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

This bill, and its associated bills, says everything about this government, to quote the member for Wentworth, being a government of 'slogans, not advocacy'. The bill is about red-tape repeal day. It happened months and month ago, but, finally, we are now dealing with this particular tranche of legislation. The government has waxed lyrical about all of its savings. What it has actually done is normal statute revision work of any government. We did this without much fanfare when we were in government, and it was done almost invariably in the Federation Chamber because it was not controversial, but this government is always about slogans, as the member for Wentworth said. It is all about three-word slogans and catchy little phrases. It talked all about this wonderful piece of legislation—the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill. It sounds impressive, but do you know what? The government estimates that this will result in $41.4 million in deregulatory savings. Why this is not dealt with in the Federation Chamber, I do not know.

Keen listeners will recall that I mentioned there were two deregulatory savings measures in this piece of legislation—and guess what? The explanatory memorandum refers to the other aspect of this legislation. I kid you not, it generates a whopping $3,000 in deregulatory savings. There you have it—the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill. Such fanfare! Wonderful stuff! We have a Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister—it was the member for Kooyong, now it is the member for Pearce—coming in here and talking about it. It creates just over $41.4 million in savings from these two amendments, and the government expects a round of applause.

Put in context, this is less than 10 per cent of the $475.7 million in deregulatory savings the government had reported since last the repeal day, in October 2014. What makes up the balance? I will go through a couple of things. The bill amends and repeals several acts in the agricultural portfolio for nil deregulatory savings. How does this affect primary producers in my electorate of Blair, which is a regional-rural seat? Dairy farmers in the Somerset region can rest easy knowing that the government will appeal the Dairy Adjustment Act 1974, even though the last agreement under that act came into effect in 1976 and the period for new agreements lapsed in 1977. Goodness me, they will be up in arms in Esk and Toogoolawah about that one!

Meat exporters around Kilcoy and Coominya in my electorate will also see absolutely no effect from the repeal of the Meat Export Charge Act 1984 and the Meat Export Charge Collection Act 1984. Those two acts impose charges and applications for the inspection of export meat and meat products. In government, we introduced a new cost recovery arrangement for these inspections under our export certification reform package. The cost recovery arrangements are now detailed under the Australian Export Meat Inspection System and fees are collected under different legislation. Farmers in Blair are unlikely to be troubled also by the Retirement Assistance for Farmers Scheme or the Retirement Assistance for Sugarcane Farmers Scheme from the Social Security Act 1991. These schemes closed—I kid you not, Mr Deputy Speaker—in 2001 and 2007 respectively. Additionally, repealing the Primary Industry Councils Act 1991 will not see these councils furiously updating their profiles across the internet. There are no industry councils existing under the act, and no councils have actually been established since 1993. For the record, the second reading speech identifies that only two councils were established under that act—the Grains Industry Council, which ceased in 1998, and the Australian Pig Industry Council, which ceased in 1999. Members of those councils have, presumably, moved on to bigger and better things some time ago.

This bill also amends and repeals several acts in the Treasury for, again, nil deregulatory savings. How will all of these changes effect the residents in my electorate of Blair? As all of the transactions under the International Monetary Agreements Act 1959 are now complete, I suspect the government's repeal of this act will not make the front, the second or even the last page of The Queensland Times, published in Ipswich in my electorate. The people of Ipswich and Somerset are unlikely to rush to their accountants following the repeal of the Income Tax (Withholding Tax Recoupment) Act 1971, as changes to tax laws in 2006 meant that that type of borrowing taxed under the act could no longer arise. That act is redundant and will be repealed. I could go on and on—and I will.

There are examples in Indigenous affairs—my shadow portfolio. The bill repeals two acts in the Indigenous affairs portfolio. The first is the Aboriginal Affairs (Arrangements with the States) Act 1973. This act enables the appointment of state government employees to the Australian Public Service and APS-permitted persons to perform functions under the state laws relating to Indigenous affairs. This act is redundant as the Public Service Act 1999 has similar arrangements for the transfer of state and APS employees to another state or agency to perform services relating to and including Indigenous affairs. The second act repealed is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Discriminatory Laws) Act 1975. This act supersedes certain historical Queensland laws that discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Thankfully, those discriminatory Queensland laws have been repealed, and the act is no longer needed.

Again, we are not arguing that the government should not be doing this. This is spent legislation—redundant acts. This legislation does not deserve a special stunt day. It should be dealt with in the Federation Chamber. It should be remembered that this legislation will not improve the lot in life or the lifestyle of one Indigenous Australian. It will not restore the more than $500 million that the Abbott government has cut savagely from Indigenous front-line services and programs since the 2014-15 budget. It will not correct for one moment the government's shambolic Indigenous Advancement Strategy, which has left hundreds of Indigenous organisations struggling with ongoing financial uncertainty. It will not erase the self-proclaimed Prime Minister for Indigenous affairs' offensive description of Aboriginal people's right to live on traditional lands as a 'lifestyle choice'.

The second bill, the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015, will have no financial impact on the bottom line. This is the third statute revision bill introduced by this government in this parliament. As I said before, these are not novel; they are not modern legislative instruments. Governments of all stripes have been doing this in the Australian parliament—the place down the road or this place here—since 1934, the year Joseph Lyons was Prime Minister and, I might add, the year the Three Stooges released their first film, so I am told. This is routine government work carried out by all governments. These bills correct spelling, punctuation and other drafting errors in the legislation. They update cross-references. They remove spent or obsolete provisions. It is all worthy work. It is not bold deregulatory reform, no matter what the government would have you believe.

Just like its predecessors, this is a housekeeping bill. It is not controversial or confronting. It does not remove or streamline any operative regulation. If this bill were a colour, it would be faded beige. The member for Pearce and parliamentary secretary sums this up neatly in his second reading speech:

The bill makes improvements to the acts it amends without making substantive changes to the law.

He is right. The bill is no page turner. For example, item 5 of schedule 2 of the bill corrects a typographical error in subitem 20(10) of schedule 2 to the Medibank Private Sale Act 2006 where the first word of subitem (10) does not have an initial capital letter—great regulatory reform! Other corrections include correcting a grammatical error in the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994, which refers to 'an veterinary chemical product' rather than 'a veterinary chemical product'. So, it replaces an 'an' with an 'a'—truly heroic reform! It introduces gender-neutral language into the acts. The bill makes purely technical amendments to the indexation provisions in certain acts that rely on the consumer price index, altering 'reference base' terminology to 'index reference base' terminology.

This act will not affect any pension payments, unlike the government's plan to index pensions to CPI rather than the higher of CPI, MTAWE and PBLCI from 2017, which will erode the value of pensions and make it harder for older Australians to live with dignity. The 15,000 aged pensioners in my electorate would rather the Abbott government left their pensions alone than seek a pat on the back for minor technical change to indexing terminology.

The Statute Law Revision Bill also amends relevant legislation that predates ACT and Northern Territory self-government so that where that legislation binds the states it also binds the territories. The bill repeals spent and obsolete acts, including the Captains Flat (Abatement of Pollution) Agreement Act 1975. For the interest of members with electorates outside the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, I am told Captains Flat is a town south of Queanbeyan. This is all a worthy purpose, but the act is obsolete and worthy of being repealed. However, it will not reduce the regulatory burden on a single Australian business in a measurable way. It will not create a single job. To my knowledge, no business has contacted my office to demand the repeal of the Captains Flat (Abatement of Pollution) Agreement Act 1975. For the government to elevate and exaggerate this simple housekeeping bill is a stunt—a slogan, as the member for Wentworth has said. It reveals an arrogant government that is out of touch, out of ideas and out of its depth.

The Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015 is the third bill that this chamber will debate. The bill will have no financial impact. It will repeal about 850 amending or repealed acts enacted between the years—you guessed it!—1980 and 1989. Every one of those acts has been inoperative for at least 25 years. We agree that redundant, unenforced or irrelevant acts should be removed from the statute books. That is what we did when we were in government. But we did so without pretending that repealing the Captains Flat (Abatement of Pollution) Agreement Act 1975 was bold regulatory reform that will 'reduce the regulatory burden on any person or business in the country'.

Soon enough the Abbott government will run out of stunts to pull for these repeal days, and we see that it is already happening. Goodness knows what is going to happen when they get rid of the Amending Acts 2010 to 2015 Repeal Bill. How will that satisfy the Australian public, which has taken repeal days into their hearts and their homes? The government should consider repealing its policies and legislation that hurt Australians—the pensioners, the families, the students in my electorate. They are the ones who need protection. The government should hang its head in shame over these slogans, as the member for Wentworth has said, and these stunts.

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

I rise to support the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015, which continues to deliver this government's deregulation agenda. Cutting red tape is essential to building a stronger and more prosperous economy. The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015, along with the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015 and the Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015, further cleans up the Commonwealth's statute books by repealing acts and amending unnecessary and outdated provisions. To date, the government has delivered a total deregulatory saving of $2.45 billion.

In 2014 the government introduced legislation to repeal over 10,000 legislative instruments and 1,800 acts of parliament. As of 31 December 2014, as a result of deregulatory measures introduced by the government, approximately $1.5 billion in reforms have been implemented, and approximately $820 million worth of deregulatory measures identified in 2014 are in the process of being implemented. The implementation of some of these measures has been delayed by the parliament, while others are being implemented in association with the states and territories and will be enacted in due course. Through our actions, Australia's businesses, organisations, families and individuals are spending less time dealing with overburdensome regulation. For the first time in our history the federal government has completed a thorough and accurate stocktake of all federal regulation. We continue to identify and assess the cost of government regulation and have already implemented the means to ensure that we continue to reduce unnecessary and unviable regulation. For example, deregulation units have been established in all departmental portfolios utilising existing resources. These units are tasked with reducing red tape across all Commonwealth departments and agencies. We are also working closely with the states and territories to reduce red tape across all levels of government.

For the first time a federal government has, with a high degree of accuracy, publicly reported to parliament a downturn in the total amount and cost of federal regulation. Our goal in government is to make life easier for Australians. This means making life easier for businesses to invest and create more jobs. Individuals and families also benefit from our deregulation agenda. For individuals and Australian families it means less time in queues, less time filling out forms and less time searching for information.

Under Labor, Commonwealth regulation was costing Australians approximately $65 billion annually, an astounding 4.2 per cent of GDP. Australians were promised by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that Labor would have a 'one regulation in, one regulation out' approach to legislation. Instead, we were burdened by an avalanche of new regulations. In fact, in just 5½ years 21,000 additional regulations were introduced by the previous Labor government. This equates to 10 regulations for every day Labor were last in government.

Under the former Labor government, legislative changes, including the mining tax, the National Broadband Network, Future of Financial Advice legislation and changes to the Fair Work Act, all escaped detailed regulatory impact scrutiny following exemptions granted by then Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard. Unfortunately, Labor's commitment to ramping up the regulatory burden was felt by every Australian. Shamefully the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness index ranked Australia 128th, out of 148 countries, for burden of government regulation. Australia also placed second last in a 2012 ranking of productivity growth by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Fortunately, this government has fulfilled its commitment to cut $1 billion in red and green tape every year. In fact, as we stand here today the government has delivered $2.45 billion worth of deregulatory savings. This is more than double our $1 billion annual target that we promised to deliver. When we held our first ever regulation repeal day, on 26 March 2014, Labor dismissed it as a joke and still continue to do so. I take this opportunity to reinforce to members opposite the success of our repeal days and the benefits realised as a result of our actions. We announced measures on our first repeal day that when fully implemented would result in gross savings in excess of $700 million in reduced compliance costs. By our second repeal day, on 29 October 2014, the government had announced measures that when fully implemented would result in net savings in excess of $2.1 billion in reduced compliance costs. Today, on our third repeal day, we can announce that our measures when fully implemented will result in net savings in excess of $2.45 billion in reduced compliance costs.

No matter how you look at these figures they cannot be dismissed as trivial. Sadly, Labor tries to do exactly that. They dismiss the facts because regulation is in their DNA and they cannot shake their addiction to increasing red and green tape at every opportunity. This is particularly damaging for small business. All members of this parliament say that they support small businesses and are committed to job growth. History, however, tells us a different story.

Labor's legacy was 200,000 more Australians unemployed as a result of their term in government. As a result of the former Labor government's actions we saw 519,000 jobs lost across the small business sector. The small business share of private sector employment fell from 53 per cent to 43 per cent, resulting in the loss of 3,000 small businesses under the former government. In regions such as the Central Coast small business collectively is our largest employer. Therefore, it is essential that the environment in which they conduct their business is free from unnecessary regulatory burden. More so, it is vital that businesses are able to grow and deliver more jobs.

The government's annual deregulation report of 2014 states:

Significant progress is being made to help free up the time spent by small businesses in meeting red tape requirements and to alleviate some of the barriers to growth prospects confronting the sector.

No-one would dispute that regulation is essential for ensuring that the rights of employers, employees and the general public are protected. However, business regulation that is inefficient or unnecessary unfortunately imposes undue costs on businesses and individuals. The average Australian business deals with eight regulators in a given year, spends close to four per cent of their total annual expenditure on complying with regulatory requirements and spends approximately 19 hours a week on compliance related activities. This is precious time that could be better utilised growing the business and delivering more jobs. Labor either does not understand or care about the regulatory burden on Australian businesses.

Unlike the former government, we have listened to the concerns of small business operators and are addressing the regulatory burden that placed a handbrake on the Australian economy. Our goal will always be to make life easier for Australians and to make it easier for businesses to invest and create more jobs. Significant progress is being made to help free up the time spent by small businesses dealing with red tape, particularly through this government's repeal days. An estimated 447,000 small businesses will benefit from administrative changes to entry thresholds for pay-as-you-go instalments. Of these, 45,000 small businesses that have no GST reporting requirements will no longer have to lodge a business activity statement where, to date, lodgements have been made only to report PAYG instalments. The remaining 402,000 small businesses with modest or negative incomes that are required to lodge a BAS will no longer have to interact with the PAYG instalment system. We are continuing to build upon these reforms with the implementation of easier monthly pay as you go payments for certain businesses. Businesses choosing to use this new method will only need to calculate their actual instalment income on a quarterly basis. It is anticipated that this will deliver annual compliance savings of $2.7 million.

Other measures in this bill to support Australian businesses include the reform of the 457 visa program by streamlining the processing of sponsorship, nomination and visa applications. Additionally we are increasing the sponsorship approval period from 12 to 18 months for start-up businesses and we are providing greater flexibility in relation to English language testing and skill requirements. This will deliver forecasted annual compliance savings of $29.9 million.

We are also improving the Australian Tax Office website so that Australian taxpayers can access information including compliance obligations in a timely manner. It is estimated that this will deliver an annual compliance saving of $48.5 million as a result of more people understanding their compliance obligations. In total, through the repeal of the carbon and mining taxes, changes to pay as you go and expanded private sector access to the government's document verification service, we have delivered a combined net saving of $194.4 million for Australian businesses.

Our regulation repeal days are just as important to Australian individuals, students and families as they are to Australian businesses. Measures for individuals contained within this bill include: implementing additional functionality for myGov users, which will allow customers to update their details in one place by using the myGov Tell Us Once service, which will enable secure and convenient access to online services with a single account and one set of credentials; and making identity checks easier for retailers and consumers when purchasing a new prepaid mobile phone. Such initiatives will contribute to approximately $29.3 million of annual compliance savings. This builds upon our previous achievement including the myTax initiative, which has reduced the amount of information. There are 1.4 million users required to supply information to the Australian Taxation Office when completing their eTax forms each year. This single measure will result in a net red tape saving of $426.3 million.

We have also made it easier for individuals to access government services. Centrelink claimants are able to check the status of their claims online, reducing the need for direct follow-up interventions by phone or in person to a Centrelink service centre. These changes will also benefit students, who will be able to upload their course selection and study percentage online, ensuring they can make changes in their own time with minimal disruption.

This bill also develops an online national assessment platform which will deliver the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy, NAPLAN, online. This is scheduled to be available from 2017 and will deliver an annual compliance forecasted saving of $9.7 million. It will also provide support to Australian farmers and the agricultural sector through the alignment of registration requirements for stock and pet food with the well understood risks associated with their ingredients and intended use.

This government understands that, in order to build a prosperous economy, we must liberate Australian businesses, community organisations, families and individuals from the burden of unnecessary compliance. We do not want to see people's time taken up with hours of unnecessary paperwork waiting in queues or searching for information when interacting with government. We are committed to working with the Australian community to ascertain how we can reduce even more red tape to help build a more productive and prosperous economy.

I would like to conclude by once again highlighting this government's achievements. As previously noted, the government has delivered a total deregulatory saving of saving of $2.45 billion. This provides: more productive businesses with the ability to generate more jobs; less time spent by families and individuals when dealing with government; greater support for students, allowing them more time to concentrate on study and work; and a stronger and more prosperous economy, where everyone is afforded opportunity to work and lead a healthy lifestyle.

This government will continue to deliver real reductions in red and green tape in order to lift the regulatory burden from Australian businesses, individuals, families and communities. And this government will continue to deliver a prosperous economy that will provide jobs. There will be high jobs and high growth, plenty of employment. After all the initiatives we have introduced in the last two years, I think it is a credit to every single person on this side of the House for everything we have achieved. We are doing a great job and I will always continue to support this government and the wonderful work we are doing. The people of Dobell finally have a decent representative and we are continuing to deliver. I will continue to deliver. I will not be bullied by unions, especially the unions who thought it was fun to vandalise my office on the weekend. They are an absolute disgrace. I stand proudly here as the member for Dobell and I will never let the unions ever take over Dobell ever again. I commend this bill to the House.

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

I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 on this the 14th day of spring. I think this is the third such occasion where the backbench members, like the member for Dobell, have stood up to celebrate red tape repeal days. In the trenches, attacking commas, they went over the top together to overtake brackets and mow down a couple of full stops. It is incredible the vision that they have, unbelievable. It is definitely a part of that whole militarisation of our political discourse that we have seen from those opposite—a war on windfarms, an assault on solar. You do not just have people planting trees; you form a green army. You do not just have people checking the passengers' shampoo; you form a border force. Everything is militarised as if security is their safety blanket. It is unbelievable. The Prime Minister is happy to jump in a helicopter and put on a jacket—all this militarisation.

We know those opposite like to beat their chests and crow about how visionary they are. Why? Because they can repeal legislation. They come in here seeking a medal for doing their job! That is what governments do. When we were in office, we did it all of the time. The member for Leichhardt is going to speak on this bill. I know he used to be in the RAFF and I commend him for his service. He knows that if you are in the ADF, and the member for Riverina across the table knows this too, that it takes four years to get a medal not two years—the turning up on Monday medal. You must actually turn up every day for four years in the ADF and you will be recognised with the Australian Defence Medal.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Appropriately recognised.

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

I take that interjection—appropriately recognised. I am not making light of that service at all. Those opposite put out a press release because they attacked a couple of commas, because they mowed down some parentheses. Let us look at what a real, unified government does. Let us look at what happened under the Labor governments.

On my first day in this parliament there was an apology to the stolen generation. We brought in minor social reforms such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme! We had a safe, steady hand on the tiller such that we were able to survive the global financial crisis, the greatest set of headwinds to buffet this nation since the Great Depression. Things like the Fair Work Act are still serving Australian society well. Those Gonski education reforms provide for every kid, whatever their talent and whatever the name over the top of their school to be given an opportunity in life, whether they be rural and remote, Indigenous or have English as their second language. Putting a focus on education is a good thing to do because it makes economic sense and it brings the best and brightest from our greatest resource, which is our population.

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 is like all of the legislation it has repealed; it is not an achievement of the Abbott government that needs applause. It does not need a press release. It is the government doing what it should be doing. It is the everyday work of government. We need to see it in the context of what the Abbott government have achieved. They said there was a debt and deficit disaster, so that would have been their first focus. I think when Treasurer Hockey was in opposition he said that he would achieve a surplus in his first year. Well, let us have a look at that. The last time I looked at government debt, it was out to $114 billion—but that was last week. How is business investment going—a good guide for those who want an adrenalin surge in the economy? It is down 11 per cent. How about the everyday worker? Real wages are actually falling. Unemployment is at 6.2 per cent—it was 5.7 per cent when we left office. What does that translate to? It translates to 800,000 people out of work. Every person in Tasmania, every person in the Northern Territory and we could probably throw in Riverina as well—800,000 people out of work.

Obviously, this is not a government that is getting things right. We have seen that tonight. They are divided. They have no economic strategy. We had the Minister for Communications coming out and attacking the Prime Minister. And when there should not be a crack of daylight between the Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, we had the foreign minister coming out and destabilising the vision for this nation. We are two-thirds the way through the electoral cycle. So far, 418 bills have been introduced during this government's time in office. Only 50 per cent of these bills have been passed by both houses. Two years in and only 50 per cent of the bills they have introduced have been passed by both houses.

In contrast, if you look at the 43rd Parliament under a minority Labor government, we introduced 799 bills and more than 70 per cent of those bills were passed and became acts of parliament. In the second term, in the 42nd Parliament—remember the 42nd Parliament under former Prime Minister Rudd?—there was a big legislative agenda. Those opposite have no vision, no plan and no agenda. They are fighting amongst themselves rather having a vision for this nation. I think we understand why there is division taking place outside this chamber. It is because the member for Warringah is a professional opposition leader. He has no vision and no courage. He squandered the economic opportunities that were given to him by the Labor Party and he is now causing the nation damage.

This nation needs a statesman as a leader. The current Prime Minister does not have that ability, and Australia definitely deserves better.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who would you suggest?

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

I will take that intervention. Obviously, the Labor Party under Bill Shorten would be able to deliver that, as we delivered so many things. As I said, we made the apology to the stolen generation. We raised the age pension with the biggest increase in 100 years. We increased the child-care rebate. We gave a boost to health funding. We brought in plain packaging for cigarettes. We introduced paid parental leave. We brought in the National Broadband Network. We brought in a boost to education funding. We brought in NAPLAN tests and the My School website, something used by parents all around Australia now. We introduced the national curriculum to the Commonwealth. We abolished Work Choices, something there was no mandate for. We brought in $4.5 billion to bring in more rental properties for low-income people.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the carbon tax?

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

We did put a price on carbon, as any sensible government should do. Obviously, this government's current scheme involves taking taxpayer money and paying big polluters which is like a tax and is not going to be effective at all. We ratified the Kyoto protocol. We increased the RET. We ended the Pacific solution. We brought in legal equality for same-sex couples. I particularly thank former Attorney-General Robert McClelland for that and wish him well in his new job at the Family Court. We scrapped the ABCC. We obtained a seat at the UN Security Council. We created marine parks. We raised superannuation—which was going to go all the way to 12 per cent. We brought in a price on mining so that in times of profit we were able to deliver—

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a tax.

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

It is a tax. And it is a good thing. Mining companies should pay that when they achieve superprofits. We raised the tax-free threshold. We brought in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We brought in the Clean Energy Fund. We brought in the Gonski reforms. We instigated the royal commission into child sexual abuse. That is just some of the achievements that Labor governments have focused on. These are real achievements. Many of them are difficult, particularly in that minority government of the 43rd Parliament.

Let's lay out the achievements of the Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister—I say that at eight minutes to seven. It will not take long at all. He has doubled the deficit. That is something. There are some things he can be proud of; I think history will probably say, rightfully, that he is the fittest Prime Minister this nation has ever seen. So he will leave office with that—if he should depart tonight.

Let's look at some of the other achievements. He has ripped $2.4 billion out of the pockets of pensioners. And there are still plans to cut $80 billion from states in terms of the people who provide front-line health services and front-line education services. They want to introduce $100,000 university degrees. Already doctors in my electorate are complaining about this new sideways tax, which was like the tax that the Prime Minister complained about to world leaders when they were in Brisbane. That was his opportunity on the world stage. We had the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. What did the Treasurer do? He said: 'Hey, guess what? You should go for growth'. Wasn't that a blinding bolt from the completely obvious side of the well. 'Go for growth.' And what did the Prime Minister do? He said, 'I can't believe we can't bring in our GP co-tax'. They rolled out a miserable climate change response which betrays future generations. Anyone with children knows it is a complete betrayal of future generations. They have made it more difficult for young people to get a job, by starving them of income support for a month. And I see that Minister Abetz has committed to reintroducing that, despite the Senate rejecting it.

These are not achievements that any sensible government, any adult government, would be proud of. This government has no plan for the future, no plan for education, no plan for housing affordability and no clue where the jobs of the new economy will come from.

Labor of course does have a plan. And it is not about attacking commas, attacking full stops, attacking semicolons—all those things that this government can say that they did. I can just see those opposite in their retirement, sitting in a rocking chair, saying, 'I remember after two years in office, I took out a couple of colons, I took out a couple of commas'.

We have a plan to grow the economy, to create the jobs of the future, a plan to invest in our most valuable resource—our young people—with the skills needed for the new workforce. Labor will encourage our young people by empowering them with the knowledge they need in the digital age. Labor will boost the skills of the teachers and encourage graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to teach our future generation. Obviously with government debt now at $114 billion, that is a problem, but Labor will still be able to focus on the skills of teachers and encourage graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to teach our future generations. With an ageing population it is important that we not only ensure our next generation have the skills to succeed but also that our older generation will be equipped to maintain a comfortable standard of living in their retirement.

Currently the top 10 per cent of the highest income earners receive more superannuation tax concessions than the combined benefit of the bottom 70 per cent. That is just unfair and unsustainable.

Mr Feeney interjecting—

Member for Batman, I think you are misleading the House surely with that statement.

Labor will ensure that we have a sustainable retirement income system that delivers fairness. Labor has always been a forward-looking party, a party that gets on with the job and delivers—often without fanfare, certainly not by putting out a press release whenever we take out a couple of commas or, heaven forbid, change the word 'iPad'. We want to make this country a better place to live.

In 2004, Queensland abolished Aboriginal courts. It is a bit of jump but I am running out of time and I do want to touch on this. This is touched on in the legislation before the chamber now. Repealing legislation should be the unacknowledged day-to-day grunt work of government. It is what responsible government should do. Labor did so while we were in government but we did so without a brass band and red carpet and asking for a medal. A responsible government should ensure that there are no unintended consequences from repealing legislation. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has raised questions about the impact of the repeal of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Discriminatory Laws) Act 1975. They have asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister to provide further information about equivalent protections that exist for the right to equality and nondiscrimination.

Previous Labor governments have tirelessly fostered equality and nondiscrimination. Future Labor governments will continue to promote equality and non-discrimination. These values are not and never will be out of date. The safeguards that were enshrined in the legislation brought in by the Whitlam government are just as important today as they were in 1975. So it would be very regressive of the Abbott government to reverse any of these safeguards. I hope that the government has been diligent in their responsibility to ensure they are not promoting inequality or discrimination in their haste to find something— (Time expired)

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

Before the debate is continued on this bill I remind the House that it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering this bill, the Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015. Having said that, the question before the chair is that this bill be now read a second time. I offer the call to the member for Ryan.

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

I actually enjoy these kinds of bill. The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 is a very good bill. It is that very rare beast: a government bill that reduces legislation, reduces regulation and reduces the impact of government. It is fair to say that this bill accomplishes something that governments are generally not very good at; it reduces red tape. It is equally fair to say that cutting red tape was something the former Labor government was particularly poor at.

Labor these days likes to scoff at red tape reduction. A common refrain from those opposite is that we should not celebrate red tape reduction bills such as these. They believe that the repeal of unnecessary legislation occurs in the ordinary course of government. That we can all just close our eyes and wish the red tape away

In fact, for a party that still believes in the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, Labor has a laissez-faire attitude to cutting red tape that would make Milton Friedman blush. It is as if they believe in some sort of invisible hand of law making that, left to its own devices, would see obsolete, superseded and just plain unnecessary legislation just wander off the statute books.

Maybe that is why they were so poor at red tape reduction themselves. It would certainly explain why Australians were burdened with 21,000 additional regulations and 975 new or amended pieces of legislation by the former Labor government. Indeed, the Labor Leader of the House at the time used to celebrate all the extra legislation and regulation that Labor introduced to this parliament. Was Labor embarrassed about letting red tape spiral out of control? Quite the contrary—I seem to remember a certain member for Grayndler who liked to brag about the amount of legislation his dysfunctional government managed to pass in the former parliament.

The fact that Labor saw the passing of legislation as a proxy for effective government speaks volumes about what Labor stands for: more taxes, more regulation and more interference in our daily lives. It also speaks volumes that the self-proclaimed legislative dynamo that was the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government was so comprehensively rejected by Australians at the ballot box in 2013. Labor learnt the hard way that good government is not about how many bills we pass in this chamber; it is about what we can do to improve the lives of everyday Australians.

The coalition government understands that making life easier for many Australians means reducing the burden of unnecessary government. We understand that cutting red tape requires concerted effort by government. Labor in government talked a good game on red tape reduction but the difference between Labor and the coalition is that when we talk about red tape reduction, we mean it and we deliver. We have set up processes within the machinery of government for the first time to measure and report on the cost of regulation at a departmental and program level. This process has allowed us to determine that the cost of Commonwealth regulation under Labor was a staggering $65 billion, which is 4.2 per cent of GDP.

In response, the coalition government has made a clear commitment to reducing the burden of unnecessary red tape by $1 billion per annum. And we have not only met that commitment but exceeded it. Since September 2013 the government has announced measures resulting in a total deregulatory saving of $2.45 billion, and more than $1.5 billion of these savings have already been realised. Under the coalition government, red tape reduction is not just an abstract concept; it is achieving real benefits for Australians. Some of these benefits are readily apparent. Frequent flyers will have already noticed a relaxation of some restrictions on the in-flight use of personal electronic devices. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has issued guidance to allow for the expanded use of such devices in all phases of flight, provided the operator can ensure the aircraft is operated safely. In addition to the obvious personal productivity improvement to passengers, the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development has estimated that this will reduce compliance costs by $17.7 million per annum. For mobile phone users, legislative amendments have been made that introduce newer, lower cost ways of verifying the identity of consumers purchasing prepaid mobile phones. As well as saving $6.2 million per annum in compliance costs, this change means more convenience and greater flexibility for consumers.

The many thousands of students living in my electorate of Ryan are already seeing the benefits of improvements made by the Department of Human Services to the functionality of their website. The changes mean students are now able to advise of multiple changes to their study details in one transaction online instead of having to contact a call centre or attend a service centre. This delivers a saving of $2.7 million per annum in avoided compliance costs. Similar changes have been made for users of the myGov website. Increased online functionality has been added that now allows customers to update their details in one place rather than having to contact multiple agencies on multiple websites. This will save a further $5.4 million annually.

Red tape is commonly a hidden cost. Consumers will not necessarily see the benefit, but they will feel it in their wallets when businesses pass on the savings from reduced compliance costs. A great example is the announcement last year of the removal of a requirement for heavy vehicle operators of B-double trucks to fit additional spray suppression devices. The devices were intended to absorb the spray from tyres to reduce the impact on other motorists but have been shown to provide no additional safety benefit. Removal of the requirement to install these will save bulk transport operators $8.3 million per annum, with anticipated flow-through savings to distributors, retailers and consumers.

As a former business owner, I can attest to the time required to meet regulatory and compliance requirements. Particularly for small business owners, this is time that is taken away from being able to serve clients and customers or, worse and more commonly, from personal time with friends and family. It is doubly frustrating when compliance requirements are onerous and of little purpose. For home care service providers under the home care program, changes have been made that reduce the number of reports needing to be lodged with the Department of Social Services. Instead of requiring separate annual reports for each individual program and for each individual service, providers delivering multiple programs and services will be able to submit a single consolidated report at a saving of $3.9 million per annum.

This bill is the third such bill the coalition government has introduced in this place, and it continues our commitment and established record of eliminating unnecessary regulatory burdens, reducing compliance costs and improving the clarity of Commonwealth laws. In the Agriculture portfolio a total of seven redundant acts will be repealed, as well as the enabling section of another act that will formally abolish the Australian Landcare Council after its functions were transferred to the National Landcare Advisory Committee in 2014. The Environment portfolio will see the amendment of legislation to abolish redundant committees and to remove inconsistent references and duplication of functions. Parts of the Social Security Act 1991 will be repealed to remove reference to schemes no longer in operation and to remove spent indexation provisions. And, in Treasury, five inoperative acts have been identified that expand the volume of the law without achieving any policy goal; they will therefore be repealed.

I am proud to be part of a government that takes red tape reduction seriously. Along with the changes outlined in this bill, portfolio ministers have also announced a suite of additional red tape reduction measures. In conjunction with autumn repeal day on 18 March this year, the Attorney-General tabled a regulation that repealed 160 spent and redundant legislative instruments from across government, as well as repealing provisions from other legislative instruments. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection also released the government's response to the independent review into the integrity of the 457 visa program. Reforms will streamline the process of sponsorship, nomination and visa applications as well as reduce time and cost to businesses by reforming sponsorship requirements. The sponsorship approval period will be extended from 12 to 18 months, and greater flexibility will be provided in relation to English language requirements. In total, the changes will result in an estimated annual saving of $29.9 million. In Social Services, important changes were made to reporting requirements under the Disability Employment Services Employment Pathway Plan. Update requirements will be changed from quarterly to twice annually and/or when a change in circumstances occurs—whichever is sooner.

Cutting red tape does not come by accident. It is only by the concerted effort of government that red tape can be reduced for the benefit of all Australians, and it is only this coalition government that can be trusted to take decisive action in this important area of public policy. I therefore commend the bill to the House.

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

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this set of bills. It concerns a number of substantive issues but also matters of regulation that have interested me for some time, and I have been a regular contributor, as I said, to some of these debates. They have never attracted this long a speaking list in the past, but I welcome that. As a former competition and regulation lawyer, I am particularly interested in the role of statutory interpretation and how regulation operates.

But I must say that I will not take from the member for Ryan a lecture such as the one she gave in her opening remarks about good government or dysfunctional government. On this of all nights, I could go to town on her comments right now. I will leave it at, 'Get a mirror.' I could say something about how eliminating red tape has transformed into eliminating a sitting Prime Minister, but I am very happy to focus on the substance of these bills, and I acknowledge that the parliamentary secretary is at the table.

The first point I want to make in focusing on the facts of this set of bills and its real-world implications is to have a look at the brochure that the government produced last week, I believe: Sticking to our plan: backing hard-working Australians. This is their two-year progress report, and in it—this is interesting—there is a section on page 10 headed 'Reducing red tape'. It reads:

The Coalition has already cut around 11,000 pieces of regulation and legislation that will reduce paperwork costs by around $2.4 billion.

I am sure it was assumed, at the time that the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 was introduced, that it would not take six months to come back and have the second reading, but the problem with this statement about having 'already cut 11,000 pieces or regulation or legislation' and about the amount saved being $2.4 billion—which a lot of other speakers have mentioned—is that I just find it difficult to reconcile it with the parliamentary secretary's own media release. On Wednesday, 18 March, the parliamentary secretary said:

… the measures in the Government's third Repeal Day built on the $2.1 billion in red tape reduction decisions announced by the Government in October 2014.

Here is the point:

As at the Government's third Repeal Day today, we have made decisions designed to decrease the $65 billion regulatory cost burden by $2.45 billion. To date we have implemented $1.57 billion of that $2.45 billion …

So they may have made decisions, but these actually have not been legislated yet. So, in effect, this statement that this government has in its two-year report card cannot possibly be true. It might have been true if you assumed that we would have gotten to this bill and these measures would have been implemented, but the reality is that we have not and they have not. If there is some reason why it is actually correct—perhaps they have implemented $2.45 billion—then that would be in conflict with the parliamentary secretary's own words. I just think it is important, if we are looking at the facts here, to get on the table the fact that, some six months later, we have not had $2.45 billion in regulatory savings implemented.

I want to quote again from the parliamentary secretary's statement on that day. The first key measure that he mentions in the autumn 2015 repeal day is:

We have had some of the speakers from the government side in this debate mention it as well. But I think we need to examine how this is actually operating in practice, because it affects all of our constituents. I go, for example, to an article from 11 August this year in The Sydney Morning Herald headed 'They're in denial: myGov users vent anger'. It talks about how this dysfunctional myGov system is actually having an adverse impact on people's lives. I will just quote a bit:

The Commonwealth government is "in denial" over the performance of its online service portals, with MyGov coming in for savage criticisms from frustrated users of the system.

Centrelink and Medicare clients from around Australia reacted with anger and disbelief after the giant Department of Human Services denied last week that there were any problems with MyGov.

It goes on:

Users of the system reacted with disbelief to the department's insistence last week that there were no systemic problems with MyGov.

"They are in denial," one reader wrote. "Once you login, throughout the system, there are messages saying some clients will not be able to access, some things cannot be done, full acknowledgement of massive problems … maybe the boss has not been onto the site."

And it goes on, in an article headed 'DHS herding people on to an imperfect system in myGov,' on 11 August again. This is a very interesting article from The Sydney Morning Herald. It has been written by someone who had been casually employed with the Department of Human Services who had been answering calls for the online self-services and the myGov help desk. What a ridiculous situation these people found themselves in, with a heightened level of frustration. It is important to have a look at the facts, not just the talking points that we have had from government MPs so far.

The other issue I want to go to, in a very similar vein, is the myTax website, or portal. In the Australian government annual deregulation report 2014, page 21, box 5, it says:

… efforts by the ATO that will allow myTax users to prepopulate online forms using existing government data will benefit users immediately and those same improvements will benefit users again next year, and the year after in perpetuity.

Again, let us look at the real-world impact. A Sydney Morning Herald article by Hannah Francis on 3 July this year, headed 'ATO under fire as myGov, myTax site problems prevent lodging of returns,' says:

Angry taxpayers have slammed the Australian Tax Office's poor preparation for tax time as "systems issues" continue to prevent them lodging tax returns three days into the new financial year.

The ATO apologised via Twitter for the problems which people said included the myTax and myGov sites running at a snail's pace, conking out on them just as they were about to lodge a completed return, or simply not loading at all.

As much as we have government members coming in here talking about time being wasted by individuals and small business, I cannot think of anything more frustrating than getting to the end of doing this whole process and then being locked out of the system. I am sure my colleague here, the member for Cunningham, would have had many similar complaints, but I have taken scores of complaints about both the myGov and the myTax portals. I could give you many more examples.

Mark Colvin reported on this in early July, and the transcript is headed, 'ATO apologises for slow running web tax filing service.' So we have all these apologies happening. The government's deregulation document, which I quoted from earlier, said that improvements would benefit users in perpetuity and that year after year it is going to keep getting better, but, as this report says:

Part of the reason for the anger, is that the ATO suffered very similar problems last year. A technical issue stopped people lodging their tax return in 2014, and the ATO apologised.

It just does not seem that they are getting any better. We can look at some of the regulation that is still having an impact on businesses. It is instructive to look at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's National red tape survey for 2015. The first point to note, on page 5, is:

Results from the 2015 survey reveal that the regulatory burden remains a pressing issue for industry. The majority of respondents believe the amount of red tape has increased over the past 12 months, affecting productivity, labour costs and business expansion.

As much as we have government members coming in here and telling us how there have been improvements, we have this survey saying that people actually feel the compliance issues have increased. The survey also investigated which Commonwealth regulatory authorities were the most complicated to deal with. It showed that the most complicated one to deal was, in fact, the Australian Taxation Office. So, as much as this government wants to talk about myGov and myTax, the ACCI's research shows that the regulatory burden has increased. On page 7, the survey says:

73%—Reported that regulatory burden increased over the past 12 months.

More than 95 per cent of respondents stated they thought the burden of regulation either increased or stayed the same over the past 12 months.

So the figure is even higher if we look at not just increased burden but the burden staying the same and not improving. As much as government members want to come in and talk about all these costs being saved and consumers benefiting as a result, on page 10 the survey says:

Over half of businesses surveyed stated that they are unable to pass on any of these costs—

that is, regulatory costs—

to their customers, leaving the cost burden of regulatory compliance firmly with the business.

I also want to touch on a specific area of regulation in the Communications portfolio. It is instructive to look at one of the issues that has been mentioned in the repeal day document on page 7. This is in the portfolio summaries, under 'Amending mobile premium services regulation'. There is a statement here that there had been a number of amendments to the code and the regulatory framework around mobile premium services and it says:

… there is a reduction in the number of occasions on which mobile telecommunications companies are required to provide consumers with information about Mobile Premium Services (MPS), such as barring options and complaint mechanisms.

The department expects this will lead to a saving of about $3.8 million in compliance costs. There is a very good reason why these compliance measures were in there, and you only have to look to the website of the regulator, the ACMA. By 2008 there had been a disproportionate number of complaints compared to the size of the MPS markets. The protections were there for a good reason. There were hard regulatory and co-regulatory rules. I quote from the regulator:

The single highest source of complaints for MPS between March 2007 and June 2009 related to customers receiving a charge for a subscription service they had not requested.

A number of problems with industry self-regulation were evident, such as a lack of transparency in the supply chain … and little incentive for content providers to comply with rules.

And here is the important point: the new safeguards—that is, the new compliance mechanisms that were put in place—worked to minimise significant detriment to customers and consumers. These measures led to a change in business practices and significantly improved compliance, resulting in a 90 per cent reduction in the number of customer complaints to the TIO. So this piece of regulation worked, resulting in a massive decrease in the number of customer complaints. In the mobile premium services market, as the ACMA rightly acknowledges, apps have taken over from SMS as the primary means of content delivery. There is broad support for retaining and even strengthening the MPS but we now have a situation where the regulation worked and technology has overtaken this now quite antiquated form of receiving mobile premium services.

In the time remaining I will touch on a couple of indicators which government speakers have sought to use to highlight somehow that their deregulatory agenda has resulted in enormous spikes in business confidence and in all other economic indicators. Let us look at some of the most recent results. Even last week we saw—and I quote from Matthew Knott in the Herald'Apprentice trainee numbers plummet as cuts and failing business confidence bites'. As the member for Cunningham well knows, despite all the rhetoric from this government and whoever might be in charge of it tomorrow morning, it is a government that has utterly failed when it comes to apprenticeships and traineeships. The number of Australians starting an apprenticeship or traineeship plummeted by 20 per cent over the past year. We look then to business confidence—to the figures that came out last week for consumer and business confidence. The ANZ consumer confidence figures, which are the current Treasurer's preferred indicator, dropped 5.8 per cent in the week ending 6 September, and the Roy Morgan business confidence survey showed business confidence at its lowest level in four years. Last week we saw unemployment remaining higher than it was at any time during the GFC. There was a small fall in unemployment to 6.2 per cent, but the unemployment rate has been at or above six per cent for 15 months now. For all the rhetoric, it is important to look at the facts. It is important to look at how these decisions are impacting on our individual constituents and the facts about the state of the economy under this government.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 and related bills. When I was running Pickles Auctions in Townsville, the toughest job was always that of the transport officer. You had to organise all sorts of things from all over the country. You had to organise cars to be shifted all over the country. You did not know whether they had wheels or whether they had accident damage; you did not know anything—and we just expected that they would turn up on time, every time. When they did, nothing happened. No-one rang up and said, 'Thank you very much. My car is here. It's out in my yard.' No-one said thank you at all. But when it did not, that was a problem.

We have just heard the member for Greenway highlight just what has to happen in relation to red tape. The parliamentary secretary in charge of this, the member for Pearce, who is sitting at the table, is inundated with ideas about how we can reduce red tape. In our first year, when we said we would come to parliament and remove a billion dollars' worth of red tape per year, we removed over 50,000 pages of legislation. We removed over 75,000 rules and regulations. We saved the economy over $2 billion. And who noticed? Absolutely no-one. That shows the size of the task we have to deal with—how much rules and regulations play a crippling role in our economy and our society.

When we first made the announcement that we would be removing red tape, I said to the then parliamentary secretary, the member for Kooyong, 'Sooner or later, you know, we're going to have to get a bloody nose out of this. We're going to have to pick a fight with the states, because there would be nothing worse than if, say, when we repealed the carbon tax we left that area open so that state governments, through their power suppliers and pricing arrangements, were able creep in that bit extra.' The federal government has saved the federal taxpayer an absolute motza of money—a huge amount of money—by repealing the carbon tax. But we get what happened with Ergon, where they were able to change the tariff arrangements around, raise the service fee and add another thing in there, and suddenly the number in everyone's power bill did not seem to change much in Townsville.

We have done the right thing here, all the way through. We have taken the thing all the way through. But sooner or later we are going to have to make sure that we take on the states and local governments. I know it is easy to pick on the states but here I reckon there is just cause. My friends who are in local government say the problem they have is that state governments are shifting burdens of responsibility onto local governments but not giving them any remuneration or financial support to do these tasks that the state government is shifting—costs and burdens.

I suppose it gets down to the question of why we do it. We do it because the Australian people want us to do it. Every time we make a change we are leaving ourselves open to an attack by people like the member for Greenway who can only see bad things about the reduction of red tape. But every time we do these things, every time we make an effort here, it is worth it—every time we repeal a layer of red tape. Every time a business comes to us and says, 'I do not know why we're filling in this form, because it's covered over and over there. Why am I doing it?', we remove it. In some cases there may be consequences of that that we also have to fix up. But it is worth it. At every turn, reducing red tape and reducing the onerous task of filling out forms for small businesses and big businesses along the way saves them money, which gives them opportunities to employ and to give other people opportunities to grow wealth.

My parents worked in a small business. Dad started off as a stock and station agent and then we had a series of small businesses in Texas, where I grew up. We moved to Brisbane in the mid-seventies. My parents worked huge hours in the corner store and they were able to buy a house. They worked very hard for that. Most of my friends in Townsville have their own businesses either as managers of those businesses or as owners-operators.

Can I tell you the same thing that I saw with respect to my parents running a small business as I saw with every one of my friends and acquaintances in Townsville that have a small business: not one of them got into their small business because they loved filling out forms. Not one of them got into business because they loved filling out paperwork for government agencies and departments. Whilst the member for Greenway comes in here and points a finger here and points out an article or a survey there, everything we do in this space is valuable. We as a parliament should never underestimate the value of what we do in removing red tape and telling people that we are going to do it. The problem that we have, moreover, than anything else is that people come to us and say, 'It's pointless because there will always be red tape.' I go to their business and they show you the form. I say, 'Send it to me, so I can put it in front of the parliamentary secretary so that we can get this thing fixed.' Of course, they don't because they do not believe that any government is on their side, be it state, federal or local government.

They all believe that where there are massive bureaucracies, they are just there to make more rules and regulations. When Tony Abbott, then Leader of the Opposition, and today Prime Minister, came out with these announcements, 'We'll be removing $1 billion worth of red tape per year, every year,' you would have had to think to yourself, 'How can we do this forever.' As we said, we removed $2 billion worth of red tape and no-one noticed. That shows you the pile that we have to work with.

Increasingly, we will run out of redundant legislation and easy fixes whereby we can just go through these things and we will have to get into some very tricky things that government must deal with. But I go back to one of my favourite stories when it comes to red tape.

When Treasurer Joe Hockey and his wife had their first child, they got the baby bonus. It was a non-means-tested form and Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney, was then Minister for Human Services. He said, 'I will fill out the form myself.' He got the form and, basically, all you had to do for the baby bonus, as the parliamentary secretary has said is, 'Have a baby, have a photograph and you got the baby bonus.' So Joe wrote down the first name, husband's name, father's name, mother's name, birth certificate number—all that sort of stuff—address, then he turned the page and saw they wanted his tax file number. 'Why do you want that?' I suppose if you are getting government money, then you should have a tax file number.

They wanted to know all these other things. The form was 25 pages long. He said, 'This is ridiculous. Why are we collecting all these things?' 'But, Minister, we have to make sure all these things are in there. We have to make sure we are all doing the right things.' Joe said, 'But this is a non-means-tested form.' So they came up with a special one for him. Then they had their second child. They said, 'Minister, here is the form.' It came down to only four pages. Joe said, 'This is fantastic.' He went down to question time and got a question asked of him. He was able to tell the parliament about that. Apparently, the Public Service in his department had bodgied one just to make him happy and did not actually make a real one. But then they had to follow it through. The problem is that we still gave the baby bonus away. People still got their money. We still gave it to the right people. People are still having babies and nothing happened. We did not need the extra detail. Sometimes you have to think about these things. What do we actually need to deliver here? This is where we are going at the moment. You see the portfolios through which we have joint control between state and federal governments. It is mostly health, education and transport where all the rules and regulations are. I see the member for Cunningham down there and we were speaking about apprenticeships earlier today. The federal government is a major funder of vocational education and training. The state governments are the deliverers of the service.

We did an inquiry on this matter last year. Federal governments love universities and that is what we like to concentrate on. State governments love state schools and that is what they love to concentrate on. Basically, vocational education and training was treated like the red-headed stepchild, sitting over in the corner getting no love whatsoever.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a bit hard on redheads!

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have redheaded children, so I can say that sort of thing. It is okay to be a Weasley. We have this crossover. The same thing with transport, when you speak to people about running trucks, the number of rules and regulations which we have to deal with across state and federal jurisdictions. And sooner or later, we will have to drive this through COAG and ensure that these things run smoother. All these things happen and all these things cost business. In a city like Townsville you are not allowed to take B-doubles through the town, so you must break down on one side of the town, drive through the other side of the city, redeposit over there and ship them all around. Or, if you are making deliveries, into Townsville you have to break it down at Roseneath, as you come in from the west, and you take single trailers all around town back to where you want to go, thus necessitating an extra four-vehicle movements per day for that one truck. All those sorts of things do not have to happen. Those are the sorts of areas where business will thank us in the long run.

We have to work with state governments to ensure that we are coming up with the right answers on these things. Local government can participate fully and ensure that the streets they are going to use to put B-doubles through have the right access points. But, again, as I said before, it is easy to come in here and poke holes in this legislation because there is so much red tape in federal government. But as parliamentarians we should be on the lookout for reducing the burden on our taxpayers. We should be on the lookout for examples of things that just do not make sense. God only knows, there are enough of them around here. We have to back this legislation because if we stop and if all we do is add complication and add layer upon layer upon layer of all the stuff that people have to do, then we just do not get anywhere.

A friend of mine saw a 100-tonne coil of rolled steel in a single-axle tipper in China, basically tied down with an ocky strap. He said, 'They have no rules and regulations.' This thing was meant to carry about 42½ tonnes and it had 100 tonnes of steel on the back of it. So we do not want to end up there!

I was riding along a highway, in China, in the back of a car and I looked out the window and I saw plate steel sitting on the back of a truck. I could see outriding pegs there to make sure it did not slide straight off, but there was nothing holding it down. That is not enough red tape. We have to understand that there has got to be just enough red tape around mine sites, around businesses where people are being told that they can only reverse their car in, because that is the rule. There is red tape there about how you can park your car on private property and about how you can access your property, but all these things do not make it any safer, any quicker or any better. Those things are why we have to challenge ourselves to make sure that we have got the right red tape, that we have good, safe places to work, that we have good, safe roads.

We are regulating people out of the opportunity to have work. There was a letter to the editor in Townsville a little while ago now about the Snowy Mountains Scheme and about how there was barely a word of English spoken up there and yet we built this great big piece of infrastructure which is still fantastic today, but, if those people turned up today, they would not get a job, because they would not be able to pass basic workplace health and safety or basic English proficiency.

We have low-SES families in my city of Townsville. Someone wanting to get a driver's licence has to get 100 hours in a motor car before they can sit for a test. It is tough enough for anybody to get their kids 100 hours in a motor car, including time at night, let alone someone who does not have a car, let alone someone who does not have the wherewithal to get those things around. And we wonder why kids are stealing cars. Is it actually making these roads safer? We do not want unsafe roads and unsafe drivers, but is there something there that we are doing by layering regulation and appearing to make it safe that has the consequence of not making it any safer at all? This is what we have to deal with, and this is why it makes sense that we have to do this. I back the parliamentary secretary. I back the Prime Minister and the entire government on this because this is really important. I thank the House.

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

On the day with so much fanfare from the Liberal Party where they cannot decide who should be leading them—and, of course, the Australian people have already decided that it is actually not the leader that is the problem but the whole team—we have these three bills in front of us: the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015, the Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015. These represent the third time this government has made so much fanfare about what would otherwise be just the normal, everyday function of a government. That is why a government gets elected: to do something. What they are doing is no different from what any other government does: doing something. But this government, of course, when it finds it has actually done something, thinks it is so good that it has to tell the whole world repeatedly and make a really big fanfare about it.

What we should be talking about when it comes to lowering regulatory burdens is that it is not a Liberal thing. In fact, it is not even a Labor thing. It is simply what governments should do. It is certainly what Labor did when we were in government. We repealed 16,794 acts and regulations, but we did not make a big deal about it, because we saw it as our duty, our responsibility while we were elected. We did not go around printing a glossy magazine to shop around the country and tell everyone how wonderful we were, but that is exactly what the Liberal Party are doing. I will return to that a little bit later. But we certainly did not produce this glossy magazine, which basically created a whole heap more red tape to tell people that they had been cutting red tape.

The publication that has been produced and the accompanying material, at the time of the introduction of these bills titled the Autumn Repeal Day March 2015, can only be described as an exercise in sheer propaganda. The publication includes deregulation measures since the 2014 spring repeal day; however, the reality of the content of this publication in what this government defines as 'deregulatory measures' is quite disturbing. It was good to hear the member for Herbert. Not too many people could disagree with most of the content of what he said, because it is your ordinary conversation: 'Why can't it just be better? Why can't we just drive through there? At the time that we want to deregulate, we want to keep it safe.' Everyone is on the same page when it comes to those things, but you have actually got to do something about it.

The reason we have regulation for a lot of small businesses and a lot of business in our economy is not only to keep them safe but to make sure we have an economy. In my portfolio area of small business—on page 12 of the government's propaganda tool—has a list of programs they have cut in the industry portfolio that were actually accessed by thousands of small business people across Australia. In the name of deregulation the government goes and cuts away. They say, 'We've cut red tape,' but in actual fact they have cut assistance. They include things like Commercialisation Australia. That is not red tape. That is actually a body designed to help innovators and entrepreneurs in Australia to commercialise, which everyone in the marketplace agrees is what is needed.

What else did they cut from red tape? Investing in Experience—all those things we talk about when we say we should take trades people and others who have a lifetime of experience and help them share it with younger generations. The government decides that that is just red tape and not necessary. There was the National Workforce Development Fund and the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Small Business Program to make sure that those small businesses could transition in a difficult global environment—things that perhaps the Liberal Party just does not quite understand. It talks about China free trade agreements—it talks about a lot of things—but, when it comes to the real, on-the-ground, helping-Australia's small businesses and small business people, it cuts away the services. It diminishes the assistance that is available. It reduces the ability of them to compete. That is what is frightening about what they have done with these so-called—because they are not—'red tape reduction' programs.

What is even worse is that they have cut away innovation capacity programs, workplace English language and literacy programs and the Australian Apprenticeships Access Program. We heard before about apprentices, and of course in any speech you say: 'We like apprentices. We like apprenticeships. We'd like to support them.' Of course I would agree with that, but, when you actually cut the program that does it, I would say there is a real problem there.

It is just not good enough for this government to talk the language. Words are cheap for this government. They say growth is up, even though it is lower than what it was when they came to government. They say they fixed the budget, even though the budget deficit is much, much bigger and government debt is much, much bigger. They say they are creating jobs, when in reality when Labor left office unemployment was 5.7 per cent—too high. Today it is 6.2 or 6.3—way too high. But Tony Abbott just says the words 'stop the boats', 'create jobs' and 'growth' and thinks that, just by saying the words, magically these things happen or people believe it is actually the cas But of course, again, it is not. Creating a glossy brochure to prove your point is not the truth. It does not create jobs, except for perhaps the few people involved in the production of the glossy repeal-day publication.

If the government's definition of reducing compliance costs and banking the savings is to cut small business and industry programs and make it more difficult for people like apprentices and others to stay in work or to get work in the first place then I do not think they are doing a really good job. There are a lot of people who agree with me. Now most small business are starting to wake up to the fact. Certainly industry is and most Australians are. As I started by saying, while the Liberal Party might be in the throes of deciding their leader—because they cannot decide who their leader ought to be—the Australian public have already decided. They do not like any of them. They do not like the team. Forget who they have as a leader; they actually have a problem with their whole team. That is the real problem here. Forget about the fact that investment in skills and training programs—including the National Workforce Development Fund, which was listed on page 12—totalling more than $1 billion was cut by this government. They have cut away at this, and then they wonder why unemployment has gone up. They might ask the question, 'Why is growth down?' Why is unemployment up?' If they are supposedly saving money, why have the debt and deficit gone up? When they came to government they said, 'There is a budget crisis and emergency. Send in the fire brigade.' Why is it that today, when it is much worse, they have turned the fire-engine back? The fire-engine got to the fire, Tony Abbott won the election, but he calls them up and he says, 'Don't worry. The fire's not that important anymore. Let it burn.' And, boy, has it burnt since, and, boy, has it gotten worse.

Growth is down at just two per cent. The Treasurer, Joe Hockey, keeps talking about a magical 'three' number, three per cent, but just saying the number does not create it. Just talking about jobs does not create them. You have to do a bit more than just talk. But at every turn this government has been a jobs destroyer—at every opportunity. There is no point having a bonfire of regulation burning when all you are doing is burning the economy. No jobs were created out of these bills—not one. No growth to the economy was created out of these bills. Not one small percentage of growth was created out of these bills. We all know what happened when the government tried to water down many of the protections, and I am quite sure that no-one from the government wants to be reminded of it. However, the savings attached to those so-called reforms were estimated by this government at $198 million. Never mind that the proposed reforms watered down consumer protections and put at risk lifetime savings, all in the name of compliance savings. The government is quite happy when it talks about saving for itself, for government, or saving for compliance, but it does not talk about saving for consumers or saving for jobs. That does not seem to be as important.

Of course, there is a difference between necessary regulations and unnecessary or redundant regulations, and we will hear that. That will be the mantra from government speakers, and of course that is what all governments should be doing. There is a very large difference, but the problem is that the government do not understand the difference. They do not understand the difference between what is redundant and unnecessary in terms of regulation, what is outdated and no longer applicable and what is there to actually underpin and support our economy and underpin and support jobs.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, when he spoke in this place, referred to one particular measure in the omnibus bill that will result in over $41 million in so-called deregulatory savings. This proposed amendment pertains to the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Act 1995. The principal function of the measures in these bills is to remove acts that are spent or redundant. Again I say this is the normal business of government. This is what governments get elected to do. You do not pat yourself on the back for turning up to work every day. This is probably why the Liberal Party and this government have a problem. They think the fact that they even bothered to turn up this morning is actually a badge of honour. They are going to have bills in here congratulating themselves for being in government: 'We want to hand out some awards to ourselves for turning up to work today.' That is not how our economy works, and that is not what happens in the real world or the real market.

We have heard time and time again the global figure that the government use when claiming their amount of deregulatory savings. They use this figure of $2.45 billion, but let us put that into context. Under the Seamless National Economy reforms that were carried out by the former Labor government and conducted largely through the Council of Australian Governments, just the first 17 reforms that we introduced reduced business costs by $4 billion every year. That is a saving that the government now enjoy. So the work we did in government is now a saving that this government enjoy. But these were savings that were agreed on by the states and territories. These were savings that were agreed between the federal and state governments because they were actually good for the economy—real savings that actually delivered real outcomes. In 2008, under Labor, the COAG agreed to implement regulation and competition reforms under the National Partnership Agreement to deliver a Seamless National Economy, and 36 separate reforms were covered by this national partnership, comprising 27 deregulation priorities, eight areas of competition reform and a reform to regulation-making and review processes. All of these deregulation measures worked in unison to deliver better outcomes for the states, for the economy and for small business and workers.

These were the sorts of difficult, tough reforms that require thought, planning, action, negotiation—all the things that this government cannot do. It is really good at just picking up a redundant old piece of regulation. It has asked all the departments and department heads, 'Go and find anything we can burn and get rid of—where there is a full stop or a comma in the wrong place.' That is the extent of these so-called reforms. It is really where there are blank pages, like page 348AB, and other amendments that are completely blank. It just removes those then counts up the number of pages and says what a great job it has done. It just does not amount to anything. This is the problem. It just amounts to naught. We have a government that continues to put these things forward, actually damages the economy, and then says it is doing a great job.

A very good reform, for example, that we did, was the standard business reporting, which commenced on 1 July 2010. It offered Australian businesses, accountants, bookkeepers and tax agents a quick and simple way to lodge reports with government. The Productivity Commission estimates $500 million of potential benefits from this reform over nine years. It was a Labor reform, something that actually adds value to the economy, reduces a real burden for small business and helps industry and small business to create something, to make something happen. It is not just some fanciful bonfire of burning bits of paper. I could never quite understand the fascination that the Prime Minister seemed to have with just burning regulation. This sort of concept around burning books just seems to me to be a really unusual way to describe things or think about things that government does.

It was also the former Labor government that introduced the national business names registration service for a single online registration process, removing the requirement for a small business to register in each state or territory. We took it from being basically a paper based system to an online, 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, single port for small business. That was good reform. It was opposed and demeaned by the Liberals and the Nationals all the way through, and now they are so happy with the outcome and, in fact, it is so successful that there is talk of it being spun out, outsourced and privatised because it is such a successful operation.

Labor also introduced the superannuation clearing house, again enabling small business to get on with their main task of doing what they are good at and taking the burden of paperwork and other things further and further out of their hands so it is just not necessary.

The story that I am painting here today in terms of these bills is that of course Labor always welcomes deregulation. We always welcome getting rid of redundant, unnecessary, red-tape burdens, but let us just not make such a fanfare over what in the end amounts—like most of the things that this government has done—to absolutely nothing. It does not help small business. It does not actually create anything that is real or concrete.

Let us just put a test out there for the government speakers. Let them, when they are making a contribution here, tell us about the great programs of reform around red-tape reduction: national business names registration, the superannuation clearing house, COAG agreements and negotiation and reforms—real reforms that deliver real savings to the national economy that create growth and jobs. It was over $4 billion every year when Labor was in. All they can count on their side is having set a torch to some redundant pieces of blank paper.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 and the cognate bills, the Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) Bill 2015. I join with my colleagues in commending the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister for taking on this very important job in recent times of reducing or removing unnecessary and excessive regulations across all the government portfolios and practices. I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, the member for Pearce, in the chamber. I know his passion for deregulation is enormous. His thirst for it is unsurmountable.

I was just listening to the previous speaker. He does not realise that the work extends to not only getting rid of existing regulations but also preventing unworkable regulations coming into the parliament. I can give you an example where I took one of the mechanical contractor associations to meet with the parliamentary secretary, and within the space of a couple of months the prospective legislation was changed to enable great savings to the members of that particular association in the construction industry, which I thank the parliamentary secretary for. I know that the association which you assisted on those matters, which brought them to your notice, is very appreciative of the work you did as well.

The parliamentary secretary has an important job because it is not just a matter of the dust being brushed off a few parliamentary acts and their being thrown in the bin if they have not been utilised in the past decade. This is a systematic weighing-up process. It is a matter of weighing up whether the regulations are necessary, duplicative or unutilised or could be amended to reduce their burden. This is not an easy process, but it is one that this coalition government committed to conduct twice a year from 2014 to 2016 to reduce the $65 billion regulatory cost that every Australian was forced to bear and cope with under the previous Labor government. To put that cost into greater perspective for my opposition colleagues so that they might finally understand how red tape can hinder businesses and families each day and every day: this $65 billion regulatory cost is 4.2 per cent of GDP.

The reason we saw this regulatory cost placed on the Australian economy was not that those opposite were implementing or reforming policy initiatives that required stringent regulatory oversight. No, they were not. The reason that every Australian was forced to waste their time filling in more paperwork or was forced to spend more time on the phone to process even the simplest applications is that those opposite have never understood the concept of best practice or domestic competitiveness, let alone the apparently elusive concept—elusive for those opposite—of global competitiveness.

Let us put aside for a second the regulatory burden that those opposite placed on every Australian. What is even more mystifying is that those opposite used all the slogans in history to say that they wanted to compete globally, but instead they implemented a pile of regulations that reduced any chance that Australian businesses had of competing on a level playing field with their international counterparts. You can see that still today with their opposition to the FTA with China. In fact, to explain this in the most basic terms, all I have to say is seven words. I can add to this that it is the anti-WA tax, the mining tax and the carbon tax.

I ask those opposite: could you have taken a bigger swing at our international competitiveness or our small businesses' ability to prosper? Why crush the hip pocket of every Australian slowly? Next time you come up with a policy, just tell us that you want to strangle productivity so that we can all throw in the towel early rather than being forced to navigate your regulatory minefield before finding out that, even if a business does comply with your excessive regulations, nobody wants to invest in it anymore. Why would they when, in the time those opposite were in government, they introduced 21,000 new regulations that every one of us had to adhere to? We heard the previous speaker saying that you just have to turn up, and you should not slap yourself on the back for just turning up for work. Well, they should not be slapping themselves on the back either for the 21,000 regulations that they introduced during their time in parliament, during those terrible six years of Labor government that we had.

As I have highlighted in this place before, what greater regulatory burden could those opposite have placed on families, on business and on industry than the productivity-strangling carbon tax, a tax that alone constituted 18 different acts and 1,100 pages of regulation and legislation? I know how fit the parliamentary secretary is, but I doubt that he would be able to carry that into the chamber on his own. He would have to use a trolley like you see the silks using, going down St Georges Terrace—one of those little trolleys.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Lucky I never got to be a silk!

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But you had the potential! You had the potential!

It is shameful that those opposite continue to stand in this place and try to diminish the work this government is doing to remove burdensome regulation and to support every Australian through our red tape reduction program when 21,000 additional regulations is their economy-crushing legacy, hindering business, weakening our economy and putting this country on the fast track to debt and deficit. That, colleagues, is the Labor way—more bureaucracy, more regulation and cash splashing because those opposite believe more in politicking than in being a good, economically responsible government. Now, as with the debt and deficit mess those opposite left the coalition with, this government is also cleaning up their regulatory mess.

We are scrapping the 1,100 pages worth of additional regulation and legislation that the carbon tax alone created, and we have set a target to remove $1 billion worth of red tape every year. We did this because, as members on this side of the House know, it was hurting Australians in all sorts of unassuming ways. One example of this, in my electorate of Swan, is the additional costs from things such as electricity prices, which were already hurting families in their personal energy bills and were also being passed onto consumers by a range of service providers, including local governments. I highlight that this is not because local governments or any other service providers wanted to; they simply had no choice so that they too could stay afloat in the harsh economic climate that those opposite threw at them.

Thankfully, by scrapping the carbon tax, these additional costs have now been removed. In fact, in a letter I received from the City of Gosnells in my electorate of Swan, the city states that the two largest areas of direct impact from the carbon tax for the city were on their waste disposal fees and the cost of street lighting. Now, thanks to the removal of the carbon tax, each of the city's more than 106,000 ratepayers, according to the 2011 national census, will save from a $9 per tonne reduction in waste disposal costs and a reduction of $110,800 for street lighting per annum. I also joined with the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, now Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, the Hon. Bob Baldwin, in my electorate of Swan soon after the carbon tax was scrapped to welcome a free day of public transport. I am sure the parliamentary secretary would have enjoyed the free transport on that day as well. I am sure members opposite are straightaway thinking, 'Well, nothing in this world is free,' but, in this case, the Western Australian Liberal state government, who recognised just how much of a burden the carbon tax had been on Western Australian taxpayers, created this free public transportation day to compensate passengers for the increase in fares that they had already paid when the carbon tax was introduced. I see the Deputy Speaker, Mr Ewen Jones, smiling. I am sure it is something that he would have liked to implement in Townsville as well, in his great electorate of Herbert.

According to the WA state government, thanks to this coalition government's scrapping of the carbon tax, Perth's public transport users will also now be enjoying fare reductions of between 10c and 30c, depending on the journey they travel. So, as members can see, this government's policy initiatives are achieving their objectives: to remove excessive regulation, to remove duplication and to remove policies that those opposite implemented, which do nothing but strangle productivity and take every Australian's hard-earned money out of their pockets.

We have not just implemented this red tape reduction agenda blind, either. To ensure every piece of regulation which constitutes this $65 billion in compliance costs is appropriately reviewed, this government has been working with the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, which I take this opportunity to commend for its work to date. We have also established deregulation units, which, as the parliamentary secretary stated, are specifically 'tasked with identifying and driving red tape reduction across the Commonwealth', and these units now exist in every portfolio. Not only do these deregulation units exist; this economically responsible government has also implemented a system where every cabinet submission must be accompanied by a regulation impact statement to ensure that the concept of balancing the need for regulation with its impact is at the forefront of every minister's mind when developing policy initiatives.

On 18 March, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister tabled this government's inaugural Annual deregulation report, which highlighted how this government's red tape reduction program is supporting our economy and, by extension, every business, every family and every individual in many different ways. It highlighted that, as a result of last year's two repeal days, this government implemented $2.1 billion worth of regulatory compliance savings, which is more than double that of our original $1 billion target. On the same day, the parliamentary secretary also introduced the cognate bills before the House, which, I am pleased to say, have once again put this government on track to meet this $1 billion annual target. As a result of these cognate bills, 890 acts and 160 legislative instruments will be scrapped, reducing this red tape burden by an additional $305 million. Within 18 months, the government have scrapped the burdensome carbon tax and the hit on industry under the poorly designed mining tax, and we will have systematically reduced this $65 billion regulatory burden by $2.45 billion once all the measures are fully implemented.

To put this in a different perspective, this is 10,300 legislative instruments and 2,700 pieces of unnecessary or duplicative acts of parliament which will no longer be wasting Australians' time. We are achieving this through a variety of provisions in the cognate bills which will see legislation amended or repealed across seven government portfolios. This will assist in further reducing the regulatory burden currently faced by business, families, individuals and the community as a whole. The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill alone will amend or repeal 14 acts across portfolios, including the repeal of the Meat Export Charge Act 1984 and the Meat Inspection Arrangements Act 1964. The government is repealing these acts because, like other provisions outlined in these cognate repeal days bills, they are now redundant. In the case of these meat export bills, this is because the inspection of meat and meat products for export was overhauled in 2011, yet its legislative instruments have remained on the government's statute books for the last four years. A similar example of a redundant act which will be repealed by this bill is the Primary Industry Councils Act 1991, which has had no industry councils established under it for over a decade.

One key deregulatory saving in this bill that I would particularly like to highlight for members is the introduction of additional functionality for myGov users. As members would remember, in the first year of the government's cutting red tape agenda, we created a net red tape saving of $156 million through the myTax initiative, which significantly reduced the amount of information users need to supply to the Australian Taxation Office, or ATO, when using this online system. Now, through the provisions in the cognate bills before the House, an additional $5.4 million in annual compliance savings has been created by allowing customers to update their details in one place using the myGov Tell Us Once service. Similarly, $48.5 million in annual compliance savings will also be created, if the cognate bills before the House are passed, through improvements to the ATO website.

All members in this place would have noticed a difference on the many flights they regularly take to arrive in this place, which has also ensured further savings are found as part of the government's deregulation agenda. This is through the lifting of restrictions on the use of personal electronic devices during flight take-off and landing. So as much as I can attest to this being a benefit to passengers, it will also contribute $17.7 million toward this $305-million net red tape saving for 2015 so far.

In the education portfolio, significant savings have also been found by creating greater efficiencies in the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy, NAPLAN, which was first introduced in 2008. As members would know, under the NAPLAN program, in May of every year students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 take part in a written assessment. From 2017 the delivery of this testing will, however, be changing under this government's efficiency program through the development of an online national assessment platform. This will allow students to complete NAPLAN tests using a computer or another electronic device such as a tablet and will create annual compliance saving of $9.7 million.

It is clear that the systematic process of removing burdensome red tape and green tape, and changing the mindset of both the public and the private sectors is only in its infancy but I am proud to be part of a government that took the first step towards achieving this aim. The removal of $1 billion in red tape each year is this government's target and is a target, which, under the guidance of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, I am sure will be reached again this year. To achieve this though, we must first pass the cognate bills before the House and the others. I commend the bills before the House and I commend this government for having the foresight to deliver this deregulatory program for the benefit of every Australian.

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

The debate that is presently before this House, in many senses, really is the story of this government writ small as perhaps it should be. I ask members present to think about the fanfare that accompanied the introduction of the first of these omnibus repeal days, the first much lauded, much vaunted red tape reduction day the better part of 18 months ago. The Australian people were promised a bonfire of red tape reduction. The rhetoric then was even more grandiose than it has been this evening. But what have we got? At the end of the day, the only bonfire we have seen is a bonfire of vanity—vanity of government members, especially the then parliamentary secretary the now Assistant Treasurer. I think his second reading speech from 19 March 2014 on the occasion of the first red tape reduction day bears rereading because it sets out the scale of the claim made through this process that has not been matched by its impact, in stark contrast to the deregulation agenda conducted properly in a concerted manner by the former government which removed unnecessary regulation without fuss, without fanfare but with regard to the purposes of law-making and the needs of our economy and of our society.

Again, I remind those present and anyone listening—I understand some may be engaged in other debates this evening—to have regard to the claims set out in the second reading speech made in March 2014 by the then parliamentary secretary—the now Assistant Treasurer—and to think about the claims that were made and how they have been matched in reality. Again, this is a sense of government writ very small and, indeed, a diminished sense of our future.

But it is really interesting to see beyond this, how the step-through occurred from that first bill to its second iteration in October of last year, where again we saw very grand promises made by the then parliamentary secretary. There were proud boasts of 'no longer will we deny the men and women of Australia an opportunity to employ more people, to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and, at the end of the day, to boost productivity'. Let us think about how those claims have stacked up. We have unemployment at over 800,000 for the first time in nearly 20 years. We have a crisis in productivity with multifactor productivity lagging at deeply concerning levels. This was described as an absolutely brilliant result for this government. Well, as the government debates its future again, I wonder what a less than brilliant result might have been.

So I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015. The purpose of this bill is to abolish defunct bodies, consolidate previous bodies and repeal spent and redundant provisions and acts. This bill is, of course, introduced with some complimentary legislation—namely, Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015. These are, for the most part, reasonably worthwhile initiatives of the parliament. They simply do not match the description that they have been given nor the rhetoric that accompanies them.

Government members should not take my word for it; they should look at the haste with which this urgent agenda has been pushed through the parliament. Introduced some six months ago, we now find ourselves finding our way towards consideration of these urgent pieces of legislation. We know what a crowded legislative agenda it has been. It does not just speak volumes as to the absence of any vision for Australia's future on the part of this government; it speaks volumes as to its lack of anything to say in terms of a legislative agenda whatsoever.

Essentially, like those two previous omnibus repeal days, this bill is just a bit of PR exercise with a bit of ideological dressing, another exercise in this government wanting to be applauded for successfully putting one foot in front of the other. Well, today of all days, perhaps we can understand that. Perhaps that is fair enough. It all seems very hard for government members at the moment. The path to recovery that they charted out in opposition has met with extreme resistance, to say the very least, in government.

It is telling that the fanfare that was started off 18 months ago has diminished 12 months ago and seems less evident today. This is just something that they are going through the motions with now. Perhaps this is much too late; nonetheless a tacit acknowledgement by government members that simply abolishing long defunct bodies or repealing spent and redundant provisions in acts of parliament is not quite as spectacular nor as transformative as the government in its very, very brief salad days liked to imagine.

Indeed, something that is very interesting in these bills is that the vast majority of provisions in the bills before the chamber do not have any deregulatory savings attached whatsoever. I was interested to look through the explanatory memorandum, which says of the bills before the House that there are no financial implications. Now, that does not make it a bad thing; it just sits rather uncomfortably with the sort of rhetoric we have heard from the previous speakers and, indeed, from government speakers throughout this debate. The rhetoric does not match the reality. This is the ordinary business of government dressed up as something that it is not by a government that literally has nothing to say to the Australian people, a government so wrapped in its own internal conflict that it cannot pay attention to the issues that are facing Australia. That is clear today. It was clear a couple of weeks ago when I thought we were to debate this bill, but the government spent six hours having an internal debate and decided to vacate themselves from the legislative field on a matter of great importance to many, many Australians, as you would be aware, Acting Deputy Speaker Jones.

I do note that while the explanatory memorandum states that there are no financial implications attached to these bills, the parliamentary secretary who was just in the chamber tried half-heartedly in his contribution to this debate—which was quite some time ago, I add—to suggest otherwise. But I will return to that in a couple of minutes. I have spoken on the previous omnibus repeal days this government have introduced. Frankly, I do find it difficult to understand why they have been going through the seasonal charade of activity in this regard. It does not appear that the Abbott government—if it is still the Abbott government, as I am making this contribution—are looking at another spring omnibus repeal day, but perhaps we will see.

At the end of the day, these sorts of low savings should be applauded if they can be identified—and I look forward to that aspect of the debate from government members. The repeals of overdue, redundant legislation have achieved much heat in terms of the parliamentary contributions of government members but very, very little in the way of substance. So I turn to a couple of examples from the substantive bill itself. Others have touched on these matters, but I do think they bear repeating, having regard again to the sorts of grandiose claims we have heard from government members.

This bill repeals seven acts in the agriculture portfolio, all of which are spent and redundant—for example, the Dairy Adjustment Act 1974, which enabled the Commonwealth to enter into arrangements with the states for dairy adjustment programs, has been repealed.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You would not know a dairy cow if you fell over one.

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

I am unlikely to, Parliamentary Secretary, and I certainly would not be likely to fall over a dairy cow affected by this regulation because the period of approval for a new agreement lapsed in 1977, quite some time ago. Of course, that means no agreements are currently in place and all payments have been made. I am sure the parliamentary secretary, unlike me, is very well versed in dairy cows and presumably is well versed in that fact as well. The act is redundant, and it has been since shortly after I was born.

In the Treasury portfolio, five acts have been repealed, all of which, clearly, are spent and redundant. It is a good thing; not worth making a song and dance about except when you have nothing else to have a song and dance about, Parliamentary Secretary McCormack. By way of example, I turn to the International Monetary Agreements Act 1959, which related to an increase in Australia's quota in the IMF and an increase in the capital stock of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It has been repealed. Given that these transactions have already happened quite some time ago, of course, the act is redundant. Similarly, in the social services portfolio there is the removal of a number of indexation provisions that are spent, that have passed their date of effect. As a result, of course, they are no longer needed in legislation.

At the end of the day, this is a Seinfeld bill. It is a bill about nothing. It is busy-making for those members opposite who want to be seen to be doing something because they have no positive agenda worth speaking of. So when big decisions are being made about the direction of Australian politics, here we are debating repealed, redundant and spent provisions.

There was much reference from the previous speaker, and I imagine from other government contributors to this debate, about the record of the Rudd and Gillard governments in this regard. I say again: let's compare our record in repealing genuinely unnecessary regulations with the record of this government. More to the point, in respect of the bill before the House, let us think about the acts I have just been talking about. These were not provisions of the previous Labor government that have been repealed; they go way back in history to the fifties and the seventies. You are not dealing with business left over from the previous government; you are dealing with relics from the Menzies era. Perhaps today, of all days, that is an appropriate motif in this parliament, Parliamentary Secretary McCormack.

I do turn to the modest and mundane savings that have been claimed to result from the passage of this bill. Labor are, of course, always keen to look at sensible savings mechanisms. We did this in government; we will continue to do so in opposition. We did not and we will not need special days to celebrate doing the ordinary business of government; we will continue to get on with the business of government on behalf of the Australian people, and I hope an election comes soon to give us the chance to make that case. There are only two items in this bill that are said to have any deregulatory savings. Of course, I refer to the explanatory memorandum, which I think is a reasonably authoritative source in this regard, but I go to the claims as well.

The first relates to the removal of the requirement to sign a statutory declaration when submitting a compensation claim under the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Act 1995. Instead, a claimant is able to declare the information provided is true and correct using existing forms. This is estimated to generate $41-odd million in deregulatory savings. The second relates to the granting of greater access to aggregated information under certain social services legislation to the public where that information does not disclose information about a particular person. This will enable greater access to the information for use by researchers and the general public. This is estimated to generate­­—wait for it—$3,000 in deregulatory savings. I guess, Parliamentary Secretary, if we look after the pennies—

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every cent counts.

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

Just imagine on that basis what the $158 million for the plebiscite on marriage equality could be used for, if this parliament instead did its job and got with that bit of law-making business. Just imagine: if $3,000 is celebrated—raise the rafters—what would they do with $158 million?

The total amount of claimed deregulatory savings—claimed, not actual—is less than 10 per cent of the $475-odd million in deregulatory savings that have been reported since the last so-called repeal day, which was around about this time last year, at the very best. Again, there seems to be a clear law of diminishing returns with these repeal days. Perhaps this might just be the last such day, one way or another.

The Assistant Treasurer in his second reading speech stated the necessity of there being 'dedicated parliamentary sitting days for the repeal of legislation'. Such pomposity, such pretentiousness! Since when do sitting days in this parliament need to be dedicated to doing so little? This could have been done in half an hour. The vast majority of the measures in the bills before this House are purely procedural in nature. And no-one disagrees with them. Measures that were described in the parliamentary secretary's statement—such as: the use of electronic devices in flights, which has been touched on in most contributions from government members; removing duplicative record-keeping requirements for psychologists; or the requirement that trucks have spare spray suppression devices—are not being discussed as part of this bill.

I note the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee conducted an inquiry into this momentous piece of legislation. The substance of the committee's report runs to a whopping two pages. That is this in a nutshell. Regardless of what government members say, that sums up the ambit of this bill and indeed the ambit of this government's ambition. Whatever happens in another place in this building today, this will be the mark by which this government is assessed.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Commonwealth regulation is estimated to cost the Australian economy approximately $65 billion annually, equivalent to 4.2 per cent of our national gross domestic product. Whilst a degree of regulation is necessary to ensure the orderly functioning of our society, there are many cases in which overregulation is stifling the economy with bureaucracy and red tape.

The business community has been making the case for years that streamlining our regulatory system is essential for greater productivity and to make the Australian economy more competitive internationally. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry issued a press release on 6 May earlier this year following a series of deregulation announcements in the budget, with the Chief Executive Officer, Deidre Willmott, quoting as stating:

The CCI campaigns against excessive regulation at all levels of Government that stifle new growth.

… … …

Governments at all levels must be vigilant in their fight against red tape and continuously look at ways to cut unnecessary regulation.

Although this is not a high-profile issue, the majority of Australians have a vested interest in this debate, because most Australians are shareholders in large businesses through their superannuation funds or are involved in small business. Unnecessarily high compliance costs serve to reduce the long-term investment returns flowing to members of superannuation funds, resulting in less income in retirement. Therefore, this is an issue which ought to concern the public.

As the Australian economy becomes increasingly connected with international economies through globalisation and free trade, our competitiveness increasingly matters. It is true to say that Australia's economy is more heavily regulated in comparison with those of the emerging economies in our region, putting Australian businesses at a strategic disadvantage. The coalition government realises this and is taking appropriate action to ensure that the Australian economy can be more resilient and compete internationally on a more level playing field.

Accordingly, the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 is a whole-of-government initiative to amend or repeal legislation across nine portfolios. These measures are simple and non-contentious and are, therefore, more appropriately included in an omnibus bill rather than in separate stand-alone bills. The reforms are wide-ranging, across government departments—including the key portfolios of agriculture, Attorney-General, communications, education, employment, health, human services, immigration and border protection, industry, infrastructure and regional development, social services, and Treasury. Deregulation units have been established in every ministerial portfolio using existing internal resources.

The Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015—will repeal spent and redundant amending acts that were made between 1980 and 1989. The measures within these acts have taken effect and they do not contain any other substantive provisions. The Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015 will repair minor errors in Commonwealth consolidated acts, and repeal spent or redundant acts and provisions within. Allowing spent or redundant acts to remain in force on the Commonwealth's statute books makes it more difficult for businesses, individuals and community organisations to ascertain which regulations apply to them. Instead of being able to quickly and easily find and access the regulations which they need to comply with, they must sort through outdated and unnecessary regulations to determine whether they still apply.

These reforms are designed to repeal some 10,300 legislative instruments and 2,700 acts of parliament. The Commonwealth is working with states and territories to reduce red tape across all levels of government. Many regulatory instruments fall within the area of responsibility of state and local governments, so it is essential that all tiers of government cooperate to reduce red tape. For example, the bureaucracy in the planning approvals process affects many development projects within my electorate, affecting job creation and economic development

To cite an example, there are planning regulations limiting the use of commercial premises which permit real estate agents, accountants, lawyers and financial planners to operate from premises because they are classified as 'office uses' but prohibit psychologists or podiatrists from operating from the same premises because they are deemed as medical practitioners and have arbitrary parking requirements. This has resulted in multiple vacant tenancies, which are not in the community interest. By comparison, in emerging economies this level of unnecessary regulation would not apply.

Small businesses account for 96 per cent of all Australian businesses, employing 4.5 million people and producing $330 billion of Australia's gross domestic product. The following deregulatory measures contained in the current package of reforms will be of benefit to many small businesses in my electorate of Moore, whose collective interests are represented by the Joondalup Business Association and the Wanneroo Business Association. For example, implementing a revised pay-as-you-go system for small businesses will allow certain businesses choosing to use this new method to calculate their actual instalment income on a quarterly basis, resulting in annual compliance savings of $2.7 million. Similarly, reforming the 457 visa program by streamlining the process of sponsorship, nomination and visa applications for skilled workers, reforming sponsorship requirements to reduce the time and cost, increasing the sponsorship approval period from 12 to 18 months for start-up businesses and providing greater flexibility in relation to English language testing and skill requirements is projected to result in annual compliance savings of $29.9 million.

Another measure removes the requirement for heavy-vehicle operators of B-double truck combinations registered under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme to fit additional spray suppression devices, predicted to achieve annual compliance savings of $8.3 million for the transport industry, in which, as the holder of an MC, or multi-combination, licence, I have an interest. Improvements to the Australian Taxation Office website are expected to assist an estimated six million users to find relevant information more readily, resulting in expected annual compliance savings of $48.5 million. The ATO's myTax initiative reduces the amount of information 1.4 million users need to supply to the ATO when filing their e-tax forms each year, to result in a forecast net red tape reduction of $156 million. The proposed reforms are designed to make identity checks even easier for retailers and consumers when purchasing new prepaid mobile phones, which is expected to save $6.2 million in compliance costs annually. These measures are part of the coalition's mission to build a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia. Other changes to the entry thresholds for PAYG instalments and expanded private sector access to the government's Document Verification Service will result in combined net red tape savings of $194.4 million. In addition, the coalition government has introduced a one-stop-shop for environmental approvals, resulting in net red tape savings of $426.3 million.

By contrast, some 21,000 new regulations were introduced by the previous Labor government. Regulation should not become the default option for policymakers. Poorly designed and inefficient regulation imposes unnecessary costs on business. The total deregulatory saving in reduced compliance costs since the election of the Abbott government in September 2013 is estimated at $2.45 billion. Under the former Labor government, Commonwealth regulation was costing Australians approximately $65 billion—equivalent to 4.2 per cent of GDP. As a result of these measures, the $65 billion regulatory cost burden will be reduced by $2.45 billion. To date, the government has implemented $1.57 billion of the $2.45 billion in projected savings, with $880 million in measures yet to be implemented.

In the building and construction industry, the proposed reforms remove the costly and time-consuming requirement for builders to be certified to Australian Standard AS4801 or equivalent prior to applying for scheme accreditation to undertake Commonwealth funded building work where they are in a joint venture with an accredited company and operate under the partner's scheme accredited systems. In the agricultural sector, reforms to biosecurity arrangements provide greater flexibility to manage biosecurity risks. Examples include removing the requirement for tail tags for cattle destined for the European Union and improving access to export terminals for grain exporters. The Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement and Korean free trade agreement will also deliver benefits for Australian farmers and the agricultural sector.

In terms of improving access to government social services, Centrelink claimants will be able to check the status of their claims online, reducing the time wasted in direct follow-up interventions in person at a Centrelink service centre or by telephone. Similarly, students who receive government payments will be able to change their details online without being required to contact a call centre or attend a service centre, which is expected to save $2.7 million in costs. Furthermore, implementing additional functionality for myGov users to allow customers to update their details using the myGov Tell Us Once service to obtain secure and convenient access to online services from a single account and one set of credentials will result in annual compliance savings of $5.4 million.

In the current era of increasing competition brought about by globalisation it is important for the government to implement policies that will help contain the cost structure of business. Research shows that regulation costs Australians approximately $65 billion annually. Everyone bears this cost, as working Australians are shareholders in business through our superannuation funds. As mentioned earlier, high compliance costs translate into lower returns on investment and lower returns for the members of industry superannuation funds. These deregulation reforms are much needed to promote greater productivity, make our exports more competitive and attract investment into Australia. In order to take advantage of the economic opportunities presented by free trade agreements, the government must ensure that our regulatory system is efficient and flexible enough to permit Australian industry to prosper. I commend the package of reforms to the House.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been listening to the speakers on both sides since the debate began earlier tonight on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015, the Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015, and I just have to comment briefly on the member for Moore's contribution, in which he clearly outlined a number of things on his wish list. But I would just like to point out that none of that is actually in the bills that we are discussing tonight. In fact, of the five or six speakers on the government side so far, in a list of some 30 that will be speaking on these bills, none have actually spoken about these bills—not one. There are 30 speakers on the government side on these bills and 10 on the opposition side. That means 40 speakers. That is somewhere between eight and 10 hours of debate on these bills, and I can bet—not that I do, actually, but if I were a betting person I reckon I could bet—

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Surely you bet!

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Actually, I do not.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Really?

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I do not, but I would be prepared to bet—

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bet on the coalition next time!

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! This is not the coalition!

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that nobody on the government side—not one of those 30 people—will actually get up and talk about the bills before the House, because, quite frankly, they are not actually worth talking about that much.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can never get your money back!

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These are essentially the basic work of government. Repealing legislation that no longer has any effect, that is no longer relevant and that has essentially been expired in terms of its purpose for 30, 40 or 50 years does not warrant 30 government members getting up here at 15 minutes apiece and talking about it. I guess that is why they are talking about anything else rather than these bills. Given that the government does not seem to have any other legislation at the moment, I suspect they are on orders to just fill up the time, or it is going to become very clear very quickly that the government actually does not have any agenda at all.

These kinds of bills, which essentially repeal redundant legislative instruments, are standard. In the last year of the Labor government, in 2013, the government commenced the largest and most comprehensive exercise ever undertaken to remove redundant Commonwealth legislative instruments. We removed a third of our regulatory stock where provisions were spent or otherwise redundant, and legislation passed enabling the removal of 12,000 redundant Commonwealth legislative instruments. That is more than the government aims to do in its three-year term. In spite of all of the fanfare about its repeal days and the bonfire of regulation and red tape et cetera—this amazing rhetoric—Labor did more in one year than the government is planning on doing in three. And did we make a song and dance about it at the time? Well, no, because all we were doing was removing from the statute books legislation which no longer had a purpose and had been redundant for a long, long time.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, you were such a good government! Such a good government!

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for saying that, Parliamentary Secretary.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Facetiously.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But being a good government has nothing to do with this sort of housekeeping. This is the kind of housekeeping that every government does. Most governments have other things that they want to promote as their achievements. Most governments have other things on which they would be in here with 30 speakers. Most governments would have something to say other than, 'Oh, we're repealing legislation which no longer has any purpose.' Most governments would—not this one, and I can understand why, because in many ways this is one of your achievements.

I am actually going to spend the next 11 minutes talking about the bill. If the government want to debate this bill for some 10 hours, I think it is about time that someone actually talked about what is in the bill so the people of Australia can see what the government think is so important that they are going to spend 10 hours of parliamentary time on it—something that is so important that they want the world to know all about it. Let's actually talk about what it is.

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 includes amendments and repeals, and the member for Moore did say it covers agriculture, environment, health, Indigenous affairs, social services and Treasury. It does include all those areas, but not the areas that he spoke about. It repeals redundant acts. There are two things that it does other than that—and I am going to go through the redundant acts. It changes the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Act 1995 to remove a requirement that compensation recipients submit a stat dec; they sign a form instead. That is actually a simple change. That will make, according to the government, around $41 million in deregulatory savings. We have doubts on this side that that is the right number, but that is fine. Instead of signing a stat dec for your workers comp, basically you sign the form. That is fine. There is a second one which makes it easier for the public to access aggregate data relating to social security et cetera, and that change is estimated to lead to $3,000 in deregulatory savings. So they are the two elements of these three bills which actually do things other than repeal legislation which no longer has a purpose. Everything else in this bill repeals stuff that is no longer relevant.

I am sorry that you are in the chair, Deputy Speaker Jones, because I was actually going to refer to the speech you made earlier. I am still going to; I am just going to be gentler than I otherwise might, because I know that as the Deputy Speaker you have to—

Mr McCormack interjecting—

Well, I am speaking about the bill, so he would find it hard to find a reason to do that. The member for Herbert, in his speech earlier, said that the government was starting with the easy stuff—abolishing the redundant stuff, the easy stuff—and eventually, at some point, it would have to start getting to the harder stuff. I would think that you get into government to deal with the hard stuff. I would not think you would actually try and get into government in order to do the stuff that someone can do by cleaning out a cupboard, which is essentially what is happening here. I would say to the member for Herbert and the government members, if you want to deregulate, if you want to save the economy from red tape, if you want to do the work in that area, you actually have to do the work. You actually have to sit down with the states. Most of our regulatory issues are not just to do with one level of government. They occur because, over a century, we have accumulated competing bills in various jurisdictions. It is really hard work.

Labor, in government, worked with the states through COAG towards what we called the Seamless National Economy. There were 45 reforms put forward by that COAG Reform Council. By the time we lost government, 31 had been completed or largely completed and eight were partially completed. It was estimated by the Productivity Commission that just 17 of those 31 completed items saved business $4 billion each year in improvements to productivity and they increased GDP by $6 billion. That is $4 billion in savings each year from 17 of the 31 reforms that we introduced. And we have a government bragging and having repeal days—giant stunts—because they believe they can cut costs by $1 billion a year. It was $4 billion a year from Labor, because we did it the hard way, and it is $1 billion a year from this government. And the government are nowhere near the target yet, given that they have not passed last year's legislation yet, and the legislation we are debating today was introduced six months ago, so there is clearly no hurry. If you actually want to make it, you want to get your skates on. But the government are aiming at $1 billion. We achieved $4 billion. And they are bragging. Today there are 30 speakers on this bill.

Let us look at the repealing of the acts. In the Agriculture portfolio, there are zero deregulatory savings—none, not a bit. The Dairy Adjustment Act 1974 act provided financial assistance for the purpose of dairy adjustment programs, allowing agreements to be made with the states to make payments. But that agreement came into effect in 1996, and it lapsed with the approval of a new agreement in 1977. So it has been dead since 1977. Can I suggest to the member for Moore and several other speakers who have said that, by repealing old legislation, they save business from having to go through all the statute books and read the legislation to see whether or not it applies to them: no-one is reading this act to see if it applies to them. There are zero deregulatory savings, even according to the government.

Then there is the Domestic Meat Premises Charge Act 1993. The Department of Agriculture deregistered the last two meat establishments that this act covered on 12 June 2009. It is dead. It has gone. It has finished. It will never be used again. No-one is trawling through it to find out whether or not it applies to them. It applies to nobody. The Meat Export Charge Act 1984 was enacted to impose a charge on applications for the inspection of export meat, but cost recovery arrangements are now set out under the export system, so it is just not used any more. It is covered elsewhere. The Meat Inspection Act 1983 was enacted to provide for the domestic inspection of meat for human consumption, but the states and territories now carry out those activities and it is covered under their statutes. Again, no-one is trawling through this act to see whether or not it applies to them. There are zero deregulatory savings.

The Primary Industry Councils Act 1991 was enacted to establish industry councils, but they have not existed since 1993. Again, there are not a whole stack of councils out there looking through this act—not one. There are 30 government speakers on this stuff. No wonder they are not speaking about the bill. It would be a very boring 10 hours if they all actually got up and spoke about this bill, I can tell you. Abolition of the Australian Landcare Council is items 8 to 16 of the schedule. There are a lot of items in this schedule. The plan was to consolidate the Australian Landcare Council and the Natural Heritage Trust Advisory Committee into the National Landcare Advisory Committee. There are currently no members in the Landcare Council. There are quite a few bills that get abolished because of that change. There is also the abolition of the Natural Heritage Trust Advisory Committee. It has not met since 2010. There is the abolition of the Biological Diversity Advisory Committee, and the membership of that committee lapsed in 2007. Again, this is an enormous benefit to small business! I can just see small business asking, 'Would you please abolish the Biological Diversity Advisory Committee act because they have not met since 2007 and never will again?' You can imagine all those small businesses just cheering at how much money you have saved them!

Mr McCormack interjecting—

'Wildly,' says the parliamentary secretary. That shows how much he knows small business. For protected area management plans, items 7 to 12 of the schedule remove duplicate exemptions covering Heard Island and McDonald Island. They are actually covered in the marine reserves now. Again, there is no need for that act.

Schedule 3 covers the Health and Human Services portfolios. This is the one where there is a possible saving of $41.4 million because the statutory declarations are no longer required. That is probably one of the things that I might have expected someone on the other side to mention, because it does actually make a change. Again, it is not a change that warrants 30 speakers and 10 hours of parliamentary time, but, as I said, no-one on that side is actually speaking about the bill.

Schedule 4 covers Prime Minister and Cabinet and Indigenous affairs: zero regulatory savings again. The Aboriginal Affairs (Arrangements with States) Act 1973 was replaced really by clauses in the Public Service Act 1999. It has not been relevant for 16 years. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Discriminatory Laws) Act 1975 was superseded by state laws, and the Queensland laws which superseded it have been repealed. This is really interesting. I am so glad I get to speak on this bill! Item 3, section 16 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Reserves and Communities Self-management) Act 1978 will be made ineffective when the government repeals the actions that I mentioned two minutes ago, so it is a follow-on act.

Schedule 5 covers social services and use of protected information. This is a change that will save a total of $3,000 in deregulatory savings. Again, I have not heard anyone on the government side talking about that, but there are $3,000 in savings. Part 2 repeals spent indexation provisions from the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 and the Social Security Act 1991. These provisions have passed their date of effect. The bill repeals the Retirement Assistance for Farmers Scheme and the Retirement Assistance for Sugarcane Farmers Scheme from the Social Security Act 1991. These schemes closed in 2001 and 2007 respectively but they are about to be repealed. How wonderful that is.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Great—about time.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it is great. It is just a question of whether it warrants 10 hours in the parliament—whether this is what government thinks is so important that it is going to debate it for 10 hours in the parliament. It is quite extraordinary. I cannot imagine any government in the past having so much space in its legislative agenda that it would allow 10 hours in the main chamber to debate this. The bill repeals spent savings, transitional and application provisions from the Social Security Act 1991. They have no effect, as they deal with circumstances that can no longer occur under the act—wonderful stuff. What a government! No wonder they are so proud of this wonderful repeal day stuff. Treasury has no deregulatory savings—none, zero. It is a lot of hot air and no substance. (Time expired)

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The other side can trivialise a lot of this stuff. Yes, there is a lot of cleaning out the cupboards, if you like, but there is also a lot in the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2015 that is going to save money. The opposition would not understand that saving paperwork and bureaucracy is actually a net benefit to small business. Given their background, they have no understanding whatsoever of small business. Let us look at the size and scope of the achievement that we are working on here. So far, with just three repeal days, we have cut $2.45 billion worth of red tape. That is equivalent to every man, woman and child in this country putting $100 into the national piggy bank. Compare this to the other side in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd days, when federal regulation was bleeding us to the tune of about $65 billion, or more than four per cent of our GDP. This government is not just about saving money, though; it is saving time. There is less time spent in filling out paperwork, less time in waiting in queues and less time in searching for information. As a result, we are building on things that really matter: more competition, more innovation and more productivity.

Today I specifically focus on four industries where we are streamlining processes and cutting red tape: exports, small business, tourism and aged care.    Exports are critical to our country's future prosperity and for jobs. The government is pursuing free trade agreements and cutting red tape in our export industry. In Far North Queensland, sugar is a major export. I heard the previous speaker talking about sugar. The Cairns bulk sugar terminal celebrated a milestone earlier this year.    In March, for the first time, 52,000 tonnes of high-polarity Brand 1 raw sugar was loaded onto a vessel and shipped to Japan. That is the weight of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I visited MSF Sugar in Gordonvale soon after with our trade and investment minister, Andrew Robb. CEO Mike Barry spoke about future potential.    This new export was made possible because of the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement that came into force on 15 January this year. The agreement was one of the many measures that the government took to boost Australian trade with Japan. Now we have also now signed a free trade agreement with Korea and we are certainly going to sign one with China, in spite of the nonsensical scare campaign that the other side has been running. We are looking forward to new opportunities now that we have liberalised Australia's trade with these three major trading partners.

Some great news for our export industry is the introduction of a mandatory port access code of conduct for grain export terminals. All bulk wheat exporters will now get fair and transparent access to port terminal services regardless of who owns the facility.    We have also removed the need—this may sound a bit insignificant and they may laugh about it on the other side—for cattle to have tail tags if they are being exported to the European Union. Eliminating the tag system will save cattle producers over $1 million per year—back into the pockets of cattle producers. The other side would not understand. They would not know what a cattle tag was. They probably do not even know what a cow is. Nevertheless, that is something that we consume and export in large amounts. The requirement to have tags was a labour-intensive exercise for businesses, and we certainly have better ways now of animal management prior to trucking.

The 2015 budget is helping small businesses invest more, grow more and employ more through significant tax cuts and tax deductions for every asset valued up to $20,000. My small business community has certainly welcomed this legislation being passed through both houses recently. The red-tape cuts are also very welcome news.    We have improved the pay-as-you-go instalment system by changing the entry and exit thresholds, meaning that certain small businesses will no longer have to interact with the PAYG instalment system. Businesses that choose to use this new method will only need to calculate their actual instalment income on a quarterly basis. Removing this unnecessary regulation will save Australia $2.7 million annually in compliance costs. Again, that is not a small cost for small businesses.

We are cutting red tape in the 457 visa program to streamline processing of sponsorship, nomination and applications. Owners like Mr Dev Rao, who runs Marinades Indian restaurant in Cairns, will see a more user-friendly 457 visa program. Dev has had an ongoing saga with 457s. The opposition may find this rather amusing, but nevertheless there is a cost to business. One of the 457 visa rules is that his chefs can only renew their visa if they pass an international English language test system. Dev's situation is unusual because it is not possible for him to find his chefs already trained in the kitchens of the Sheratons or the Hiltons. The cuisine at Dev's restaurant is very specific: it is the traditional, authentic taste of food stalls and family restaurants in the back streets of Calcutta. His chefs do not have the educational qualifications of mainstream chefs. They speak enough English to look after their own affairs but, because they are working in the kitchen, they do not have that level of interaction with people. That is why they struggle with the English language test. If a chef does not pass the test, Dev has two choices: either he sends them back to India or pays them an annual salary of $92,000, plus nine per cent superannuation.

Dev pays this salary and super because if the chef left it would have a huge negative impact on his business.

This has been going on for over eight years and Dev says, 'English language requirements are punishing for small multicultural businesses.' And I said to Dev: 'We have heard you. This government is reforming the 457 visa program.'

Debate interrupted.