Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This statute law revision bill is called the Statute Update (Winter 2017) Bill 2017. The parliament has introduced these sorts of bills regularly since 1934. They deal with uncontroversial, technical matters which will not, in substance, change the operation of the law. They all correct drafting errors, remove spent and obsolete provisions and update cross references.

Statute update bills are different from statute law revision bills because they are intended to make minor changes to the substance and legal effective provisions. In contrast, statute law revision bills contain measures that do not alter the substance of the law but rather make minor technical corrections of a purely formal nature. In his second reading speech for the bill, the Minister for the Environment and Energy, Mr Frydenberg, said:

These update bills are an essential tool in the process of keeping an orderly, accurate and up-to-date Commonwealth statute book.

In the previous parliament, statute law revision bills were introduced as part of a regular repeal day package. The Abbott government claimed that they had a regulatory reform agenda and were cutting red tape, when actually they were merely engaging in the routine work of the parliament. I suppose we should be grateful that the current Prime Minister hasn't trumped up this bill as part of his 25-point battle plan for legislative reform, supposedly to be expedited through the parliament.

As part of the 2015 Autumn Repeal Day, the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2015 was heralded as one of the Attorney-General's Department's deregulation measures. It was estimated that this bill would lead to an annual saving of $100,000 in compliance costs. The report of the 2015 Spring Repeal Day said that the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 3) 2015 would lead to an annual saving of $50,000 in compliance costs. None of these claims have been independently verified, as was recommended by the Australian National Audit Office in their report Implementing the deregulation agenda: cutting red tape as well as the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit. The Prime Minister should be embarrassed that his stocks have sunk so low, that his government is so adrift, that he has dressed up routine legislative work like this as some kind of policy masterstroke. It's clear this government still has no agenda.

Labor is happy to support this bill, which corrects technical errors, makes other minor amendments to statutes, and repeals spent and obsolete provisions and acts. Many of the amendments do not affect the substance of the law but are intended to enhance their clarity and accuracy. Some amendments make minor changes to the substance of the law. The bill contains four schedules: schedule 1 amends technical errors and makes other minor amendments to 18 principal acts, schedule 2 makes amendments to six principal acts consequential to the Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) Act 2015, schedule 3 repeals spent and obsolete provisions in five principal acts, and schedule 4 repeals four spent amending acts. None of this is groundbreaking; it is just part of the government's routine work. Far from being about deregulation, this bill does nothing that has not been done regularly by governments and by this parliament since 1934. This bill does not reduce the regulatory burden on Australian business. Nor does it remove or streamline any operative regulation. I thank the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for their hard work in maintaining the Commonwealth statute book and for their work on this bill, as on all other statute update bills. I commend this bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.