Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Singh alluded to 'people listening to this debate'. I venture to say that if there were people listening at the start there are probably fewer now. Senator Singh mentioned this bill on—I think I counted—seven or eight occasions during that 20-minute speech on the budget. I am not going to address any of the budgetary issues that Senator Singh raised. This is, after all, the time for noncontroversial legislation, as agreed by people in this chamber. There will be plenty of other opportunities for the Labor Party, at the appropriate time, to put forward its views on the budget—and the government will not shy away from that debate. On three occasions Senator Singh asked why the Senate was wasting its time on this bill. Senator Singh's has been the only speech on this bill—and it went for 20 minutes and only mentioned the bill before the chamber on seven occasions.

Senator Singh alluded to the previous government's record on regulation, but she did not tell the full story. When I was a shadow spokesperson for small business we asked the Parliamentary Library to count up the number of legislative instruments that had been introduced and repealed by the previous government. There were over 200 new ones for every single one that had been repealed. In addition, large pieces of legislation, with huge and complex regulations, were given the Prime Minister's exemption so that they did not even have to go through the regulatory impact statement process. This bill is the first step towards this government delivering on the commitments it made to reduce the burden of red tape on business.

I will add one final example where the previous Labor government's lack of commitment to this matter was illustrated time and time again. Despite pleas from small business people around Australia, when the Labor government introduced its PPL scheme it ensured that small businesses had to do a pointless amount of paperwork. While the payment was made by Centrelink, the small business person had to fill out the paperwork for their employee, had to fill out the paperwork for Centrelink and then had to actually make the payment. This was rather than doing what the then opposition requested, and what small businesses around Australia requested, which was to take small businesses out of the loop. In fact the number of problems created for small businesses illustrates the lack of understanding in the Labor Party of what it is like to run a small business. Most of the payroll systems that small businesses use, which are approved and work with the GST and the Tax Office, could not cope with the Labor government's PPL policy, because they did not include superannuation and payroll tax. So, a whole separate payment mechanism had to be set up by every small business so that they could balance their books. This is the first step in the government's commitment to delivering on its promise to the Australian people to reduce the burden of red tape.

I will conclude my remarks there, and state again that the government will have plenty of opportunities to defend itself from the accusations levied by Senator Singh, which have no basis in fact. I thank honourable senators for their contribution to the debate on the bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.