. It is not an easy thing to do. It is always much easier in the business I was involved in to say yes to a client. But it was often very difficult to say no. But if it was the right thing to do, often, saying no straight up-front was the best time to say no. Indeed, it is easy to say yes but difficult to say no. None of us like this challenge, but by Jove we are up for it.

Having been a member for 14 months, if I were to reflect over that time, what is astounding to me is how those on the other side have tried to re-write history. I do not think I have ever seen such absolute denial about the carnage and damage that was done to our nation during those six years. It is as if the current government had a clean sheet of paper on 8 September 2013. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was not a clean sheet of paper. We inherited the sixth largest deficit this nation has ever seen—the sixth largest deficit delivered by the Labor Party and their mates, the Greens, in the last three years. Over the forward estimates we were left with $132 billion of cumulative deficits. Do nothing, and we were looking at a figure of $667 billion—a figure of $100,000 for every family of four. Those here today and those born tomorrow—within the next 10 years. It is $25,000 for every man, woman and child. It was not a clean sheet. The previous government had the best terms of trade this nation has ever seen They squandered it. Yes, we have some challenges with revenue. The previous government did not have challenges with revenue. They had problems with their spending. Every household knows that if you spend more than you are earning you are going nowhere. You are in real trouble. We are determined to fix the problem. We are up for this challenge. I say that on behalf of everybody on this side. Make no mistake about it. We do not like what we have to do. There is no joy in it, but we are up to the challenge.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014—the spring repeal day. Potentially, the bill has four very important schedules to it. The member before me spoke so eloquently and passionately about the importance of repeal day savings to our nation, because we were shackled by enormous amounts of regulation and red tape. The previous speaker spoke about the benefit to small business in unshackling them to the tune of $1 billion, early in our first year. To this point in time we have now doubled that to $2 billion of reductions in red tape. It is an outstanding achievement, and there are many on this side of the House who should be congratulated. In particular, I pay homage to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Josh Frydenberg, who has done an enormous amount of work in this area. He is a great friend of mine and he is doing a fantastic job in assisting our small business sector and our corporate sector, and in assisting this parliament in reducing red tape. This spring repeal day bill goes to the heart of what this government is about: it is about less government, it is about less intervention in people's businesses, it is about giving them the power to make decisions and it is about giving them the opportunity to spend more time with their customers and more time developing their businesses rather than being stuck out the back filling out reams of paper and spending countless hours on compliance—and sometimes duplicated compliance between state, federal and local government requirements.

These federal repeals are vital if we are going to increase the nation's productivity and that, I can assure this House, is a priority and a goal of this government. The Abbott coalition government is getting on with the job of cutting red tape and regulation. We have now introduced legislation to repeal nearly 1,000 unnecessary pieces of legislation and regulation and 7,210 pages of legislation and regulation—that is the removal of an enormous hurdle. If you were to stand those pages on top of each other, I think you would nearly go close to having a stack of paper as tall as I am.

Before the election we promised to cut red tape by $1 billion dollars each year and yet again that is another commitment that we have honoured. We have honoured many commitments during our period in government. We said that we would cut $1 billion out of red tape and this piece of legislation, with its four schedules, goes to the very heart of that. During the election we also said that we would cut the carbon tax—it has gone. Households are now up to $550 a year better off and those benefits will start to flow through to households as those savings are materialised, and then hopefully that money will be spent in our small business sector. We made a commitment before the election that we would get rid of the mining tax—we did that. The mining sector is so critical to Australia's productivity, our growth and the direction of our nation.

We had reports this morning that in 2007-08 the terms of trade were at a 150-year record high. We also saw iron ore and coal prices up around $130 and today they are at $63. The rivers of gold flooded those on the other side when they were in government. We made a commitment that we would build the roads of the 21st century and there is now record money being spent on infrastructure, stimulating jobs and stimulating growth. We are building infrastructure all around this country. The nation will be a huge beneficiary of that sound investment for years and years to come. I challenge those who read this speech to have a look at some of the investments that were made by previous governments, such as investments that were made in installation programs—$4 billion, of which half was spent on putting insulation into roofs, then the program was axed halfway through and the remainder of the funds were spent pulling the insulation out of those same roofs. Hardly a sound investment, hardly adding to productivity and hardly benefiting the nation, and all done on borrowed money.

We said we would get the budget back under control and we will do that. There will be challenges along the way. Be under no doubt or illusion, we inherited the worst economy and the worst budget that we could ever have been gifted by an outgoing government. Most importantly, in addition to this bill, we said we would stop the boats—we have done that and we will continue to stay vigilant in that area of border security.

The latest repeal measures will save individuals, businesses and the not-for-profit sector more than $2.1 billion in compliance costs. Cutting red tape matters. Too much regulation hurts. Too much regulation can stifle business. It can stifle productivity. It deters investment and innovation and costs jobs. According to the World Economic Forum global competitive index, in 2014 Australia ranked 124 out of 148 countries for the burden of government regulation. That is a bizarre and perplexing statistic for a nation to be boasting about, and it is just not good enough. For a country as advanced as we are, that is not a statistic that we should be proud of. The Productivity Commission has estimated that regulation compliance costs could be about as much as four per cent of our total GDP—can you imagine what we could do with four per cent of our GDP.

We have made enormous changes since we came into government in September 2013. I want to make sure that those on the other side of the House do not forget the disastrous budget that we inherited and do not forget those 1,200 lives that were lost at sea while they were on the watch and while they were in charge of border security. I think during their term in government there were up to five or possibly even seven small business ministers. It was a revolving door of ministers looking after this very sector that will be the beneficiary of this repeal legislation.

I want to speak now to the schedules, of which there are four. Schedule 1 of the bill is to do with employer reporting of superannuation contributions on payslips. The payslip reporting provisions in the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 require employers to include in employee payslips information prescribed by the regulations. Labor had intended that these regulations would be made specifying that employers had to report on payslips the amount of superannuation contributions and the date on which the employer expected to pay them. Labor did not make these regulations. The enabling legislation is, therefore, redundant and so we will repeal it. The superannuation contribution on an employee's payslip was not evidence that the actual superannuation contribution had been paid by the employer. So the only way that an employee could ascertain whether or not their contribution had been paid was to contact their super fund. Mostly you can do that through going online or receiving monthly, quarterly or sometimes annualised statements, depending on what your arrangement is with that particular fund. However, this is just a simple piece of legislation that we are repealing. This government is providing certainty for employers that they do not need to prepare for significant changes to the software that generates their payslips in respect of superannuation reporting.

Schedule 2 speaks to the consolidation and repeal of tax provisions. This measure simplifies the taxation laws by consolidating duplicated taxation administration provisions contained in various tax acts into a single location in a single act. This was put forward as part of Treasury's initial review of the Income Tax Regulations 1936 with a number of provisions in the principal law and regulations identified as duplicative, inoperative or spent. So these are recommendations that have come directly from Treasury. A number of provisions contained within the regulations were also identified as being more appropriately incorporated into the primary law. Overall, the changes will result in a material reduction in the size of the taxation laws, with one or two sections replacing in excess of 50 provisions. So 50 provisions we have replaced with one.

Schedule 3 is to do with the Financial Sector (Shareholdings) Act 1998. This measure will remove a burden on some associates of a person who is seeking approval for a direct control interest of greater than 15 per cent in a financial sector company. The measure modifies the deemed share aggregation rules applying to associates such that associates who do not have a direct control interest in the company will no longer be required to seek approval for the shareholding. The changes in this bill do not compromise the examination of a shareholder's controlling interest. This measure removes the technical legislative trap that imposes an unnecessary regulatory burden.

Schedule 4 speaks to rewriting the definition of 'Australia'. This schedule goes to those people who may work offshore on oil rigs or in territories, or who are fishermen who work at sea who occasionally may drift in and out of Australian maritime area. This amendment organises and consolidates in one place a definition of Australia for tax purposes. This is another step towards achieving a single income assessment act for Australia. The rewritten provisions define 'Australia' for income tax and other taxation purposes. I was not aware that this was a provision being brought to the House, but, currently, if an individual working on an oil platform near Australia wanted to determine whether or not they had to pay Australian income tax, they would be required to navigate through up to 13 different Commonwealth acts to ascertain whether or not they were liable to pay Australian tax.

While each of these simplification and rewrite exercises may in isolation be small, collectively these changes continue an important process of simplification and deregulation, reducing the overall compliance cost burden faced by taxpayers. This bill continues the government's stated objective, to remove the burden of red tape. We on this side of the House seek to remove these shackles and enable businesses to grow and prosper. That is what we believe in. And what we are doing is getting on with the job of delivering better for business. Next year, I believe, will be a better year for business. It will be about the $1 trillion approvals that the Minister for the Environment, Minister Hunt, has approved. They will start to come through. We will see the benefits of the removal of the carbon tax. We will see the softening of the Australian dollar. We have seen the free trade agreements that have been negotiated, which will all have a positive impact on our businesses, whether it be the free trade agreement with China, or that with Korea or that with Japan. Yes, as a government we will lose some revenue on tariffs, but we are more than confident that we will pick up what we lose on that merry-go-round in increased productivity and sales. I suggest that this bill should go through the House without any opposition, so I commend this bill to the House.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014 has four main components. This bill amends various laws relating to taxation, superannuation and shareholdings in certain financial sector companies to implement a range of improvements to Australian laws.

Schedule 1 to this bill will repeal the payslip reporting provisions in the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 that would have increased the regulatory burden on employers beyond that currently imposed under the Fair Work legislation. Removing these provisions will reduce unnecessary duplication in the law, and provide certainty to employers so they do not need to prepare for costly upgrades to their payslip reporting software.

Schedule 2 to this bill simplifies the taxation laws by consolidating duplicated taxation administration provisions contained in various taxation acts into a single set of provisions in the Taxation Administration Act 1953.

Schedule 3 to this bill amends the Financial Sector (Shareholdings) Act 1998 so that persons who do not hold a direct controlling interest in a financial sector company will no longer be deemed to have a stake in that financial sector company as a consequence of their associate's direct controlling interest.

Schedule 4 to this bill addresses the fact that currently the definition of 'Australia' for taxation purposes is complex, overly detailed and expressed differently in different parts of taxation laws, despite the fact that the laws are intended to achieve a simple and largely equivalent result. This will involve amending various tax laws, taking another step towards achieving a single income tax assessment act for Australia. The government is glad these changes can be made.

In the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, an organisation for which I was once proudly the CEO, pre-election survey for 2013 a number of questions were asked about taxation and superannuation administration. As the survey noted:

A total of 1,700 businesses were surveyed, across every state and territory, representing different business sizes and across all industries ...

As such, the survey has 1,096 small businesses, 478 medium-sized businesses and 126 large businesses.

Given the majority of businesses responding to the survey had between 1 and 49 employees, it clearly represents the voice of SMEs.

What the survey found was most illuminating. It stated:

Businesses were asked to select which taxes and levies were of most concern in the current environment.

More than three-quarters of businesses expressed major and moderate concerns with Company Tax (79.7 per cent), Compulsory Superannuation Levy (75.3 per cent) and Personal Income Tax (78.1 per cent).

Further, it reported:

More than one-half of businesses indicated that they have major concerns with the Overall Complexity of the Taxation System (56.5 per cent) and Frequency of Changes to Tax Laws and Rules (52.7 per cent).

Almost 75 per cent of businesses also expressed major and moderate concerns with Complying with the Superannuation System (70.2 per cent).

It is also evident that businesses are more concerned about the accumulated administrative and compliance burden of the Australian taxation system as a whole than complying with individual taxes.

So the government is getting on and tackling the job. This bill is a part of the coalition government's repeal day legislation. The government is getting on with doing what we said we would: cutting $1 billion in red and green tape each year. Since the 2013 election, the government has more than doubled that target, announcing over 400 measures across the whole of government and a net reduction of over $2.1 billion in compliance costs.

On the 2014 spring repeal day on 29 October, quite recently, the government continue this work by removing nearly 1,000 pieces and over 7,200 pages of legislation and regulation. The spring repeal day continues the work of the first repeal day in March, where the government removed over 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation and over $700 million of compliance costs.

Going forward, the government will continue to designate two parliamentary sitting days each year as repeal days to repeal costly and unnecessary legislation and regulation. The coalition's approach will result in more efficient government and more productive business and not-for-profit sectors. This will improve our nation's competitiveness, helping to create more jobs while lowering household costs.

In contrast, Labor introduced more than 21,000 additional regulations, stifling investment and job creation, despite Kevin Rudd promising a 'one regulation in, one regulation out' policy. Let me say that again: in little more than 5½ years, Labor introduced more than 21,000 additional regulations. This is despite Kevin Rudd's 2007 promise of a 'one regulation in, one regulation out' policy, and the then small business minister, Craig Emerson, saying in 2008 that Labor would 'take a giant pair of scissors to the red tape that is strangling small business.' Under Labor, there were nearly 100 examples of non-compliant and Prime Ministerial exempt regulatory impact statements. These included some of Labor's most significant legislative changes, such as the mining tax, the NBN, the Future of Financial Advice laws, and changes to the Fair Work Act. These measures all escaped detailed regulatory impact scrutiny following exemptions granted by Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard.

The Borthwick-Milliner review, commissioned by Labor and reporting last year, found:

… widespread lack of acceptance of, and commitment by, ministers and agencies to the regulatory impact assessment process.

Bad regulation and too much regulation hurts productivity, deters investment and innovation, and costs jobs. After essentially being steady for a decade, total factor productivity fell in 2013. In 2014, Australia ranked 124 out of 148 countries for 'burden of government regulation' in the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. While we improved four spots on last year, we are still immediately behind Colombia and Spain and just in front of Iran. Indeed, the Productivity Commission has estimated that regulation compliance costs could amount to as much as four per cent of Australia's GDP.

Let me now turn to wider issues related to taxation. I note again that this is a bill 'for an act to amend law relating to taxation'. So I would also like to say a few words about the recent taxation debate and the upcoming taxation white paper. The Prime Minister has launched a taxation debate centred on repairing the financial problems of the Australian Federation. They are problems begging to be fixed but will need maximum skills to achieve. I fully support the push for reform and I know you do too, Deputy Speaker Porter.

Obviously, all state premiers will need to be on board for wholesale reform to occur. The government is in the process of producing two parallel white papers—that is, government policy positions on reform of the Federation and on tax reform. In that context the Prime Minister said in a speech at Tenterfield on 25 October:

The Commonwealth would be ready to work with states on a range of tax reforms that could permanently improve the states' tax base, including changes to the indirect tax base with compensating reductions in income tax.

It is assumed that, when he spoke about an indirect tax option, he was clearly referring to the GST. But what is also clear is that the Prime Minister talked of considering a range of tax reforms. I have previously written about and spoken in parliament about the prospects of raising the GST and the difficulties that will be confronted by such an endeavour.

Today I want to explore a different option for reform that has been considered previously but which, in recent times, has been too readily discarded. Many commentators dismiss it out of hand. However, it is an option that has in the past had substantial support in both economic and political terms. I think it should be given serious consideration in the preparation of the government's taxation white paper. I am speaking about an income-tax-sharing agreement between the federal and state governments. The basic problem that needs to be addressed is clearly stated in the government's September issues paper on federation reform that notes that the states' revenue base is inadequate to fund their spending growth responsibilities in areas such as health and education. Demand is outstripping supply.

A brief history of income tax is relevant. Up until 1942, states levied income taxes. Then, due to World War II's funding demands, it was mutually agreed to hand the tax to the federal government. After the emergency passed, the federal government refused to hand it back. That is, until 1977, when then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser proposed a new federalism policy and passed legislation to allow state income tax surcharges or, for that matter, rebates, to help states meet their funding needs. Unfortunately, then New South Wales Premier Wran waged a short-sighted scare campaign on the issue, alleging this would lead to double taxation and the option was never taken up.

However, 14 years later, Prime Minister Bob Hawke was inching towards reintroducing such a policy through a series of Special Premier's Conferences when, in 1991, he lost a leadership ballot to Paul Keating. Hawke had set up a working party on tax powers that reported on 4 October 1991 and noted one option for reform was the introduction of a state income tax surcharge. In response, all state and territory leaders at the time signed a communique, on 8 November 1991, calling for its implementation. They sought a six per cent surcharge in a broadly revenue neutral package of reforms, whereby the federal government would reduce income tax and also payments to the states. It was recommended by experts and was politically doable.

However, the new Prime Minister Keating was personally against the proposal and it died there and then. Subsequently, an income tax surcharge was recommended by the 1996 National Audit Commissionand, importantly, an income tax surcharge was recently recommended by the National Commission of Audit in its February 2014 report.

Many so-called experts will complain that reordering the intergovernmental share of income tax revenue would do nothing to fix the relative balance between the direct, for example, income taxes, and the indirect, for example, GST taxes. The argument they are referring to, recently repeated by the departing Treasury department head Martin Parkinson, is that less reliance on income taxes is more efficient, as it reduces the negative impact of high marginal rates on people's incentive to work. There is truth in that.

However, when you think about it, most taxes, including GST, are paid out of your earned income, so it is not apparent that this is an overwhelmingly decisive argument. And, to make it clear, the income-tax-sharing option that I believe should be debated is not designed to raise more total revenue but to substitute federal taxes with state taxes, thus not increasing the overall reliance on income taxes. Indeed, in my opinion, any possible economic efficiency benefits from reform would be lost if all that we are doing is locking in the deleterious effects of further increases in the overall tax burden.

Another economic benefit claimed for what is often called a 'tax mix switch' is that GST, as a consumption tax, on balance, encourages further saving. Again, Australia does not at present suffer from a household savings problem, with indexes at near historical highs. In conclusion, I put forward an income-tax sharing proposal as yet another option for debate.

It would not be a perfect solution but, as with other options, should at least be considered in the white paper process. In conclusion, I strongly support this bill and also offer my two cents worth on other taxation matters.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support this bill, the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014, that directly delivers on the coalition government's promise to cut red tape. Today we are doing what we said we would do: cut red and green tape for the good of the nation.

Prior to last year's election, this government committed to cut $1 billion worth of red and green tape per year. I am proud to be standing here today not only delivering on this election commitment but acknowledging that this government has more than doubled its pre-election target.

More than 400 measures have resulted in over $2.1 billion in compliance costs. I will say it again: $2.1 billion of reduced costs to business and not-for-profit groups, which filter down to Australian families.

Last month, we had the 2014 Spring Repeal Day, where we were continuing the work of the government's first repeal day in March this year. Last month's repeal day introduced legislation into the House to remove almost 1,000 pieces and over 7,200 pages of regulation.

In March, the coalition government removed over 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of regulation, resulting in over $700 million of compliance costs. This is just the beginning. This government will continue to repeal unnecessary and counterproductive regulation every year, with two designated repeal days per year.

The Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014 is just one part of the government's Spring Repeal Day agenda. The measure contained in this bill improves and simplifies the operation of laws relating to taxation, to superannuation and to shareholdings in certain financial sector companies. This bill will implement a number of refinements to simplify the approval requirements when seeking the Treasurer's approval of a change in ownership of a financial sector company while also clarifying employer payslip requirements. This bill will repeal the payslip reporting provisions in the superannuation law that would have increased the regulatory burden on employers beyond that currently imposed under the Fair Work legislation.

The current regulations are in danger of imposing an extremely costly burden on business that was never intended. By repealing this regulation, this government is providing certainty for employers that they do not need to be preparing for significant changes to their payslip software when it comes to superannuation reporting. This bill will repeal duplicative provisions from the superannuation legislation that allows for regulations to be created prescribing additional information to be included on employee payslips on superannuation contributions. The repeal of this regulation will not affect the information employees currently receive on superannuation contributions on their payslip. There is already legislation requiring employers to at least report details of employee superannuation entitlements that accrued during the pay period on an employee's payslip. For employees to report actual contributions and payment dates they would need to invest in major upgrades in their software. We want to avoid that major expense for employers, especially when the benefit for employees would be so marginal.

There are so many provisions in place to recover unpaid super should an employer be doing the wrong thing, and employees can now also typically check online via their superannuation fund whether their employer is making regular superannuation contributions whenever the employee wants to check.

Mr Brough interjecting—

Someone was being unparliamentary!

Mr Brough interjecting—

It also simplifies taxation laws by removing inoperative provisions, consolidating duplicated provisions and moving longstanding regulations into the primary law. I think most Australians would agree that tax laws can be complex and difficult to understand and are frequently costly to comply with. For example, the current provisions dealing with a tax file number and investment income reports provided by investment bodies to the Commissioner of Taxation are overly prescriptive and difficult to comply with. They are not sufficiently flexible to allow the commissioner to continue to pursue further ways of reducing compliance costs. We want to increase that flexibility for the Commissioner of Taxation to facilitate modern reporting methods, which should reduce compliance costs for investment bodies.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are also repealing redundant taxation laws, such as the older harsh penalty regimes, and moving long standing regulations into the primary law. And I am really pleased that the member for Fisher is supportive of my contribution here, because I think he is going to be up next.

Wyatt Roy interjecting—

Oh—the member for Longman; good.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He's hanging on every word!

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excellent; wonderful. The result overall of simplifying these taxation laws will mean a reduction in size of the laws altogether. We are scrapping over 50 existing provisions and replacing them with only one or two new provisions. We are making up for former Prime Minister Rudd's failed 'one regulation in, one regulation out' policy. This government is making tax law easier to use and easier to comply with, but we are not altering any current tax policies. We are keeping our changes simple, the way government regulations should be. We are tidying up laws in line with good legislative practice. It is an important part of the care and maintenance of our tax system.

The bill reduces the regulatory burden on the associates of individuals seeking to obtain a shareholding of more than 15 per cent in certain financial sector companies, such as banks and insurance companies. This measure removes a technical legislative trap that imposes unnecessary regulatory burden without compromising the intention of the regulation. Currently, when a person is seeking a shareholding of more than 15 per cent of a financial sector company, they must seek approval from the Treasurer for the shareholding. In addition, any associates of that person must also seek approval from the Treasurer for the shareholdings, even when the associate has no actual shareholding in the company. This measure removes an unnecessary burden on the associates of a person—for example, a person's partner, relatives or related companies—who is seeking approval for a shareholding of greater than 15 per cent in certain financial sector companies. Removal of that provision does not compromise the scrutiny of a shareholder's controlling interest. Further, the Treasurer still has the authority to block shareholdings where practical control can be asserted by an associate and the Treasurer is satisfied that it is in the national interest that the shareholding be divested.

This will also rewrite the definition of 'Australia' into a single location in the tax law for use across all the tax laws in a simple and coherent form. Currently the definition of 'Australia', for taxation purposes, is complex, overly detailed and expressed differently in different parts of the taxation legislation. This is all despite the fact that tax laws are intended to achieve simple and largely equivalent results. If you were working on an offshore oil rig, for example, near Australia and wanted to know whether workers had to pay income tax in Australia, you would have to navigate through about 13 different pieces of Australian legislation. I have had constituents contact me about this specific issue. I think any Australian out there who had to consider 13 pieces of legislation to simply determine whether they had to pay tax or not would be correct in thinking that it is a bit of a burden and a bit over the top. That is why the coalition government is going to fix it.

The complex and ad hoc existing definitions will be consolidated into one place of definition for most tax purposes. This will assist taxpayers to better understand and comply with the laws, resulting in reduced compliance costs. This is another significant step towards achieving a single income tax assessment act for Australia.

Like my coalition colleagues in the chamber here who will be speaking on this very soon, I wholeheartedly support this government's deregulation agenda and these new changes. It is disappointing that the opposition have shown such little interest in job creation and lowering costs for not-for-profit groups and Australian families. Their lack of interest in speaking on this bill says it all—all they are interested in is stifling investment and job creation. They want to continue the failed 'one regulation in, one regulation out' policy that Kevin Rudd instituted. With more than 21,000 additional regulations introduced by the previous Labor government—that is, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government—we really need to be axing 10 regulations for every new regulation.

Government is there to assist Australian business, not supervise and micromanage every single aspect of their business. Small business is the backbone of the Australian economy. It is the great Australian story: mums and dads setting up shop to work hard and make a better life for their families. This government is committed to encouraging Australians to seize opportunity and be rewarded for their hard work. Government needs to get out of the way of small business and let them continue contributing to the Australian economy. Time and time again, I meet with small business operators in my electorate of Solomon and their clear message to me is: 'Let me do my job, let me make a living for my family and let me run by business without drowning in mountains of paperwork and hours of complicated compliance work.'

The entire coalition team is committed to deregulation, and the finance minister has certainly done his bit by introducing this bill to cut red tape. Even those opposite cannot deny that bad regulation and too much regulation hurts productivity, deters investment and innovation, and costs jobs. This government's approach will result in more efficient government and more productive business and not-for-profit sectors. This will improve our nation's competitiveness, helping to create more jobs while lowering household costs. Again, the Minister for Finance and the Treasurer should be commended for their work in contributing to the coalition's plan to repeal counterproductive, unnecessary and redundant legislation and regulations. I commend the bill to the House.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always a great pleasure to follow the member for Solomon, somebody who was a very successful business woman in her own right. She knows that Australian businesses thrive when government gets out of the way. To paraphrase that great quote, it is often a case of government being the problem rather than government having the solution. We on this side of the House are very lucky to have people who have been very successful business people in the private sector. We bring that wisdom to this place to discuss bills such as we are debating here tonight.

This government promised a deregulation agenda that would slash at least $1 billion in red and green tape every year. We are more than delivering. This year we have doubled on that commitment, with hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs removed on the first of our dedicated repeal days in March. Our autumn repeal day removed more than 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of redundant, unnecessary and burdensome legislation and regulation. Now, together with the second of our repeal days, the government has hit that $2 billion target. On 22 October the government introduced legislation and tabled an instrument to repeal a further 1,000 pieces and more than 7,200 pages of legislation and regulation. The autumn and spring repeal days bring the total net deregulatory saving so far to more than $2.1 billion. The aim of this unflinching, whole-of-government commitment to repeal of costly and utterly frustrating legislation and regulation is to get government out of the way and to streamline our lives so that businesses especially can free their arms, breathe and grow again. That will mean a stronger economy and more jobs for Australians.

The bill we are debating, the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014, is another important step towards this uncluttering of bureaucratic excess. We are a government that want to see enterprise succeed. We are a government that want to see employers advance with confidence and certainty and, frankly, just get on with doing the business they do so well. This bill contains a number of measures that will improve and simplify the laws around taxation, superannuation and shareholdings in certain financial sector companies.

In summary, they repeal pay slip reporting provisions in superannuation law that would have added another layer of regulatory burden on employers above and beyond the current requirement enshrined in the Fair Work legislation. They simplify taxation laws by removing or consolidating redundant and replicated provisions and shifting long-established regulations into the primary law. They cut back the regulatory burden on associates of individuals seeking to obtain a shareholding of more than 15 per cent in certain financial sector companies and they rewrite the definition of Australia into a single location in the tax law so it can be applied across all tax laws for ease and clarity.

The previous Labor government's red tape legacy is well documented. I have spoken about it many times in this place, but once again, for the public record—the former Labor government saw 40 new or increased taxes and more than 21,000 new regulations. We are untangling the mess that has enveloped our businesses, our schools and our hospitals; a mess that has stifled productivity and outcomes and has led to costs being passed on to every single Australian. And so it is that Labor's intention to introduce more crippling regulations—regulations specifying that employers would have to report on pay slips the amount of superannuation contributions and the dates on which the employer expects to pay them—will now be thrown onto the very large red tape bonfire. The government will repeal provisions from the superannuation law that would have allowed the previous government to give effect to this change—a change that would have placed more costly, time-consuming and, altogether, an unnecessary onus on employers.

This repeal will in no way alter the information employees currently receive on their pay slip with regard to superannuation contributions. Under the Fair Work Act, employers are already required to at least report details of employees' superannuation entitlements that have occurred during the pay period on an employee's pay slip. If employers were suddenly required to report actual contributions and payment dates, the major updates to their software would be costly and, for a period at least, disruptive. And for what tangible benefits from the perspective of employees? Little to none, I would think. It is a fact that most employers pay their superannuation. It is also a fact that the Australian Taxation Office investigates every complaint received about unpaid superannuation. Its risk analysis and intelligence work means the ATO knows who to target in terms of high-risk industries and employers.

Mind-numbing duplication was a hallmark of the previous Labor administration. Weaving one's way through a maze of technicality and detail to get a straight answer and a simple solution proved time and time again to be a headache for businesses in my electorate under the government of those members opposite. Is it any wonder that at this time two years ago small business start-ups under Labor had dropped by 95 per cent and the number of businesses going bankrupt had risen by 48 per cent? At that point there were 11,000 fewer small businesses employing people than there had been in 2007. This government, in just 12 months, is turning the ship around. In Longman, confidence is returning to the local economy, with businesses from Caboolture to Narangba hiring new workers. And the phenomenon is in no small part fanned by the government's demolition of red tape.

Another key measure in this bill simplifies the taxation laws by consolidating duplicated taxation administration provisions contained in various taxation acts into a single location in a single act. This measure also repeals spent or redundant taxation laws and relocates long-standing regulations to within the primary law. Existing tax law is complex; it verges on the impenetrable and it makes at times costly compliance demands. However, these changes will result in a material reduction in the size of the taxation laws, with one or two sections replacing in excess of over 50 existing provisions. Currently, if a taxpayer seeks to clarify his or her rights in relation to information the Commissioner of Taxation has the power to obtain, they must navigate across 10 different acts. These amendments will put an end to that, with all relevant material being contained within schedule 1 of the Taxation Administration Act. Wherever possible, cleaning up our tax laws so that their integrity is uncompromised, while becoming more accessible and involving less user time and cost, should be a priority of the government. It is, as I can assure you, a priority of this government.

Indeed, the changes in this bill are perhaps, above all, just plain sensible. As such, they stand in start contrast to the six years of insufferable Labor over-regulation and maladministration. As I mentioned, the unwinding of red tape is already resulting in real, bottom-line results for the businesses of my local region. A case in point is Packer Leather, an iconic local leather manufacturing firm that is the supplier of leather for Kookaburra cricket balls and Sherrin footballs. Packer Leather had been forced to pay up to $20,000 to get an imported chemical approved by Australian regulators for use in the tanning process, despite these chemicals already having met very difficult international standards. After I took up the case with the member for Kooyong and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, the government will now require the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme, or NICNAS, to increase its acceptance of risk assessments made by reputable international authorities such as the European Union regulator. In short, this is just another victory for common sense. The removing of expensive and time-consuming reapprovals in Australia will help put managing director Lindsay Packer on a level footing with his international rivals. Packer Leather is a truly global act, even producing the leather for gloves worn by some of the world's top racing drivers. I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for visiting Longman, where he spoke to local businesses, duly noted their red tape concerns and then took action. He understands better than anyone in this place how bad regulation and over-regulation hurts productivity, deters investment and innovation and ultimately costs jobs. With the help of his hard work, the government is righting the wrongs of the former Labor government. In shedding billions of dollars worth of obstructionist red tape, we are unshackling our businesses, industry and communities and pointing them on a path to prosperity. That is what these bills seek to do, and I commend them to the House.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to rise in this House to once again speak about the positive actions that this government is taking to unshackle our businesses and our economy from the pernicious burden of red tape. Before I get into the specifics of the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the achievements of this government over the course of 2014.

Our starting point, which I think is very relevant to remember, is six years of debt, deficit and waste by those opposite—the former Labor government. As a result of some of the decisions that we have made in the budget, we are now reducing the potential impact of our debt load by some $300 billion. We have put together the largest ever infrastructure package, committing some $50 billion to infrastructure projects around Australia. This, together with the asset recycling scheme, leverages a potential $125 billion investment in infrastructure to build the productivity and economic growth in this country.

In the electorate of Forde, we have some $3 million going towards the Beenleigh CBD redevelopment upgrade. The proceeds of crime legislation will provide $1 million worth of CCTV camera improvements around the electorate. We have also succeeded in repealing the minerals resource rent tax, giving our minerals and resources industry certainty and clarity about the future of their business opportunities. We have repealed the carbon tax, resulting in the largest falls in electricity prices on record. We have privatised Medibank and the third largest IPO globally this year, and we are receiving $1 billion more than we initially expected. We agreed on three free trade agreements with Korea, Japan and a China.

One of the hallmarks of our election campaign was the delivery of smaller government. We started work on achieving that by abolishing 76 agencies, authorities and boards. None of these organisations produce a single cent of wealth for our country. They survive because of the productive capacity of the productive sector—our manufacturing sector, our resources sector and our services sector. Removing the cost impediments and the regulatory burdens and oversights from our business sector allows it to get on and do what it does best, which is generate wealth for this great country.

In addition, we have approved over 300 projects worth nearly $1 trillion through our environmental approvals processes and speeding that up. We have rebuilt the employee share ownership framework to drive start-ups, innovation and productivity and, in the longer term, to share the wealth not only with the owners of those businesses but also with the shareholder employees. This will give them a genuine economic interest in the business which they work for and truly spread the wealth that this nation can generate for everybody. We have dealt with Labor's tax backlog of almost 100 unenacted tax measures. We have proceeded with some 32 of those measures, and we have sought to rid the system of the others in order to give clarity and certainty to taxpayers and for the future. This will assist the ATO in simplifying the complexity of the taxation act and in dealing with the uncertainty created by those unenacted tax measures. We have been successful through the G20 process in developing a framework to crack down on tax cheats through international leadership, with a 15-point OECD action plan.

In addition, nearly 75 per cent of the over 400 budget measures have already been implemented, with another 50 or so measures currently before parliament. This will result in an improvement in the budget bottom line of around $15 billion over the forward estimates. In contrast, we have those opposite opposing savings to the tune of $28 billion, currently, including $5 billion of their own. Those opposite, the Labor Party, want an additional $15 billion of spending restored. This is worsening the budget bottom line by $43 billion. We saw six years of economic mismanagement, waste and profligate spending when those opposite were in government; yet, in opposition, they have not learnt the lessons and continue to do the same thing.

We have also succeeded in rolling out a Direct Action Plan, with practical environmental projects and without slugging the Australian people with a carbon tax. The Green Army has been established. We have a project being run by North-East Albert Landcare at the Pimpama River in Ormeau. The NBN is being rolled out in a way that is efficient, affordable and less costly to taxpayers. In the electorate of Forde, with the recently updated national roll-out plan, areas such as Chambers Flat, Munruben, North Maclean and Park Ridge South are going to benefit from the improved roll-out schedule. We have stopped the boats—which many claimed was impossible—and one of the results of that has been to stop deaths at sea. We have responded to the threat of extremism with new counterterrorism measures, because it is our duty to do everything we humanly can to keep Australians safe.

This is just a snapshot of what this government has achieved over the past 12 or so months, but we recognise that there is still a lot of work to do. We continue to be focused on growing our economy through continuing to reduce red tape and regulation, which is exactly this bill is about. The Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014forms part of our whole-of-government commitment to repeal counterproductive, unnecessary and redundant legislation and regulations. We made a commitment at the last election to cut over $1 billion in red and green tape. We have gone beyond that target by more than double, to over $2.1 billion in red- and green-tape costs removed from our economy. It has also resulted in some 57,000 pages of legislation being removed from the statute books. During both the autumn and spring repeal days we set out to dismantle the legacy left to us by the previous government, which oversaw 40 new or increased taxes and the introduction of 21,000 additional regulations, despite former Prime Minister Rudd promising in 2007 a one-regulation-in one-regulation-out policy. The former small-business minister, Mr Emerson, notably supported this ambition in 2008, saying that he would take a giant pair of scissors to red tape that was strangling business. In fairness to Mr Emerson, the end result was that they brought multiple rows of red ribbons that they wrapped business up and tighter and tighter bows of red and green tape. As with much the previous government did, it was style over substance. However, it has been a coalition government—this government—that has delivered for small business.

I find it hypocritical that those opposite seek to disagree with our deregulation agenda when they once, in the dim, dark, distant past said that they had similar intentions. It is amusing to hear claims that out deregulation agenda is merely fanfare. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the savings appointed and announced since our first repeal day. We have assisted small-business through the Fair Work Ombudsman Small-Business Helpline, which has had more than 100,000 calls, to date. This has led to a reduction in annual compliance costs of over $2½ million, according to the Department of Employment. Additionally, small businesses are to benefit from the improved ATO communications strategy, with the government's Digital First. Small businesses will benefit from a reduction in the amount of time spent reading ATO communications and we will reduce the need to store paper correspondence. I know from my discussions with the ATO that it has been moving rapidly to a digital communication strategy and achieving some very significant successes and some very positive feedback from their small-business customers.

Local pharmacies in my electorate, such as Waterford Discount Chemist, the Chemmart at the hyperdome and Murphy's Health Care Pharmacy, have benefited from the increase in the PBS claims threshold as a result of the reduced paperwork. We have also moved requirements of vocational education and training sector, which includes RTOs, to apply to update the registration when changes to training packages are made but the training outcome remained the same. Furthermore, the minister has announced that the Australian Skills Quality Authority will remove the requirements for financial viability assessments to be undertaken as part of the re-registration process. This will certainly benefit local RTOs in Forde such as Brisbane Business & Hospitality Training and Evocca College.

One innovative step, which, in fairness, started under the previous government, is the MyTax process whereby small taxpayers and people with simple tax affairs can lodge their tax returns through MyTax. That has provided an enormous benefit to some 1.4 million Australians and resulted in some $156 million in compliance-cost savings. My two sons have both lodged their tax returns this year via MyTax. I was sitting with them when they did it. The process is very simple where you have a simple tax return. A lot of the data is prefilled from various sources.

Local charities will be better off with the removal of duplication and financial reporting to the Australian charities and Not-for-profits Commission. Our charities do not want to be stuck behind a desk; they want to be on the front line, assisting the people in our communities who need it most. Charities such as Lighthouse Care, Twin Rivers Centre, Red Cross, Rosies, Soul Centre, Multilink Community Services and Canefields Clubhouse will benefit significantly from these changes.

The next lot of repeals, contained in this bill, go further in reducing the red-tape compliance of business. They include payslip reporting provisions in superannuation law which would have increased the regulatory burden on employees beyond that currently imposed under the Fair Work legislation. They simplify taxation laws by removing inoperative provisions, consolidating duplicate provisions and moving longstanding regulations into primary law. There is a broad base of changes that will significantly reduce red tape and regulation in our economy.

At the end of the day, it is our business community that generates the wealth of this country. The best thing that we as governments can do to facilitate growth and economic welfare for the future of this country and create long-term economic growth opportunities for businesses and for individuals is for us as governments to get out of the way of business and let them do what they do best—that is, employ Australians and create wealth for the future generations of this great country.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the House for this opportunity to address the matters relating to this very, very important piece of legislation. I think there is a real sense of lightness coming over business; it is coming over the departments of government. There is a realisation that for too long now governments have been standing in the way of business going about doing what they do best. That is to remove compliance costs and remove duplication and to ensure that business is just freed up to service their customers, do good work, do good business, make a good profits and, more importantly, employ great Australians.

It is not just us saying that there is a lightness coming across this country but many other people outside of this place. There are people like the CEO of Westpac, Gail Kelly, who said this:

The government is showing that Australia is open for business, there is deregulation and a reduction of red tape is under way.

Tony Nicholson, the executive director of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, said these words: '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.' Who would have ever thought that this very piece of legislation and the one that came before it—version 1, if I can say that—back in the autumn session would get out of the way of organisation such as the Brotherhood of St Laurence to the point where they say it actually frees up their resources to now get about the business that they are actually about. That is, helping the disadvantaged people of this great country.

I found interesting in the early stages of this debate when those opposite stood like soldiers in a row to actually mock repeal day and to mock this legislation that goes about deregulating, removing duplication and doing everything it can to get out of the road of business. They talking out of the side of their mouth with mockery about what this legislation does. They are laughing. It may be a piece of legislation that may be a little crazy, but it might have removed a quarter of a million dollars, half a million dollars or $2 million worth of compliance costs that were actually having to be paid by business across this country.

I do not see it as a laughing matter at all. I think it goes to show where the mindset of those opposite actually is when it comes to running business in this country. This government—who had six very interesting years, I must say, from 2007 to 2013—were going to be, as they were in many other areas, the messiah of deregulation and the great white hope of getting rid of the impediments to business in this country. But in a little more than 5½ years—you will not believe this—the Labor government introduced more than 21,000 additional regulations.

This is despite Kevin Rudd, Kevin 07, promising this: one regulation in and one regulation out. That was his policy then to small business, coupled together with the then Minister for Small Business, Craig Emerson. I think they lost their way. They forgot that they made a promise of one regulation in and one regulation out. They misinterpreted it. They interpreted it to be one Prime Minister in and one Prime Minister out! They lost their focus. Well, business does not want their government to lose focus and this government is not losing focus when it comes to getting out of the way of business in this country.

The Minister for Small Business, Craig Emerson—referred to by the college that spoke before me as the member for Forde—said in 2008 that Labor would take a giant pair of scissors to the red tape that is strangling small business. Again, I sadly have to make this announcement to the parliament: they lost their way, but they did not lose the scissors. The scissors did not end up cutting red cape; the scissors ended up in the back of two Prime Ministers of this country. They should have been focusing on using the scissors to get rid of the red tape that they promised they would. But they did not. As I said, 21,000 additional pieces of regulation were introduced under the previous Labor government.

As we have done on this side of the House, I could join the queue and come up with 100, 200 or 500 examples of the deregulation agenda that this government has been promoting. We started with our first repeal day back in March. We have had our second repeal day, as we promised. These repeal days will go on under the leadership of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, who is doing a great job. But his job is being made much easier by a change in culture in this place. It is a change in culture from the very top. It is a change in culture led by the Prime Minister of this country, who is a Prime Minister who says, 'This is what will define our government when it comes to small business: we are going to get the heck out of their road.' He has passed that culture onto his cabinet ministers, the outer ministry, the staffers of those ministers and the departments that those ministers lead. That is what leadership from the top is all about. It is about changing culture.

That is what this government is about. That is what we were elected to do in 2013. We were given a mandate to change the culture in this country on a wide range of fronts, whether it was getting the heck out of the way of small business, whether it was changing attitudes when it comes to the payment of social services in this country, whether it comes to the culture of higher education and whether it comes to the culture of actually getting on with investing in this country. The culture change has to be led from the front.

Those opposite can do everything they want to try to devalue this government, me as a backbencher, any of our ministers or even the Prime Minister, but what they fail to tell you is that they were not culture changers. They were just culture embracers. They were culture embracers of their own political history and their own political ideology. Where did it get us? It got us to a point where we are basically in a huge debt and deficit disaster zone.

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

Shameful!

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is shameful, as the member for Bass just said behind me. It is shameful. They mock us every day when they come in here. They would have no clue how to get us out of this debt and deficit disaster. They have created the mess but they have no clue, no courage, no fortitude, no vision and no willingness to actually get us out of the disaster that we currently find ourselves in. I find it extraordinary that they can mock even a bill such as this and yet make no attempt to tell the truth when it comes to the mess that we have inherited.

This is not about us claiming victim status on this side of the House. This is about a government that was elected with a mandate to clean up the mess. Do you know what conclusion I have come to—and I speak as the member for Braddon? Everyone still to this day—no, I should not say 'everyone'—most people to this day when they see me up the street, whether I am collecting my mail, getting my newspaper, getting money from the bank or getting coffee, say: 'The job has to be done, Brett; stick at it.' When the tough decisions have to be made—the ones which we were elected to do, and the ones which they still ask us to do—I say to the people of Braddon and I say to the people of this country that we cannot sit back and say, 'Make the tough decision, Prime Minister; make the tough decision, Minister for Defence; make the tough decision, Minister for Social Services; make the tough decision, Minister for Communications; make the tough decision, Treasurer; but make sure the toughness only impacts my neighbour and not me.'

Well, it does not work that way, country. It does not work that way, fellow Australians. We are a team; we are team Australia. Those on the other side may mock that, but we are a team. We are a young team; we are a small team; we are a powerful team—in the top 20 nations of this world. But we have to get in and do the job together. We dig the hole together, we fill it in together, we grow the crop together and we reap the harvest together. That is what we do. We do not blame it on everybody else and say, 'You do the tough stuff. I need to do the tough stuff', so that we can all sit back and say, 'Don't hurt me; just make it tough for someone else.' This is not about hurting anyone. This is about growing our future. This is about my kids and my grandkids—the grandkids that I do not have yet. I do not have them yet but I do not want them inheriting the mess that we have actually inherited—$667,000 million of debt if we do not do anything. Well, we are doing something. And I have said in this place before, and I will say it again: if it costs me my seat—which I hope and pray it does not, because I will be working my tail off to ensure it does not—and if I leave legacy of improvement, if I leave a legacy of hope and if I leave a legacy that will actually give some sense of optimism for my kids and my grandkids, then it will all have been worth it.

They on that side do not get it. It is all about political expediency; it is all about the now. They will do anything right now to damage to government, to give an impression of chaos and to give an impression that they will deliver every piece of candy to every child, adult and family in this country. But I ask the question of those opposite: who is going to pay for it? They have never seen a dollar or a 10c coin that they would never spend. They have stolen from our children, they have stolen from our grandchildren, and enough is enough. It is time that those opposite actually acknowledged the mess they put us in and stopped trying to rewrite history. They have walked away from the fire that they lit, mocked the firemen on the way down the garden path and have left town. They do not want to know about it, and I say to the people of Australia: 'Do not fall for it.'

We left an economy in good shape. A $20 billion surplus every year—money in the bank. And what have we got now? We have accumulated deficits of $123 million until the eye can see. It is unbelievable. But they just sit back and say, 'Nothing to see here.' They cannot and will not show restraint. And today we saw it again. They continue to mock every policy that we come up with, even though we have a mandate on most of those fronts. I could not believe it the other day the Leader of the Opposition was strutting his stuff in front of the camera, as he does every day and he said: 'They want to do this; they want to make this change or they want to implement this policy. They need to go and get a mandate.' Well, for goodness sake, we got a mandate on the carbon tax and they would not vote to get rid of it. We had to depend on the crossbenchers to get it through, and, thankfully, they saw common sense. So what an absolute hypocrite we have in the Leader of the Opposition! 'Go and get a mandate,' he says to make himself look like this great democratic leader of our country. 'Go and get a mandate.' For goodness sake, the people of Australia gave as a mandate on 13 September, 2013. And what do we see? They have knocked back everything that we actually said we would do. We went to the people and said, 'We are going to do this, this and this.' Even that is not a mandate for those opposite! They just want to cause chaos. They want to sabotage the future of our country, the economic prospects and hope of my children and my grandchildren. I have had enough. I am prepared to stand up and fight for it.

Even when it comes down to issues such as this bill, as mocking as they may be, this is a symbol of what this government stands for. This is a symbol of where this government wants to take this country. This is a symbol of a prime minister, a cabinet and a ministry of people that want to change the culture in this country. I believe that is what the people of Australia want. If they want weak-kneed leadership—a mamma and a papa that will give every kid every lolly every day of the week when they go to the show and fatten them up—because if that is what you want, people of Australia, you will get what you wish for. But if you want a government that is prepared to invest in your future and make sure that there is going to be a pension for yourself or your own parents in 25 years time, get with the program. We cannot afford it. We have to rein in expenditure. We have to make the changes to policies that are just unsustainable.

This is not some game we are talking about; this is the future of our country. We are in a competitive fight to the death when it comes to our products and our services across the world, but this lot over here think it is some sort of gee-whiz ride at the local agricultural show. It is not; it is our future that we have to fight for. We have made a commitment to the people of Australia, and we will leave this parliament in the last sitting week of 2014 recommitting to that future and that we will get it under control. We will move on the debt and deficit disaster. We will continue to fight for small business to make it possible for them to grow, to make profits and to employ people to get this economy moving. But it takes everyone. You might not be a small-business owner, but you depend on them to employ your children. I implore people as they listen as we end this week to understand the journey that we are on and the journey we need to take. I thank the House.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014. But before I do that, it would be absolutely remiss of me if I did not acknowledge the significant and substantial—nay, outstanding—contribution made by the member for Braddon. He is an exceptional representative for his electorate, and it was appropriate that he was accompanied into the chamber and supported by his two fellow amigos from Tasmania. One thing I have learnt from these three gentlemen in my short time in this place is that, when you fight collectively on behalf of your state, you achieve so much more. So I was not surprised to look around the chamber and see that, supporting the member for Braddon, we had the member for Lyons and the member for Bass—and what a credit they are to their state. Well done.

I have had a tough week. I played some cricket against the parliamentary press gallery. I also did battle with a bee. Notwithstanding that, I would walk over hot coals to be in this place today to talk about this issue. Those listening to the broadcast do not have the benefit of seeing my eye, which is about the size of Jupiter. Notwithstanding that, I am here. I am here because this issue is close to my heart—as it is for the member for Braddon and everyone on this side. It is also an issue that is close to the hearts of small businesses throughout my electorate Barker.

I thought I would begin by turning the clock back. What is old is new again. It was in April 1946 that the founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies, took out an advertisement in The Bulletin magazine declaring the following: 'We want fewer forms and more reforms.' Alongside that slogan was a picture of a husband and wife overwhelmed by paperwork. The advertorial went on to say: 'I'm fenced in with permits, licences, returns and regulations from every board, division and department under the sun. What I want is to control my own industry.' It was a message that resonated strongly then—and, unfortunately, it still does today. In every facet of life—from aged care to agriculture, from schools to small businesses, from visas to veterans—we are, disappointingly, facing an avalanche of legislation that is stifling investment, stifling innovation and impeding the creation of jobs. It is impeding the creation of hundreds upon thousands—nay, tens of thousands—of jobs.

I take this opportunity to commend the Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, the member for Kooyong, for their commitment to the cause of deregulation. We of course had the first inaugural repeal day on 26 March 2014—

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'The first inaugural'—the master of tautology!

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and a second repeal Day on 29 October. We hear an interjection from the other side. They like to heap scorn on this proposal but they are not as confident out there in voter-land to heap scorn on this proposal—

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every government has repealed!

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suppose I should make a concession for the member for Perth because she was not in this place in 2007 when Kevin Rudd proudly boasted that we would have a one-in one-out regulation policy. But, as we have just heard from the member for Braddon, what the Labor Party delivered instead was a policy of 'one Prime Minister in, one Prime Minister out'—in fact they repeated that. But let's get to the core of this subject.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

The member for Perth can keep going. I remind her that not only was their policy of one-in one-out almost never observed, but we ended up with almost 21,000 additional regulations—not 21, not 210, not 2,100 but 21,000 pieces of additional regulation. I grew up at the feet of my parents operating small businesses, operating agricultural enterprises. Before I had the privilege of coming to this place, I operated a small legal practice in partnership with my wife where, from time to time, I would be called upon to fill out the necessary and requisite paperwork. I always found it curious that on forms—for example, the business activity statement—there was a box that asked how long it took you to fill the form out. I used to take great pride in filling out that box with the words 'too long' because whenever I was filling out that document and others like it I was being taken away from the very important and profitable work of billing for my time.

But we can keep talking about that or we can move forward. What we are doing by moving forward—as the member for Braddon correctly pointed out—is remodelling the culture of this place. It is important that we do that. It is important that we acknowledge every decision we make in this place that adds a regulatory burden to those who are creating wealth. Nobody in this place— and I am sure the member for Perth would agree with me—creates wealth. Disappointingly, we spend public funds. The smaller government can be, the happier this little bee-stung baby will be! But the reality is that we do not create wealth.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

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

Order! The member for Barker has the call.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the regulations we impose in this place, we make it harder for the people out there who are employing the people who are generating wealth for this country.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

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

Order!

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will tell you why I know this, for the member for Perth's benefit. I know this because not only was I an employer, not only was my wife an employer; but my parents were employers. My father was an employer and my mother was an employer. I watched as they would stay up late at night, having completed a full and hard day's work, to sit down and undertake the necessary and requisite paperwork. That was a challenge then and it is an ever-increasing burden.

We have red tape, we have green tape and I have this week been introduced to a new term: tier tape. I had to stop the individual who made this remark and say, 'What do you mean by tier tape?' I understand that there is green tape. That relates to environmental matters. I understand there is red tape. That relates to government matters. Tier tape is this concept that there can be regulations imposed upon regulations across the tiers of government. So we now have red tape, green tape and tier tape. Quite frankly, the more that we can do to take that burden off ordinary everyday Australians who take the risks out there in the community to create wealth, the better we will be for it.

The Labor Party, disappointedly, has come into this place, and did so with great fire and brimstone in both March and in October and attempted to heap scorn on the efforts of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and on the PM himself. That is all they have in terms of this argument. As the member for Perth will have to acknowledge, they had six years. They had six years to get on top of this. Instead of getting on top of this, what they did was lump 21,000 extra regulations on the Australian people. It was the World Economic Forum that judged Australia, pitifully, 128th out of 148 countries surveyed for burden of government regulation. That is the background that the Abbott government is determined to turn around. We have to turn around this overwhelming tide of red and green tape.

It was interesting to read a speech recently given by Ms Gina Rinehart, who, of course, is one of our nation's great wealth generators. I am sure the member for Perth—

A government member: And she is a great person too.

Exactly. A strong, principled woman in business and, I am sure the member for Perth would agree with me, a great Australian. She was commenting in this speech about the difference in culture between South-East Asia, where she had been touring, and Australia. She was lamenting the fact that we had created a culture in which forms ruled over reforms. I am determined while I am in this place to give strength to her arm, to give strength to our arm—reforms need to roll over forms.

It is a great privilege to be in this place. Today I hosted students from Murray Bridge High School. I took them all the way to the roof, which was my second occasion on the roof. They asked me, 'Why is it that you are in this place? What drove you to give up a successful practice in law? What drives you to give up as much time as you do away from your family?' I can assure you it is not the fare that we get in the cafeteria—it is certainly not that! What it is is the desire to do better—better for my young daughter, for her children if I am ever blessed with grandchildren, better for the future grandchildren of the member for Braddon.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

The member for Perth can keep interjecting, but she fails to realise that people in this place, on this side, understand how important these reforms are. If those on the other side want to continue to heap scorn on our attempts to cut red tape from the burden that this government imposes on its citizenry then you can keep having that argument because, news for the member for Perth, she will keep sitting on that side of the chamber if that is the agenda she is going to take forward. I can just see the slogans now: 'Vote 1 Labor for more red tape'. You are not going to say that in future elections; what you will be saying however is this—

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

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

Order. The member for Barker has the call.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And here is a headnote for the people listening to the broadcast: what the member for Perth and her colleagues will be saying in the lead up to the next election is this: 'Vote for us and we will bring you back that thing called the carbon tax.' No red tape regulation or burden in that!

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

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

Order. The member for Perth is to ignore the member for Barker. The member for Barker has the call.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Perth, I should be fairer to her, because in truth she was one of the sane people on the other side of this place who were prepared to denounce the carbon tax. Unfortunately, the problem she has going forward is that her party is going to take to the next election a desire to return the carbon tax to ordinary, everyday Australians. That does not just mean that they will be paying more for their electricity. It does not just mean they will be paying more for their everyday commodities. What it means is there will be more regulation and red tape thrust onto business. And what that, in effect, means is that there will be less employment opportunities for young Australians, older Australians—nay, every Australian.

Those on the other side can continue to attempt to heap scorn on the red tape repeal days. The bad news for them and the good news for the Australian people is that they are going to happen twice a year every year. The other bit of bad news for members opposite is they are going to keep happening while we are in government and, I can tell you, while you are supporting more red tape and we are supporting less red tape, we are going to be on this side of the chamber for a very long time. So strap yourself in and come up with a new narrative because this one, with respect, is not working.

I must say that I am glad I lit the fire cracker because I have enjoyed it tonight. But if the member for Perth were serious she would—and I think we should see more of this in this place—join us in a bipartisan approach to finding every single opportunity to deregulate, to snip that red tape. I will remind the member for Perth that it was Craig Emerson who, in 2008, said:

We are promising to take a giant pair of scissors to the red tape that is strangling small businesses.

Well, he must have dropped his scissors. We have not dropped ours. I commend this bill, and I am looking forward to snipping up that red tape.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased tonight to rise to talk on the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014. I am most pleased to speak in support of the member for Tangney on our side, the member for Lyons, the member for Wright, the member for Eden-Monaro, the member for Solomon, the member for Longman, the member for Forde, the member for Braddon and the member for Barker, who just spoke, and I notice, on the speaking list, to follow on our side there are the member for Berowra, the member for Forrest and are member for Cowan. However, I look over on the opposition side and I do not know whether this is a mistake, but there does not seem to be one single speaker listed from the opposition prepared to speak on this bill. So I can only wonder: have they knocked off already? Are they off at Christmas parties and they do not care about this legislation? Or is it, in their heart of hearts, that they do not like the idea that we in the coalition are repealing red tape? I think that is what it is.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We actually recognise that this is the routine business of government.

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

Order! The member for Perth will not interject.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All that we are left with is the poor, old, sad member for Perth, left here by herself in the chamber, ranting and raving. What a pathetic performance from the opposition!

Why is this legislation so important? In this government, we do not inherit a blank piece of paper. Every government that comes to office inherits the good work or the mess of the previous government. We know what happened when the previous Labor government, the Rudd-Gillard-Greens government, was elected to office. We know they inherited an annual budget running $20 billion in surplus. That is what they inherited. When they inherited, not only did we have no net debt, this nation had $45 billion in the bank account, and we, as the nation, were actually earning interest on that money that the Howard-Costello government had put away for a rainy day. There was $1 billion flowing into the national accounts that we could use as increased spending in all sorts of areas. That was the legacy the previous Labor government inherited.

Fast forward six years and what have we, as the coalition, inherited? In almost every portfolio we see mess after mess, disaster after disaster. But probably the greatest disaster is what they have done to the budget. I would like to go through some of the numbers of the budget so we know why this legislation on repeal day is so important. We often talk about billions of dollars worth of debt and how much of a mess we are actually in. But I think perhaps another way to put it is: how much more did the previous Labor government overspend because the nation was simply running at a loss for six years? In every one of the six budgets they spent more money than they raised. The reason was their excess spending, their waste, their incompetence and their mismanagement on a Whitlamesque scale. Over those six years there was a 50 per cent increase in spending. So the spending was the problem, not the revenue.

If we look at the 2008-09 budget, the Labor government overspent by 10 per cent. In 2009-10, they overspent by 18 per cent. In 2010-11, they again overspent by 17 per cent. In the following year, 2011-12, it was a 12 per cent overspend. In 2012-13, it was a 13 per cent overspend. What we inherited is, again, more than a 10 per cent overspend. What happens when the government overspends? They quickly whittled away that $45 billion that they had inherited. They quickly whittled that away and they had to start to cover the losses. Because they were running this nation at a loss, they had to borrow the money. They had to borrow the money, and most of the money they borrowed was from overseas.

The first job that we, as the incoming government, have is to pay the interest on the debt. Currently, that is running at $13.5 billion every single year. We must find over $1 billion a month. Instead of giving it to schools or to infrastructure or to aged care or to hospitals or to kids with disabilities, we have to take that money from the taxpayer and use that to simply pay the interest on the debt, and the sad thing is that that $13½ billion does not even repay one cent of the principle that they borrowed. It is simply an interest-only repayment. So we have to continue to pay the interest bill almost forever, until we get the budget into surplus and we start to whittle away that $300 billion plus debt that this previous Labor government left us with.

It was not just the financial mess. We know they tied the hands of small business with their red tape because they think that you can micromanage the economy to get the best results. Despite 200 years of economic history showing that this is a nonsense, that is still the mantra of the current Labor opposition—get in there, control the levers, give everyone instructions and directions—because they do not have trust in the citizens of Australia. They do not have trust in the small businesses of Australia to get out there and to grow the economy. They simply believe that the government and the bureaucracies know best. That is why they love red tape. But we know that that hurts productivity, it deters investment and it costs jobs.

That is exactly what the figures show. In 2013 our productivity actually went backwards. If we are going to fund all of the things that we want to fund for the future of this nation, if we want to fund a national disability insurance scheme, the only way we are going to be able to do that is to increase the productivity of this nation. We have to increase our productivity. That simply means doing more with less. Every single business in the private sector understands doing more with less.

When we come to rankings—just to see where we are in the global sphere and what we inherited—on the ranking of burden of government regulation from the World Economic Forum Global Competitive Index of 148 nations, where do you think Australia ranks? According to the World Economic Forum, after six years of this mob, we rank 124th out of 148 countries. We are still behind Colombia and Spain, but the good news is that we are in front of Iran. Congratulations to the previous government—124th and we are actually ahead of Iran. What an amazing effort!

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

What we have seen—which the member for Perth would well know is the result of the policies that she favours—is probably the biggest decline in small business in our nation's history. What they managed to do, while they were going through their revolving door of small business ministers, was decrease small business in this nation. Today there are close to 500,000 fewer people employed in small business than there were when the previous Labor government came to office. The most disturbing fact is that we are seeing fewer people wanting to start their own business. That is one of the most disturbing economic statistics we inherited from the previous Labor government. They deterred people with their red tape, mismanagement and Labor ideology. They deterred people from going out, taking a risk and starting up a small business. Shame! Absolute shame!

On the specifics of this bill, schedule 1 amends the requirements for employer reporting of superannuation contributions on payslips. There are already existing requirements under the Fair Work Act 2009 and the Fair Work Regulations 2009 for employers to include on payslips the amount of superannuation contributions they are liable make. But that was not enough for the previous Labor government. They wanted more regulation on top of that to try and create more work for our small business people.

While I am on this topic of superannuation and red tape, I bring the House's attention to a gentleman called Mr Bracegirdle. His case was provided as evidence to the recent royal commission into trade unions. Mr Bracegirdle worked for Toll. I have the utmost respect for the people who work in our road transport industry. Driving a truck is one of the hardest, most difficult and dangerous jobs we have in our nation, and they deserve all the support that we can give them. Mr Bracegirdle, like every Australian, simply wanted to get the best return from his superannuation fund. He wanted to be free to decide where to put the superannuation money that he had earned. He looked at the TWU union super fund and thought:

I just didn't think that TWU super was stacking up as well as some of the commercial organisations, some of the banks and things.

What he wanted was freedom of choice, freedom to decide to put his superannuation money with a fund other than the one he was being told to put it in—simple freedom of choice—but red tape got to him.

He went to his employer, Toll, and was told: 'You don't get a choice.' Toll's pay officer then said that, if he wanted to challenge that, he would have to see his union delegate. He went to the union delegate and the union delegate told him it was not possible for him to choose where he put his superannuation money—it had to go to the TWU superannuation fund.

Then he went to his local member, Mr Stephen Smith, who in turn went to the minister for superannuation at the time—the member for McMahon, Mr Bowen. The letter he got back from the member for McMahon stated:

Employees who receive employer superannuation contributions under a collective agreement are not eligible for choice of fund.

We have such red tape in our superannuation sector that an employee can earn that money—it is his money—which the government requires him to put into superannuation, and then have his union step in and tell him: 'You do not have freedom of choice. You must put that money into a TWU fund.' Just imagine if we had a requirement that you had to spend 10 per cent of the money you earned at only one supermarket, one clothing store or one restaurant. We would consider such red tape an absurdity. But we have this red tape currently in our country today on superannuation—coercive red tape. This is a further example of the work we must do.

While I am on the subject of red tape—and I have talked about the Whitlam incompetence and how so much money was wasted—with the release of the Australian National Audit Office report, The Design and Conduct of the Third and Fourth Funding Rounds of the Regional Development Australia Fund, we have found that not only was there massive debt and waste and incompetence but also that that debt was run up through rorts. That is all you can call the Regional Development Australia Fund. That money was simply rorted by the previous Labor government and pork-barrelled into marginal electorates—a complete rort. Billions of dollars were misappropriated from the taxpayer to promote Labor Party members.

In the remaining time, I would like to read some of the key points of the audit. One hundred and six funding applications were deemed not recommended for funding, to which the Audit Office gave the acronym NRF. The independent advisory panel did not recommend them to be funded, but the minister at the time decided that she would fund 14 of them, at a cost to the taxpayer of $87 million.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who was the minister?

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it was Minister King.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for 'Ballarort'.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The area is called 'Ballarort', I think. I thank the member for Solomon. I commend this bill to the House. It is a small step in removing red tape. We need to do more and more of this.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The standing orders require that members be referred to by their correct titles.

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

I thank the honourable member for Perth.

Debate adjourned.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014 is a very important bill given the circumstances Australia now faces. As members before me—the member for Hughes and others—have mentioned in their speeches to this debate, this bill is particularly important given the state of the budget and the state of the debt and deficit left by the previous government. So impacts on productivity and any measures that we as a government can take to improve productivity in this country need strong support. That is why the members on this side are speaking in support of this bill, which repeals an exorbitant amount of red tape.

We know why this is necessary when we look at the situation that is facing this country—and I think all members need to take this particularly seriously—and even the interest component alone. As we heard from the member for Hughes, around $13.5 billion must be paid each year in interest alone. When I am out in my community and I talk to people about the fact that we are paying over $1 billion a month in interest as a result of the decisions of the previous Labor government, it is amazing how many people are simply astounded, as they should be, and horrified by that level of debt. With that level of interest and the level of debt and deficit, it was a never-ending spiral with the previous government. It had no responsibility and no concern as to how any of this would ever be repaid. One billion dollars a month in interest is obscene by anybody's terms. All of us out in our electorates see so many useful and greatly needed projects that would benefit from that expenditure of $1 billion, which is literally going overseas in interest as a result of the previous government's decisions.

Looking at business, we see the additional 21,000 new or additional regulations that were imposed by the previous government. When you are out and about in your community visiting small businesses, you might walk into a light industrial area, and that is one of the most common themes that you hear from small business—'We just want to get on with the job that we're here to do. We've invested ourselves. We've taken the risk. We just want to get on with the job.' They are very good small business people, but they have been, and are, overburdened. That is no wonder, with 21,000 new and additional regulations imposed by the previous Labor government. It is no wonder that these repeal days are so important to the country and no wonder that they have been so strongly supported right around industry and small business sectors. They well understand just what an imposition this is on their businesses. You walk in their doors and see the amount of time that they spend on compliance, away from their customers and away from what they do best—and I am surprised that there are not more speakers to this debate from the other side who understand how important repealing red tape is, particularly for small business in this country and particularly given that over 500,000 people are no longer employed by small business. Of course—

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Including at Serana in your electorate. They'd be very interested to know what you've done to protect their business.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying, the previous government's decisions imposed such a level of red tape and saw 500,000 people fewer employed as a result of those decisions. Added to that is the $1 billion a month in interest imposed by the previous government. That is a huge burden right across the economy, which is certainly felt in small business.

We have taken a very direct approach to this. We all know that bad regulation and too much regulation compromises productivity—one of the measures we have to assist this country in achieving what it needs to achieve and to improve the budget bottom line. We also know that too much regulation deters investment. As you would know well from your experience as an engineer Madam Deputy Speaker Andrews, it certainly deters investment and innovation in all fields. And it costs jobs. Productivity fell in 2013.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don’t you lecture us—

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will be heard in silence. The member for Perth!

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2014, Australia ranked 124 out of 148 countries for the burden of government regulation in the World Economic Forum global competitiveness index. That should be a real concern for everyone in this House, including the members on the opposite side. But from the comments that I am hearing it is clearly not of concern to them. The Productivity Commission has estimated that regulation compliance cost could amount to as much as four per cent of Australia's GDP. That is an extraordinary amount of GDP spent on compliance.

There are a range of measures—very important measures—that we are taking to minimise and simplify interaction with government. Australians can now use a centralised on-line point of access for government services, including the Australian Taxation Office, Medicare, Centrelink, eHealth records, child support, veterans' affairs and the NDIS. And over five million people have already created their MyGov account. With that, and other improvements to services and government access, this community is saving, in general, around $88 million a year in compliance costs. And every cent counts, particularly in small business.

The Australian Taxation Office's new online return service MyTax will save over 1.4 million taxpayers nearly $160 million a year in compliance costs by pre-populating tax returns. An estimated 447,000 small businesses—the people who invest their own time and money; people who mortgages their houses to get into small business—will benefit from a reduced tax compliance burden arising from changes to GST and PAYG reporting. Businesses with no GST payable will no longer be required to lodge a business activity statement. If you think of that in a practical sense and you look at small business you will see that these measures will save small businesses an estimated $67 million in red tape.

I will now look at other regulatory obligations and reporting processes. Aged care providers will no longer be required to notify the Department of Social Services of key personnel changes unless the changes significantly or materially affect the providers' suitability to provide care. These are all simple, practical measures. When you are out in your electorate talking to these providers, you know that every layer of compliance adds costs and time and takes people away from the jobs that they are actually there to perform—the jobs that they really want to do most.

Builders who tender for Australian government projects will no longer need to be accredited with the Federal Safety Commissioner to undertake single-dwelling residential constructions. It is very important to note that they are still subject to federal and state workplace health and safety laws. Universities—this is something very dear to your heart, Madam Deputy Speaker—are being saved $2.1 million in compliance costs by not being required to complete the Sustainable Research Excellence staff-hours survey. That is supposed to measure how university researchers balance their time between research and other activities over a two-week period.

These are all just simple, practical measures—one measure after another. One common-sense practical reform is that Australia will accept products, systems and services that are approved overseas under a trusted international standard or risk assessment. And NBN customers can opt not to have battery backups installed in their homes or businesses, as many customers can use their mobile phones or generators during power blackouts. That will save $21.1 million in compliance costs.

There is another reform that I often get questioned about when I am out in the electorate. Registration on the 'do not call' register will now be indefinite, saving more than 9.2 million individuals and families from having to re-register their phone and fax numbers. That is something that is unbelievably practical and simple, but was never done by those opposite. It probably required too much common sense.

Australian beef producers exporting to the EU will no longer have to tag their cattle with lime green tail tags for the European Union Cattle Accreditation Scheme, saving farmers around $0.5 million per year. The next reform is an interesting one. The estimated 70,000 new motorcycles sold in Australia each year will no longer require modification to be fitted with an Australian-specific rear mudguard, bringing Australia into line with the UK, France and Germany, and saving an estimated $14.4 million in industry compliance and manufacturing costs.

These measures all sound particularly simple and common sense but they are very important to individual businesses and individual members of our community. We are taking a common-sense approach to regulation, even in what we as a government do, and we are looking at the purpose, cost and impact on productivity of proposed initiatives before regulating. A simple, common-sense approach is certainly what we are about.

The bill amends various laws relating to taxation, superannuation and shareholdings in certain financial sector companies, to implement a range of improvements to Australia's laws. Schedule 1 amends to Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act to repeal the payslip reporting provisions. These are existing requirements in the Fair Work Act 2009 that require employers to include on payslips the amount of superannuation contributions they are liable to make. The bill will not make any changes to existing requirements. But Labor had intended that regulations be made so that employers had to report on payslips the amount of super contributions and the date on which the employer expects to pay them. However, they did not deliver these regulations. Removing these provisions reduces unnecessary duplication in the law and provides certainty to employers so that they do not need to be preparing for costly upgrades to the payslip reporting software.

There are a range of measures within the bills. When you walk into small businesses and industry one of the most common issues is that of compliance. I commend the minister and the government for actually having a practical approach to this—the repeal days are actively repealing these types of regulations and are taking a proactive response to it. We have seen the response in the business community. I commend the bill to the House.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am looking forward to this opportunity tonight to speak on the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014. As other speakers on our side have said, at the last election we talked about the repeal of red and green tape. We spoke about how much that would generate within the economy, cutting $1 billion in red and green tape each year. We have absolutely done that. In fact we have exceeded that expectation. It is now over $2 billion.

But, of course, it is not just about ticking a box. It is not just trying to reach out to some figure. It is actually about making a real difference. It is about trying to make people's lives easier and trying to make it easier for businesses so that they can get on with what they do best. Small business all the way around this country has suffered from over-regulation as they try to get by on a shoestring budget. Small businesses in this country have stretched themselves in pursuing a dream, in trying to turn their ideas into reality and fulfil their dreams. They have been trying to do their best, but red and green tape regulation and having to jump through hoops does nothing but undermine the confident of small businesses and their ability to get on with what they do best.

Not every small business succeeds in this country, but they back themselves. That is so important. I do not have a business background. I spent time in the Federal Police and then in the Army and in a couple of other things along the way. There is a big difference between that and small business. But small businesses are the people who have a vision for the future. Sometimes they put their house on the line. Sometimes the shirt on their back is at risk. We in this place should be thinking about doing everything we possibly can to take the burden off them and let them do what they do best.

This bill has been much maligned by the Labor opposition. They talk about punctuation—that this bill today is nothing more than punctuation. But the agenda the government is pursuing through this bill and through previous bills is in every way what we said we would do and in every way is about trying to help small business around this country. It is not just business itself. We acknowledge that small business is a huge employer of Australian people. If we can help them to employ more people and give the community more confidence to spend to help generate activity within the economy, that is a good thing.

I look at this bill and I say it is exactly what we were elected to do. It is to help Australian people, to help improve the job prospects of Australian people and to help improve the lives of people who own small businesses. There is an outcome that filters down into every suburb around this country. There is no doubt about that.

In earlier speeches, particularly those given by the opposition before they ran out of people who were interested in reducing red tape—and that was a long time ago in this debate—they talked about how when they reduced red tape it was just a normal day at the office. But they were the side who increased regulations by 21,000 in the time that they were in government. They had a minister for deregulation, as well, but if anything it was more like the 'minister for over-regulation'. Now is the moment for the side that is in government to make some real progress in this area. With $2 billion in reductions in red and green tape that has flowed from what we have done, and through the efforts of the member for Kooyong and the other front benchers involved, we are now seeing some real changes.

Through this work, nearly 1,000 pieces of red and green tape will be taken away, and 7,200 pages of legislation and regulations have been removed. That adds to the work of the first repeal day, back in March, where over 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulations were taken away. That took away over $700 million of compliance costs. This is something real. It is not just a bit of punctuation around the edges. This is an agenda which actually turns into real improvements and savings for Australian businesses and thereby encourages more people to employ. There is a lot being done and once this bill is passed, as I am sure it will be, the people of Australia and the businesses who are involved in this area will see the benefits of it.

I know that to many people on the street red and green tape does not mean a whole lot. If you are not involved with business and filling out forms, or if you are an employee, you might not see the full impact of everything that we were talking about in the first repeal day or in the repeal day that is involved in this legislation. But the end result still remains, that businesses do not have the same costs that they would have had and they do not have the same burdens. Small-business owners do half the jobs themselves in their business—the owner or their partner might end up doing the books and the taxation arrangements, and superannuation and wages—and obviously when they do those things we should make sure that the bare minimum of requirements are placed upon them. There is no doubt that we should be working towards that and ultimately that will help small businesses in Australia.

Of course, bad regulation and too much regulation is obviously the enemy of productivity and, if it is too much of a hurdle to be jumped, then investment and innovation will also suffer—and jobs as well. So, we must do everything that we can. In 2014, as other speakers have said, Australia was ranked 124 of 148 countries for the 'burden of government regulation' by the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. The slight improvement of four spots last year obviously and loudly in a megaphone manner really does suggest that something must be done differently. Bills such as this and the first bills from the first repeal day do give us a way to change that. We need to be open for business because if we are open for business and if we are making things as easy as possible for business in Australia, then the economic activity of the country is improved upon and obviously more people are employed—that is one of the big goals for the government of this country. So, there is a lot being done and, as other speakers have talked about, there are some real improvements. With regard to superannuation, we are taking away the onerous requirements of reporting what is being paid. Obviously there must be the requirement for those moneys to be paid by businesses for employee superannuation, but at the same time there are easier ways and better ways to demonstrate that than what has been the case of having to possibly even add extra expensive software to fulfil the requirements that had been talked about in the past. Taking that away, we can still have the safety and security but without having the onerous red-tape burdens upon business.

In conclusion, I absolutely endorse both the agenda of the government in red and green tape repeal and this bill in particular. Earlier today the Treasurer talked about a trillion dollars worth of investment that had been signed off as a result of the efforts of the government and business in this country—that is nothing but a good news story. Through measures such as this, where we are taking the burden off business in this country so that they can then offer more opportunities to those people working in Australia or that are seeking jobs in Australia, that is exactly the right thing to do. That is just another way in which the Abbott government is returning hope, reward and opportunity to Australians.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been fascinating listening tonight to the debate on the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill. Of course I agree that any government needs to constantly be reviewing excess legislation. I think what we have got on the other side is a whole bunch of self-hating legislators. They have come in here tonight and one after one absolutely sledged the whole concept of legislation and providing a framework. If their analysis that the smaller the regulation that you have the more vibrant and active an economy you would have was correct, then certainly we would be seeing Gabon, we would be seeing the Dominican Republic and we would be seeing all of those countries that do not have sophisticated administrative and legal structures being the ones that were up there really kicking the economic goals, but we know that that is not the case. I urge the members opposite to become a bit more intellectually sophisticated and to understand that the creation of a legal and administrative framework is absolutely essential for the success of business. Just look at those countries and look at what has led to the successful formation of business in the Western tradition. Just look at what was necessary in terms of legislative regimes to allow the whole concept of the notion of a nonhuman person, a corporation, to emerge. I think there has been a very primitive understanding of our economic system on show here tonight, and I think that is very disappointing.

Debate interrupted.