Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Given that you have no guarantee that that will occur, how can you stick with the figure of $2 billion? More importantly, and we must all accept this, the devil is going to be in the detail—namely, the regulations. How on earth can an honest assessment be made that the productivity dividend of harmonised laws will be $2 billion when we do not know the cost and the impact on the economy of each of those regulatory regimes that will be applied? How on earth can the government or, indeed, this office of independent assessment make these determinations when we do not know what is going to be in the regulations and what the cost is going to be?

For example, in my speech on the second reading I asked whether safety fencing will now have to be installed around every single home site. Were those sorts of matters taken into account in relation to the determination of the productivity dividend? Or do I take the tip they clearly were not because by the sound of the regulatory regime, it will simply make the cost of housing, the cost of building and all enterprises considerably more expensive.