Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation. Will the minister update the House on how businesses are benefitting from the government's policies to reduce red tape? What dangers do different approaches carry?

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for La Trobe for his question, and his passion for the reduction of red tape in his own seat of La Trobe. I can inform the House that the government is absolutely committed to reducing red tape; but more than that, it's delivering upon its promise to do so. The latest red tape report, released yesterday, shows that red tape was reduced by $800 million in the last financial year alone. The government's regulatory reform agenda has cut compliance costs for individuals, businesses and community organisations by almost $6 billion since being elected in 2013. The biggest single saving, worth some $444 million of this, came from the abolition of Labor's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, the RSRT.

I'm asked about the risks: what are the dangers? The Leader of the Opposition, put bluntly, is the danger. He had his hands on the RSRT and its formation from the start, when he was the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and he did a deal with the TWU to get support for Julia Gillard to roll Kevin Rudd. This is an example of the sort of deal making the opposition leader does when he looks after union mates ahead of all else. When it comes to doing dodgy deals with unions, the Leader of the Opposition has more angles than a protractor. The opposition leader has given the TWU a rolled-gold undertaking that he will bring back the RSRT. He is the danger. This will put 35,000 jobs at risk in the transport industry alone.

But what is the record of the Turnbull government in this sector? Over the past five years under the Turnbull government, 23,000 new businesses have opened in the transport sector, creating 70,000 of those one million jobs in the last 4½ years. Under the last year of the Labor government—the danger again—5,500 transport businesses closed, and there was a reduction of 15,000 jobs in the sector—70,000 created in 4½ years versus 15,000 lost in the last 12 months under Labor.

That's the risk of the Leader of the Opposition and his deals with his union mates. You don't know. You cannot trust what the Leader of the Opposition says—and that's before. With the TWU, at least we know it. That's before. We find out after election—if he is elected, which we can't afford to have happen—what deals he's done with John Setka and his CFMMEU mates in his secret deals. We know nothing about it. Even his shadow frontbench are concerned about it. That's the risk, and the member for La Trobe is right in raising that risk.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.