Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, encore indeed! I think the chamber could learn a lot from Senator Bernardi making more contributions. Perhaps, if those on the other side listened a little more to the contributions from this side of the chamber, they might actually learn something and somehow—somehow, colleagues—improve the standard of government in this nation, because it is most sorely lacking.

I rise to make some remarks on the Australian Jobs Bill 2013. Its title is in some ways a misnomer because it is yet another shambolic piece of legislation put forward by this government. As people would undoubtedly know, the bill's passage would result in changes to the Australian Industry Participation system. The government says that its aim is to make revisions to the system which will potentially increase the number of Australian suppliers to major local projects. However, it certainly seems to this side of the chamber, which puts a rather more practical, sensible and objective slant on these pieces of legislation, that some of those changes are impractical and, indeed, unreasonable.

We do not have any obvious problem with the intent of the program, given that it was something that came in under the Howard government. I do not think anybody in the nation would have any quarrel with looking to improve the use of local firms' capabilities in major public and private sector projects. There are obviously a number of benefits to be gained there. Our issue with this bill is the fact that it is again shambolic. We see in the first instance yet another creation of yet another bureaucracy. It certainly seems that, whenever the government are scrambling around to try and do something, one of the first things they say is, 'Let's create a new bureaucracy. Let's put another layer of red tape in. Let's make it more difficult for business to actually get on and do business—to do what they need to do on a daily basis.' So we are seeing yet another new bureaucracy, this one with new powers to enforce compliance and apply penalties for noncompliance.

We never cease to be astounded on this side of the chamber by the fact that this government can continually place greater burdens and more red tape on business. Indeed, as my very good colleague Senator Boswell said earlier, this government has absolutely no idea about small business—absolutely none at all. There is likely to be a rise in the number of plans that will need to be produced. There is undoubtedly going to be a rise in the compliance and reporting requirements. Business has been clearly saying that this will be yet another burden on it. Here the government is wallowing around trying to come up with a policy that in some way is substantive or appropriate or can be seen as a piece of legislation. One day, those on the other side might surprise us and come up with a bill where we say, 'That's a cracker piece of legislation for the business sector—look at that!' But it has not happened to date and I suspect it is not going to happen this week.

There is a $10 million advertising plan attached to this but no detail about how it is going to be spent. We have seen nothing from the government about how that is going to be rolled out or any scrutiny of how that money is going to be spent. Rather, we see yet another bucket of money being spent by this Labor government. It is extraordinary. When we look at this government's activities, time after time there does not seem to be any sort of rigorous cost-benefit analysis done. We only have to look at the NBN to know that the government has a track record.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

Thank you, Senator Cormann, I will take that interjection. They never do have a cost-benefit analysis. Look at the NBN. How did that come about? I think it was our very good friends Senator Conroy and Mr Rudd scratching on the back of a piece of paper in a plane—somehow they came up with the NBN. There was no cost-benefit analysis whatsoever. One of the hallmarks of this government is the fact that they cannot provide for the Australian people substantive and well-thought-out policy. They are simply incapable of doing it. Perhaps the Prime Minister might be able to knit together a good piece of legislation one day, but I have not seen it as yet. We do not have any confidence that it will ever turn up.

This government has no idea. Here we have a piece of legislation, as my good colleague Senator Bernardi referred to before, that the shadow minister, Ms Mirabella, could not even get a briefing on from the minister. That is unheard of when it comes to protocols and processes in this place. My understanding is that apparently the shadow minister was told she was being critical of the government. Good lord, if everybody critical of the government were going to be shut down in this place, there would be a plethora of people shut down. It is all too easy to criticise this government—because there is so much to criticise.

This is a government that just cannot run the nation. All people out there in the community want are some grown-ups to please run the country. All we have at the moment is this self-indulgent navel gazing from the other side when it comes to whom they want to be leader. It is like watching kindergarteners tussle in a sandpit: 'I want to be leader. I want to be leader!' It is ridiculous. The interesting thing is that if the Prime Minister were doing a good job, if she were doing an appropriate, proper and diligent job in leading this nation, there would not be a leadership question. There would be no question over whether or not Mr Rudd should be leader or whether or not Ms Gillard should be leader or whether or not the local cat should be leader. There would not be any speculation whatsoever.

Senator Feeney interjecting—

I am hoping, with your interjection Senator Feeney, you might be indicating who you support. You are apparently one of the powerbrokers. Perhaps you could give us an indication of where this might all end up.

Senator Feeney interjecting—

I will take that interjection, Senator Feeney. He has asked me to provide the name of the bill, the Australian Jobs Bill 2013. Any minute now he is going to interject and say it is not relevant. Actually, it is relevant because it is about the government supposedly providing legislation to grow jobs in this nation and they simply do not do that because they are clearly incapable. Why are they incapable of doing that? It is because they simply do not understand how business, small business in particular, works.

When we look at those on the other side, as my good colleague Senator Boswell said earlier, there is a lack of background in business skills in the government. It is absolutely true. What do we see from the other side? Who on the government side has any real knowledge about small business when it comes to farming? On this side, we have a bucketload of regional representatives who understand and know regional communities, who understand regional Australia. On the other side there is precious little. That is why they have been simply incapable of coming up with legislation that is going to help those communities and provide jobs in the regions to make sure that our future is sustainable. They simply cannot do it.

From what we can tell, the funding indicated for this piece of legislation is supposed to be around $98.2 million over the next five years. The expenditure is supposedly offset by cuts of a billion dollars overall to the R&D tax incentive. But the figures do not appear to have been appropriately modelled. They have certainly never been publicly clarified or justified. One day this government may appropriately explain a proper, thorough, diligent process when bringing a piece of legislation before the parliament. But we are yet to see it.