George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator O'Sullivan still has nightmares. So do we all. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead; I personally was quite fond of the late Mr Whitlam. But there has been such a romanticisation by those opposite of the spectacularly catastrophic Whitlam government, which increased government spending in the course of two budgets by 40 per cent and wondered why the economy got out of control, inflation got out of control and unemployment went through the roof.

One of the features of the Whitlam government was an explosion of legislation. We saw the pace at which this parliament decided to pass laws because it thought it was a good idea; because it thought Canberra knew better than Brisbane, Sydney, Dubbo, Parkes, Cooktown or Karratha; because it thought that bureaucrats knew better how people ought to live their lives than the people who were living those lives themselves; because it thought that government was not the servant of their people but their master; and because it was infested with that dirigiste ideology it decided that we needed as many laws as we could possibly have. We are still trying to live down the legacy of the Whitlam government. But today we make another step towards living down that legacy by repealing 656 obsolete acts of parliament, most of them passed during the three dark years, from 1972 to 1975.

Senator Collins, in her inelegant way makes mock of what we are seeking to do. We are seeking to remove from the statute books laws and regulations that are unnecessary and obsolete. What does it tell you about the Labor Party, that they object to us doing that? They object to us removing laws that are obsolete.

The Abbott government is very proud that we are removing obsolete laws and regulations, and unnecessary costs arising from overreach by this Commonwealth parliament and we will continue to do so. There are two more repeal days scheduled for this year, 2015. We will move a decade at a time so that we will continue to identify and remove from the statute books obsolete laws. As we seek to do that, as we seek to set individual citizens, families and small businesses free, and as we seek to reduce the cost of compliance with the red tape, the green tape and the beige tape, we expect the Labor Party will continue to fight us tooth and nail.

You will fight us tooth and nail because it is as much an affront to your view of the world that legislation should be repealed as it is an affront to the liberal view of the world that legislation should be passed in a gratuitous way which interferes unnecessarily with the freedom of action of citizens and businesses.

I see Senator Cameron over there. To his great credit—I am going to pay you a compliment, Senator Cameron—