Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

As much as you want to make noise in 2023 about energy policy failure, do you know what has driven energy policy failure? It's 2022, it's 2021 and it's 2020. It's the period between 2013 and 2019. Much like in financial services reform, where right now the 'no-alition' can't bring themselves to make key appointments in economic policy areas because they're good at slogans, memes and negative politics but have never been any good at hard work, they want to create the impression that systemic, structural failures in our energy market, driven by nine-and-a-bit years of indolence and inward-looking arguments, are somehow a substitute. But Australians have got used to the negative politics of Mr Dutton, Mr Taylor and the opposition. What has the Albanese government delivered? A surplus. What has the government done with the surplus? It has banked most of it in a prudent and careful way and it has provided sensible cost-of-living relief that puts downward pressure on inflation. And it has been open. It's not like the last government, who spent every cent plus had a trillion dollars in debt with nothing to show for it in terms of lasting reform. What this government has done is they've acted prudently, banked the surplus for use in future years and to retire debt, and been open about the structural challenges that the Australian economy faces. They've put downward pressure on the cost of living.

This piece of reform is an important piece of reform. It goes with the last piece of legislation that the chamber dealt with. I listened carefully to Senator Hume's contribution about red tape—another area where there is a constant refrain, constant sloganeering and constant moaning. They made no action in government to deal with unnecessary or burdensome regulation, no action in government to make dealing with government and regulation simpler. There was a lot of carry on—I think Senator Hume said there was a $176 billion annual cost in terms of regulation and red tape in the economy. I'm not sure whether to take that on face value or not, but there are certainly costs associated with regulation. What you get from the other side is talk. What you get is sophistry. What you get is slogans. What you get are sentences that are a blizzard of words that are really about their own biases and prejudices as they talk to themselves, but they are never engaged with the action. What this government has done in its short period in office is grab hold of some of these issues. In terms of dealing with business, there is red tape and there is regulation. There is smart regulation. There is regulation that is designed to achieve its policy objective with the least cost to businesses and the best outcome for consumers and workers.