Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor will be supporting the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014. This is the headline bill of a set of 12 bills introduced by the government as part of the 'cutting red tape agenda' and 'Repeal Day' that some senators might recall from many, many months ago. We heard much rhetoric from the government about the significance of this legislation—about how we needed this bill to put a halt to the 'avalanche of regulation that is impeding investment and innovation and the creation of new jobs', as the parliamentary secretary, Mr Frydenberg, told the other place on its introduction.

I checked the date on which Mr Frydenberg made this speech, and it was, indeed, Wednesday, 19 March 2014. That is appropriate, as the bill is called the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill. Today is Monday, 22 September 2014, six months later. The only place where it is autumn is in another hemisphere. The fact that the government has taken six months to bring on debate on this bill in the Senate—it passed the other place on 26 March 2014—makes a lie out of the claim by the government that somehow this bill would be turning back the tide of red tape. The legislation that is in front of us repeals a series of legislative instruments that no-one has looked at for years, that have no impact on anyone, that have no effect at all. But we keep hearing from those opposite that this legislation is going to make a big difference for business.

As the shadow minister for finance, Mr Burke, said in his contribution to the debate in the other place, it is rare in the parliament to have so much hype over so very, very little. This is legislation that says very little—arguably, close to nothing. It is no surprise that, when the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee inquired into the bill, it made one unanimous recommendation: that the bill should be passed. The explanatory memorandum to the bill claims that repeal or amendment of the legislation affected is required to 'reduce regulatory burden for business, individuals and the community sector', to 'ensure regulation is accessible' and to reduce the time it takes to find and access regulations. The vast majority of the items that are being repealed or amended in this bill have no impact—they relate to legislation that has already ceased or is redundant, or has no impact on current measures, or is innocuous.

Labor challenges those in the government, when they are referring in their speeches to the difference that this will make to small businesses, to refer to one section of the bill, just one, where that difference can be highlighted. I think we will hear broad-ranging contributions about regulations being bad. They will give examples of too much legislation and things like that. But will government senators be able to demonstrate a single link in their speeches—and I challenge Senator Seselja to do so when he makes his contribution—between a single word within the legislation that is before the Senate and a positive, meaningful difference for small business? I doubt it. Maybe there are small businesses in the mule and bullock trade that have been anxiously waiting for this to be clarified on the statute books—unlikely—but to hold this legislation up as being a serious example of economic reform is one of the strangest, most creative arguments we have heard in this parliament.

Labor ensured that this bill was referred to a Senate committee inquiry to make sure, through the ordinary Senate inquiry process, that there was a Senate check on these issues. It was no surprise that the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee found nothing in this bill that was offensive—indeed, it reported back in autumn too. It reported back in May that there was no offence in this legislation. But the reason that it was not able to find anything offensive in it is that, essentially, there is nothing in this bill. There is absolutely nothing before us that makes a difference to anyone in the world today. It does not make a difference to anyone.

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 repeals or amends the provisions of a total of 81 pieces of legislation in the portfolios Agriculture, Communications, Defence, Employment, Environment, Finance, Industry, Prime Minister, Social Services and Treasury. It is claimed that the bill will reduce the regulatory burden for business, individuals and the community sector. We will vote for the bill, and I again challenge anyone to find a reason to be passionately in favour of or against the bill, because this legislation is simply a clean-up of issues that were already largely irrelevant.

The clearing of regulations that are already redundant does not make a big difference. It is a good thing to do. It is not worth anyone getting excited about opposing and it is not worth anyone getting excited about pretending that here is a test of being an impressive government. This is not. This is something that is routine, not the basis for a grand hurrah around repeal day back in last autumn. Rather than take meaningful steps to increase prosperity in the economy, this government thinks that the way to deal with red tape is to get rid of the regulations that are not having an impact on anyone at all and put them in a big bonfire and ramp up the rhetoric. This is a government that is horrifically out of touch. The rhetoric around repeal day demonstrated nothing.

In government, Labor had a greater deregulatory agenda that was aimed at reducing costs for business in complying with regulation that actually did make a difference—for example, the seamless national economy—and the benefits of those reforms were significant. Those opposite should note that that is what regulatory reform is about. The COAG Reform Council reported in its final report on the seamless national economy in early February 2014 that the completion of most of the reforms had happened by the end of 2013, and that meant cost savings to Australian businesses worth billions of dollars per year. The Productivity Commission estimated that completion of just 17 of the seamless national economy reforms was estimated to lower business costs by $4 billion a year. The Productivity Commission also estimated that full implementation of the seamless national economy reforms would increase GDP by improving productivity by $6 billion per year. That is $4 billion a year in savings and $6 billion a year in productivity gains. But what did the government do in its May budget? It slashed funding for the COAG Reform Council.

There were other reforms instituted by the previous, Labor government that demonstrated our commitment to the deregulatory agenda. Better-regulation ministerial partnerships established with various ministers helped to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens. These partnerships were making tangible differences. For example, the partnership that resulted in the length of disclosure documents for financial products, such as superannuation, being reduced to a few pages made it easier for consumers to get information and less costly for businesses to produce. Those opposite should take note of this: you do not have to see removing red tape and removing consumer protection as things that need to work in lock-step; you can have regulatory reform where you improve the quality of information for consumers and make compliance easier for businesses. Another partnership resulted in the assessment process for new medical devices and procedures being changed so that patients could access new health technology sooner. We instituted policy measures that are making a difference to lowering business costs and improving productivity. These are tangible measures that are having an effect on the Australian economy.

But what we have here today is legislation that repeals things that already have no impact. The only circumstance in front of the parliament today is one where issues that already do not affect businesses as of today will not affect businesses. That is the achievement of the government on repeal day! I congratulate the government on their nerve at claiming that this is a big deal. I congratulate the government on the message development that has gone into the rhetoric around this! If you want to look at the politics, it is a pretty amusing investigation of spin.

In the other place, the shadow minister for finance moved a second reading amendment that set out Labor's record in this area as a stark comparison. I do not propose to move a second reading amendment here today but I will put on the record in the Senate the following points.

The former Labor government had a strong record of deregulation reform which significantly improved the competitiveness and productivity of the Australian economy. In particular, the former Labor government repealed 16,794 acts, regulations and legislative instruments during its time in office—without a repeal day—and, through its Seamless National Economy reforms, was delivering significant cost savings to businesses. Just 17 of these reforms were estimated by the Productivity Commission to lower business costs by $4 billion per year, with the full reforms to increase Australia's productivity and deliver a $6 billion boost to GDP per year.

I reiterate that the vast majority of the changes in this bill have no impact in terms of costs or regulatory burden on businesses, individuals and the community sector in Australia. Labor believes that the parliament should support sensible deregulation which removes cost and regulatory burden but does not support the removal of protections for seniors, consumers, workers and investors under the guise of cutting red tape. The government should not use deregulation as a thinly veiled guise to distract from cuts to protections for seniors, consumers, workers and investors. This is why the Senate inquiry ensured that, at least with respect to this bill, this would not be the case, particularly with the government's record in the recent budget.

Let me go briefly to the Greens' amendments. Labor does not support the amendments to schedule 5 of the omnibus repeal bill. Schedule 5 of the bill removes regulatory duplication in environment protection. Labor believes that, where there are opportunities to streamline environment assessment processes without weakening protections, they should be taken. Removing duplications and superseded legislation makes sense. We have in this bill, clauses to amend the Sea Installations Act, much of which is now covered by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Act. We also have changes to the treatment of ozone-depleting substances—changes which make sense. We also have changes to the Water Act to remove provisions for the approval of mining activity in the Murray-Darling Basin, provisions that have been used just three times since 1987.

Under the previous Labor government, the water trigger amendment to the EPBC Act was passed, providing greater oversight of coal seam gas and coalmining activities. Along with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the water trigger provides the protections the Murray-Darling needs. The Murray-Darling ministerial council and the authority both retain the ability to intervene on any development in the Murray-Darling Basin. If the Greens political party is serious about protecting our environment, it should focus itself, we believe, on the delegation of approval powers to the states—this is where the danger lies, not in the repeal of duplicative and superseded legislation. And it should not be offering to do deals with the government on their so-called 'direct action' policy, a policy we know will not work and will give taxpayers' money to polluters for that privilege.

In conclusion, and to reiterate, Labor will be voting for the bill. What we have in front of us is a standard clean-up which is not worth getting particularly frustrated about but is also in no way worth the fanfare that was associated with the fizzer that was repeal day way back in the Autumn of this year.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to be speaking in support of the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014. It is always difficult to understand when you hear the Labor Party supporting a bill. It was unclear to me from that contribution whether they actually support it. They are voting for it, which is a good thing, but, in their heart of hearts, they do not actually support lowering red tape for small business. They do not support the principle behind this. Senator Collins suggested that this is standard form—this is just what happens. No, that is not what happened under the last government. Under the last government it was the opposite.

The great success of the previous parliament, according to the Labor Party and the Greens, was the amount of legislation that they passed. Much of that legislation, of course, increased the regulatory burden on business. That is what the Labor Party does, and Senator Collins's attempts to pretend that the Labor Party had a good record on deregulation, I think, is laughable. I have not spoken to one small business owner who believes that they are facing less regulation as a result of six years of Labor-Greens government than they were before. All of them saw their taxes increase and the regulatory burden increase, and that is what we are seeking to address through this legislation and through a range of other legislation that is designed to cut the red tape burden for business right across the country. We took a clear promise to reduce that regulatory burden to the people of Australia. We took that deregulation agenda to reduce red tape burden on the Australian economy by $1 billion per year. The Labor Party has continually disregarded the systematic costs of regulation to our economy and to our national prosperity. Under that Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, 21,000 additional regulations were added despite Labor's promise to cap the growth and the supposed 'one in, one out' policy.

I should note that the first parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia only passed 513 pages of legislation or half a page of legislation per day. The 43rd Parliament passed half an act of parliament a day and when we compare that record we really gain an understanding of just how overregulated we have become in some areas. The simple fact is that there is far too much overreach. We should aim to make lives easier for individuals and businesses—in fact we have an obligation to do this. As a result of our repeal day we will remove over 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation, which will save hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs. We understand that some degree of regulation is desirable and essential, but we see too much unnecessary regulation right across the board and we have come to government with a clear determination to change this culture to make things easier for business in this country rather than harder.

Ultimately, by pursuing our deregulation agenda, we boost Australia's competitiveness. We will create more jobs. We will cut household costs. Overregulation and poorly thought through regulation hurts productivity. It deters investment and innovation and costs jobs.

We know that in 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the productivity growth of 51 countries and the result of that saw Australia coming in second last just ahead of Botswana. In 2013 Australia was placed 21st in the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. We had slipped six places in four years. We also ranked a woeful 128th out of 148 countries in terms of the 'burden of government regulation'. Guess where we were placed. We were nestled between Romania and Angola.

Considering some of the feedback from those directly affected, let us see what they had to say. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's 2012 National Red Tape Survey found that 44 per cent of businesses spend between one and five hours a week comply with federal, state or local government regulatory requirements. They are spending time that could be better spent with their families or building their businesses in filling out forms, applying for permits and reporting business activity. Seventy-two per cent of businesses say that the time they are spending on red tape has increased over the past two years, and 54.3 per cent say that complying with government regulations has prevented them from making changes to grow or expand their business. That is the legacy of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor years. We need to reflect on the fact that it is business which creates jobs and that by removing some of the unnecessary regulation that is complicating the ability to do business, we unshackle and allow our economy to thrive.

Jos de Bruin, the National Chief Executive of the Master Grocers Association stated that many of their members 'feel that they are in business of compliance and do a little bit of retailing on the side. Red tape is not only a financial cost, it has a social cost taking business owners away from their families to work longer hours just to comply. The government's efforts to cut red tape will only help our members to innovate, prosper and create jobs.' Master Grocers Australia is an organisation which represents companies employing around 115,000 staff, contributing over $14 billion to our economy. These remarks and the results of ACCI's survey contrast heavily with the comments in 2008 by the then small business minister, Craig Emerson, who said that Labor would 'take a giant pair of scissors to the red tape that is strangling small business'. The fact of the matter is that this never happened. It never happened under Labor. In fact, things got worse.

Under Labor there were more than 80 examples of noncompliance and prime ministerial exemptions from the regulatory impact assessment process. Some of these exemptions were for some of Labor's most significant legislative changes—things like the carbon tax, the mining tax, FoFA and changes to the Fair Work Act. To add insult to injury, the independent Borthwick-Milliner review commissioned by Labor, which reported last year, found there was 'a widespread lack of acceptance for and commitment to' the regulatory impact assessment process 'by ministers and agencies'. How could act in the best interests of Australia if they completely ignored detailed regulatory impact scrutiny by granting exemptions at every return? It is telling that, in the five years from mid-2007, Australia's multifactor productivity declined by nearly three per cent.

As I noted earlier, the coalition took to the election an acknowledgement of the need to reduce the regulatory burden on Australians. Our commitment is such that regulation should only be imposed where absolutely necessary and should not be the default position in dealing with public policy issues. We will ensure that our cabinet submissions proposing legislative changes with a significant regulatory impact will be subject to the regulatory impact assessment process.

I note that ministers have already established designated units within their departments and ministerial advisory committees to advise on deregulation priorities and cutting regulation. I am pleased that deregulation will be a standing item on the COAG agenda to enable federal, state and territory governments to cut duplication and overregulation. We are committed to a new approach, one which asks some fundamental questions prior to the passing of new regulations. We need to ask about the purpose, the cost and the impact on productivity. Only after we have satisfied those questions and only when it is absolutely necessary, with no sensible alternatives available, should government proceed to regulate.

I note the remarks of David Byers, the CEO of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association: 'The government has made a great start in cutting red tape to help make Australia a more attractive investment destination. There are billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs to be won in the petroleum sector. The government's deregulation initiatives are a vital step forward to capturing these opportunities.'

We are making progress on our deregulation agenda. The bill before this place today speaks volumes for what we are trying to do. The bill implements a range of measures across 10 portfolios in order to amend 14 acts to streamline regulatory requirements to reduce the regulatory burden. For instance, we are dealing with overlapping building certification requirements for the aged-care sector, getting read of the duplication that currently exists. Additionally, this bill makes technical corrections and reference updates, it repeals 43 spent and redundant acts and it amends around 27 acts to repeal spent and redundant provisions. For instance, why do we still have regulations surrounding the phasing-out of the Advanced Mobile Phone System, or AMPS? That is completely outdated technology and the phase-out was completed in 2000. There is no practical likelihood that any mobile carrier in Australia would operate one of these networks.

We are proud of our annual $1 billion target for cutting red and green tape and our commitment to set aside two parliamentary sitting days per year to repeal unnecessary and costly legislation. Far from being standard over the past few years, as was suggested by Senator Collins, this is a very different approach to what we have seen by those opposite and what we saw in the six years—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly a lot more razzamatazz!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

of the Rudd—

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Gillard-Rudd government. I hear the interjections. What we saw was a commitment to more and more regulation. That was the commitment of the previous government. They trumpeted it. When they were asked about how successful they were as a government and how well the parliament was working, what was the first thing they would say? They would say, 'We've passed hundreds of pieces of legislation; look how successful we are.' I say to the Labor Party that that is not what success looks like. Success is about a government making it easier for business to prosper, making it easier for Australians to make a living, making it easier for small business to employ more people. That is what success looks like for a government. If that involves getting rid of some pieces of legislation and getting rid of some regulation, then that is what success is about—and that is what we should be doing.

We have also heard from the Business Council of Australia. Its chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, said:

The release today of the federal government’s repeal day legislation marks a turning point in dealing with the high costs and inefficiencies faced by businesses and consumers in our economy.

The BCA has reported that an environmental approval process for one of its member companies cost the company more than $20 million, required more than 4,000 meetings and led to a 12,000-page report. But it did not end there! The approval that the member company was given had 1,500 conditions and around 8,000 subconditions. This is the extent of regulation in this country.

Universities Australia has estimated that our universities spend around $280 million a year just on compliance and reporting requirements. Each university operates a compliance department which typically has between 15 and 20 dedicated staff. They report:

A typical university is also required to report over 50 different data sets to the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIICCSRTE) annually, comprising 200 reporting instances per year, and over 50 data sets to other Government departments.

We should be aiming to remove duplication between differing levels of government and across government agencies. We should be aiming to streamline onerous and costly processes and we should be taking a common-sense approach to regulation.

In conclusion, I do commend this bill. It is, in the words of Jennifer Westacott, 'a turning point'—because we have not seen this over the past few years. What we have seen has been, in fact, the opposite. We have seen the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government taking decisions that piled burden upon burden on our business sector—and particularly our small business sector. The coalition understands that, when you do that, it has serious implications for our economy, for individuals and for businesses—family businesses, small businesses, medium businesses and large businesses. It has implications for their ability to employ people. It has implications for their ability to remain profitable. It has implications for their ability to innovate. We want to see all of these things happen. We want to see an innovation economy. We want to see more employment. We want to see small, family businesses, in particular, able to thrive and not be crushed by the burden of overregulation—the time burden and the cost burden that goes with all of that.

There are many aspects to our deregulation agenda and this bill is a very important part of it—and we are going to build on this start. Twice a year we are going to dedicate days to repealing legislation that puts too much burden on our business sector. Surely that is something that those opposite should be applauding. Surely they should be hanging their heads in shame at the way they overregulated these very businesses—the way they put more and more burdens on these family businesses. They should be hanging their heads in shame. They should not just be supporting this piece of legislation; they should be supporting other aspects of our deregulation agenda—all of which are designed to give us a more prosperous economy, to give us a more prosperous society and to give individuals, families and businesses the ability to choose, without too much government interference, how they make a living. I commend this legislation to the Senate.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will start by saying that even the name of this bill is one of the silliest that has ever entered this place, the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill—come on, really. The Omnibus Repeal Day stunt was lame and pathetic back in March; it is lame and pathetic now. Apparently, the government wish do this every six months, so we will be doing the same lame and pathetic charade into the future as well—two days every year, said Senator Seselja. For those who remember back to March when this bill entered the House, the coalition tried and failed to create widespread public jubilation at the introduction of this bill—a bit of razzamatazz, a bit of rah, rah, a bit of build it up. They called it the Omnibus Repeal Day—a title their team of spin doctors must have spent months agonising over. It was going to cut 'mountains of red tape'; Senator Seselja talked about all the red tape that it was going to cut. It is not really surprising that there were no street festivals celebrating Omnibus Repeal Day, because the importance that those opposite attached to this bill is utterly absurd.

On the Labor side of the chamber, we have absolutely no problem removing legislation when it is no longer appropriate, when it is out of date or when there are better legislative arrangements that have the same effect. That is part of the normal function of this place and of the other place. Over the nearly six years in office, we repealed 16,794 spent and redundant acts, regulations and legislative instruments from the statute books, but never once did we try to have a special day to celebrate it. Not once did we go so low as to put the name of our stunt day into the title of a bill before this place. Maybe that is why the government have not repeated this trick because it was such an abject failure politically.

The government could have had other special days and titled the bills appropriately—maybe they could have even had some honest ones. Budget day could have been 'Target the least well off in our society day'. They could have had 'Removing effective action on climate change day'—that would have been a good one. They could even have gone as far as having 'Removing any department or agency that gives expert advice we do not agree with day'—I think that would have got a few. That is what this government have tried to do time and time again to stifle public debate in this country.

If the government was serious about reform, they would not have tied a piece of legislation of this nature to such a pathetic stunt as repeal day. They would not have padded this bill out to 98 pages to make themselves look serious. Parts of this bill are completely ridiculous. We have 33 instances of replacing 'facsimile transmission' with 'fax'. We have 47 instances of replacing 'e-mail' with 'email'. We have 50 instances of grammatical and spelling errors—missing commas, forgotten capital letters, the occasional missing hyphen and the rest of that type of thing. Apparently, we are amending one act to remove an accidental second comma that follows the first comma that is actually needed. I am all for correct grammar but, really, this is the sort of farce that a great deal of this bill is about. It is a far, far cry from the 'biggest bonfire of regulations in our history', as the Prime Minister described it.

If the government want to waste the time of this place and the other place to make these changes, that is their right, but they should not overclaim and overreach that they have some big compliance cost savings. Do not come into this place and tell the Australian people, who cannot afford to buy a house or see a doctor, who do not have enough money to spend on food and rent or are unable to find work because the government have not kept their promise on job creation that repealing ancient and long-forgotten legislation is the best way to improve the lives of everyday Australians. It is not and the government should realise that it is no longer in opposition and take responsibility, grow up and not engage in such stunts as this bill.

This Abbott government have the responsibility of addressing the needs of Australians. Do they care at all about the needs of the Australian people? Looking at this bill, it is clear that they do not care. If they cared about the Australian people, they would take seriously the job of governing, without attributing undue importance to farcical bills like the ones we are debating today.

Can someone in the government, anyone, please tell me how schedule 2 part 4 of this bill, 'Amendments relating to the Advanced Mobile Phone System', is going to change the life of Australian people by changing 'Telecommunications Act 1997' to omit the words: 'The Advanced Mobile Phone System is to be phased out by 1 January 2000'? How is that going to help one Australian man, woman or child? For those who are not familiar with the Telecommunications Act 1997, or different mobile phone technologies, schedule 2 part 4 of the bill we are debating today removes a reference to the phasing out of the old analog mobile phone system that was indeed phased out by 1 January 2000 anyway—nice work getting rid of red tape, those opposite!—removing references to abolishing an obsolete network that has not been in existence for over a decade. Why are you wasting the time of this place? Did you seriously come into government with such little vision that you have to fill time in this place getting rid of provisions referencing the abolition of things that have already been abolished?

Let us see what this bill does in the Finance portfolio. The 12 acts in the Finance portfolio referred to in this bill are old appropriation acts from 2010-11 and 2011-12. These financial years have already occurred and Commonwealth government agencies have already been provided with the appropriations, as stated in those acts. So, once again, removing them off the statute books really has no tangible effect on the everyday lives of Australians, no effect whatsoever.

In the Industry portfolio, we see the repeal of two acts that ceased to have effect by the end of 2011 and the inclusion of the word 'former' in three locations in two acts—hardly something that would lift the regulatory burden off people. But this is the Abbott government's great vision. Is this what those opposite fought so hard for to get into government, to repeal acts that have not had any effect for years? If the government want to be taken seriously, they need to treat this place seriously.

In the Employment portfolio, the government want to repeal an act that administered an agency that was abolished nearly 20 years ago. Aren't those opposite embarrassed by this bill? Surely, the government should have been working on cutting actual red tape for business if that was their desire, and that is certainly what Senator Seselja seems to think is happening. Removing hyphens in the word 'e-mail', changing 'facsimile' to 'fax' and adding a few capital letters to flesh out a bill is a disgusting waste of parliament's time and of public servants' time. Surely the resources that went through all these bills to find such minor changes could have been set on achieving real productivity growth and real decreases in regulation, where appropriate, rather than this stunt.

The government wants to change the Medicare system so that people are charged $7 each time they have to see their bulk-billing doctor; yet they are wasting their time on commas, hyphens and capital letters. The government wants to leave unemployed people under 30 who are not studying with no money for food, rent, electricity or any of the costs associated with getting a job; yet the government is wasting its time on commas, hyphens and capital letters. Is the government prepared to tell the Australian people how many hours of departmental staff time, how many dollars, this stunt has actually cost?

It gets even more absurd. When the government introduced the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 to the House, they also introduced two other bills to be debated with it. These were the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 1) 2014. At least these bills have slightly more serious titles. The Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014 was used as a filler to make the number of acts the government was cutting seem higher. It passed this place earlier this year. The acts that were repealed by this bill were so ancient that nobody, absolutely nobody, was affected by them. They were expired, they were superseded, they were redundant. The Distillation Act 1918, the Spirits Act 1918, the Naval Defence Act 1918, the Defence Act (No. 2) 1918, the Lighthouses Act 1919, the Northern Territory Acceptance Act 1919 and the War Service Homes Act 1919 are some of the acts that were deleted by the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 1) 2014. Can anyone opposite tell me how much money small businesses would have saved as a result of the repeal of those acts? For example, the repeal of the Northern Territory Acceptance Act 1919—how much money has actually been saved by small business? Are those opposite not embarrassed that their bonfire of red tape was a fizzer, an absolute fizzer filled with nothing but legislation like the Dried Fruits Export Charges Act 1927, which altered the Dried Fruits Export Charges Act 1924 so that:

The Governor-General may, from time to time, by order published in the Gazette, after report to the Minister by the Dried Fruits Control Board constituted under the Dried Fruits Export Control Act 1924, exempt dried currants, dried sultanas or dried lexias from the charges imposed by this Act.

I ask you!

Of course, if they had gone back to the original Dried Fruits Export Charges Act 1924, they would have found it was already repealed by act No. 49 of 1991, making the whole exercise a complete waste of time, a completely moot point. I ask again: is this really your bonfire of regulation? Is abolishing acts that have themselves been superseded for decades the best you can do? Do those opposite really treat this place and the other place as such a joke? What a disgrace! Do they really think that no-one will read the bills that they bring into this place? The Omnibus Repeal Day was a stunt, and this bill was a stunt, albeit a fizzer.

Labor had a greater deregulatory agenda that was aimed at reducing costs of business in complying with unnecessary and inconsistent regulation—the Seamless National Economy. In its final report on the Seamless National Economy in early February 2014, the COAG Reform Council said that by the end of 2013 completion of most of the reforms had meant cost savings to Australian businesses worth billions of dollars per year. The Productivity Commission estimated that completion of just 17 of the Seamless National Economy reforms had lowered business costs by $4 billion per year. The Productivity Commission also estimated the full implementation of the Seamless National Economy reforms would increase GDP by $6 billion per year by improving productivity. These are real reforms. These are reforms that have made things easier for businesses around the country. It was Labor that instituted policy measures that are making a difference to lowering business costs and improving productivity.

That is what a genuine, serious government does. It does not introduce joke bills like the one the government has brought to this place today or like the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014 passed by this place earlier this year. I must admit: I have never seen a government like this one. It is as if they have completely and utterly disconnected from reality. Black is white and white is black if you are on that side of the chamber. Getting rid of superseded acts that affect no-one is cutting red tape! The government can save money by abolishing agencies that make a profit on abating carbon emissions! To better inform public debate, government agencies are prevented from releasing assessments on projects! If the government disagrees with the science, then the science is wrong. If they have to cut funding to science rather than change their point of view, so be it.

It is as if they have twisted the truth for so long that they just do not know what is real. It is utterly Orwellian. They fought so long and so hard to get into government that they did not think about they wanted to do when they got there or how they were going to do it. Did they really fight that hard so that they could repeal the Dried Fruits Export Charges Act 1927? Did they fight so hard to get into government so they could introduce a paid parental leave scheme to give millionaires $50,000—a scheme that most government senators do not agree with and have not supported for four years? Do those opposite have any idea of why they are here? I will give them a little reminder. They are here to serve the Australian people, to protect the most vulnerable in our society and to ensure that all Australians, no matter what their background is, have the opportunity to succeed and prosper for the benefit of all—which is why the other reforms they wish to make to cut red tape are so cruel and so twisted.

Their desired abolition of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission is a cruel change which shows their own twisted priority. Unfortunately, too many Australians are scammed each year by unscrupulous opportunists who want to take advantage of the generosity of the Australian people. As the former chair of the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety, I was told many stories of people being scammed, including by people pretending to be from existent or non-existent charities.

Those opposite want to remove the body that regulates the charity sector, one that is comprehensively supported by the sector, actually reduces red tape and protects the public from fraudulent and scamming behaviour. Did you really fight that hard to get into government so that you could help people get scammed by bogus charities or to callously strip away basic consumer protections under the government's proposed changes to the future of financial advice laws, which will put at risk the investment savings of millions of Australians? Is that really what you fought so hard for—to help Australian retirees and retirement savers be conned out of millions of dollars by dodgy financial advisers, to introduce reforms that not only financial planners but also the industry superannuation sector, much of the business press, pensioner groups, consumer groups and high-profile commentators like Alan Kohler oppose? It is as though the Abbott government is acting in the interests of a handful of large financial service providers rather than in the interests of the Australian people. I wonder why that would be—she says with some sarcasm. How have your priorities become so twisted that you want to protect the people who racially vilify others, rather than to protect the rights of people to live without being racially vilified; to allow the rich and powerful who own newspapers and radio stations to attack anyone they want to with the huge resources that have? How is that a way to build a better society?

Senator Brandis says that people have the right to be bigots. I say people have the right not to be abused, discriminated against or vilified. For those opposite, removing red tape simply means helping their mates exploit others at the expense of ordinary, everyday Australians. It means removing protections against hate speech, against exploitative employers or against dishonest financial advisers, at the expense of ordinary, everyday Australians. Let me reiterate.

The Labor Party believes that redundant acts, regulations and legislative instruments should be removed from the statute books. We did it while in government time and time again. But to do it as this government did through a stunt like the omnibus repeal day is a childish act which is below what the Australian people expect from their government.

The government needs to start taking seriously the act of governing. It needs to treat this place and the Australian people with respect. It needs to actively work to improve the lives of Australians, rather than moving redundant commas and clauses to show off what a good job it is doing in removing red tape.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset, I want to mention that I am feeling a bit stiff this morning. On Saturday, I played rugby for the first time for about five years. I am feeling very much worse for wear. There is not much to report from the game except that the refereeing standard on Saturday was much better than on Friday night, unfortunately. As a Queensland senator, I just wanted to put that on record. I also want to say that we are here to talk about regulation. Regulations are a bit like refereeing—you cannot live with them and you cannot live without them. Unfortunately, the referee's decision can be very frustrating. Sometimes regulations are very frustrating, too, but we do need them. We need regulations in our economy. We need regulations for a variety of things. It is very important that we take stock from time to time to make sure the regulations we have are fit for purpose and are not redundant because all regulations come at some cost to small businesses.

Unlike Senator Bilyk, I am not going to question the motives, ethics or objectives of the other side. I am not going to call them childish or say that we want to take things away from not-for-profits. Apparently all of us on this side of the chamber are evil. We come in here every week just to see what we can do wrong to the Australian people. I do not think the other side are like that, not at all. I think they come in here with fine objectives. I think the crossbenchers come into this place with fine objectives. We all come here to try to do the best for our nation but I think those on the other side sometimes fall short of those objectives. It is not a question of their motives; it is a question of their competence. That is why we have had to do things like introduce the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014.

There is an old saying: if you take care of the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves. The previous speaker has forgotten the merits of such a saying. Yes, some of these changes are small and minor, but if in your business, your family or your personal life you do the small things right, the bigger results will take care of themselves. Correcting a comma might be a small thing to Senator Bilyk, but it is about getting it right. If we get the small things right, the sum of those parts will make for a better result. To refer back to the disastrous game on Friday night when the Cowboys were very much dudded by refereeing decisions, they have to take some responsibility themselves because they did not get the small things right in the game, particularly in the first half. They missed some crucial tackles and they lost the game as a result. It is the same with this bill. We need to take care of the small things, even if we do not think they are important because they make a big difference and small changes over time can add up to a lot.

Someone I used to work with at the Productivity Commission came up with a statistic which I think is quite indicative of the problem we have here. Back in 1936, the parliament enacted a bill called the Income Tax Assessment Act, which is still with us today. Back in 1936, it took 120 pages to administer income tax in this country. Today it is just over 6,000 pages—it has come back a bit. When this statistic was done, it was just over 7,000 pages. It had increased to 7,000 pages in 80 years. If that growth rate were repeated over the next 80 years, if we continued to grow the tax act at that rate, by the end of this century the tax act would amount to 830 billion pages.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Billion?

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, billion, Senator Ludlam. It will take three million years to read and it will weigh the equivalent of 20 aircraft carriers—I am reliably informed by Mr Ralph Lattimore of the Productivity Commission. That is the power of compound growth of course. Fortunately, I do not think we are going to end up with a tax act by the end of the century of $830 billion pages, partly because, over the last decade, we have realised as a nation that we have been regulating too much, that red tape has gone up too significantly and there has to be a response. As I said earlier, in the case of the Income Tax Assessment Act, that has started to come back in terms of page length.

We have also had in the last decade or so the commissioning of a red tape reduction task force by the former Howard government. It is now known as the Bank's report, chaired by the former chair of the Productivity Commission, Gary Banks. It was really the start of the process which said: Look. We've done all those other reforms in the economy. We reduced tariffs. We deregulated financial markets. We have floated the dollar, but there was another big agenda there and that was getting rid of some of the regulation which had accumulated over time.

That report found that there could be $7 billion of savings, if we tackled these issues. By no means have we done everything that that report recommended, but we have made a start by including it in the national reform agenda in the last couple of years of the Howard government and then, as a previous senator said, the last government came to power with great plans to deregulate. They created a deregulation portfolio. They moved the Office of Best Practice Regulation from the Productivity Commission to the Department of Finance—I am not sure if that was such a smart move—and they came up with a seamless national economy agenda with 27 regulatory hot spots and nine areas of competition reform that they wanted to focus on.

They did do some things—some of that agenda did come through and some of it was worthwhile. For example, they removed some overlapping regulation on wine labelling in the last government. I remember the former chairman of the Productivity Commission giving credit to them on that. He gave a speech in late 2009 where he said:

… while there is now a commendable focus on advancing reforms to some 27 regulatory ‘hot spots’ that add to the costs of doing business across jurisdictions …

but

… no reforms (other than wine labelling!) have yet been implemented. Less than half are on track for completion within the original timeframes.

Senator Bilyk referred to the COAG Reform Council's report and, finally, they were a little bit tardy in meeting those time frames, as the former chair of the Productivity Commission said in that comment; however, they got around to completing 20 out of 27 of the hot spot areas but they left seven off. Some of those seven were very, very important. They were worse on the competition reform areas—less than half of those were dealt with, according to the COAG Reform Council, so there was a lot of unfinished business left by the former government.

One of the seven that was left off was the changes to the EPBC Act, which we debated in the last sitting period which now I see, after the Labor Party identified that area as a regulatory hot spot as long ago as 2008—six years ago they identified that area as something that needed a change: more bilateral agreements, less overlap between jurisdictions—they are now opposing those changes. That is to great regret, because it was one of the areas identified by the Productivity Commission, by the Business Council of Australia, that needs significant reform and reduction in red tape. At the moment, those changes are held up by those members on the other side, by Senator Bilyk, who spoke earlier; they are being held up by their opposition.

In the former government there was a process by which you could remove yourself or get around the requirements to do a regulatory impact statement before a regulation came in. The former government had 80 breaches of that standard. They did not prepare a RIS properly or fully 80 times, and that included some very important changes, including the carbon tax, the financial advice reforms—that you would know well, Mr Acting Deputy President Dastyari—and that led to come problems, because we had to change those things. When we came to government, they were not done.

Because we have that unfinished business, we have had to take some action coming into government to try to keep that going. I know the senator said, 'This is a stunt. Why are we putting aside a day or two days a year?' I say: 'Sometimes in business and life, you've got to set yourself goals and you've got to set aside specific time frames to meet those goals.' We all agree across this chamber that we need to reduce red tape and we need to reduce regulation. The best way to do that is to try and set aside some time to actually do it. That is what I find in my life: if I want to lose weight—and I need to lose a few more kilos—I need to set aside some time to do exercise. If I want to improve the relationship I have with my kids, which I certainly do as well, I need to set aside some time to spend with the family. Likewise, as a good administration does, we want to reduce red tape so we are setting aside some time to reduce red tape. We are doing two days a year and we will start those reductions with this bill that we are here to talk about today—it is one of those bills, among many, that we have introduced.

When you talk about regulation, there are two main things you want to try and focus on. When you think about red tape, we often focus on the stock of red tape. We want to reduce that. When I spoke about the Income Tax Assessment Act, that is an example of the stock of regulation. That does need to be reduced, certainly, and this bill tries to do that in a number of ways, which I will talk about in a second.

The other thing we must be always mindful of is to reduce the flow of bad regulation. The 80 breaches of the regulatory impact guidelines of the former government is an example of not taking account of that flow of bad regulation. We also introduced some reforms recently in the first year of this government to tackle the flow of regulation, not just the stock.

Coming back to the stock, the omnibus repeal bill that we are debating today is an example of dealing with that stock. It removes a number of things which will benefit people across our economy and in business. For example, it will remove building certification requirements in the aged-care sector that duplicate requirements at the state level, so we will get rid of that overlapping regulatory burden. That will save about $3.42 billion in annual compliance costs. These are the kinds of commas and rounding areas apparently that the senator said we are doing here today, but the $3.24 million saving is a pretty good saving in my book.

We are also making changes to the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act 1989 to reduce the burden on low-volume importers. That will save about $420,000 in compliance costs—not as much, but still I would not sneeze at $420,000, even if the Labor Party would. We are also making changes to the telecommunications sector, which I think has been mentioned by previous speakers.

So there are changes here that will make a difference. Overall, this omnibus repeal bill will streamline 14 acts, repeal 43 acts and amend 27 acts. So it is a start; it is only a start but it is a good start. There are other changes we have made in this first year which have made a difference. I think the previous speaker, Senator Bilyk, said that there are not many people jumping up in the streets and lauding us for our changes. But that is the wont of most governments; most governments do not get a pat on the back.

But I have spoken to people in the agriculture sector that are very happy that we have changed the egregious and very destructive legislation regarding the agricultural and veterinary chemicals sector. That was a terrible bill, introduced by the former Labor government at the insistence of the Greens. It was only done, I believe, because they were in partnership with the Greens. It was going to force all agricultural chemical companies to go through a new regulation process every seven years. So, even if a chemical had not had any bad effects or any reports of health or safety issues, it would have to go through another set of regulatory hurdles every seven years.

To underline how stupid that was: it was going to be a more onerous regulatory regime on our agricultural chemical sector than the regime for pharmaceutical drugs and medicines. They can obviously be much more harmful to our community, but they do not have to go through hoops every seven years. But the former Greens-Labor government decided that that needed to happen to our agricultural sector, and our farmers paid the cost. Fortunately—in the last sitting period or the one before that—we removed those changes. I applaud the Labor Party for actually supporting that removal. It showed quickly how stupid that was, because the Labor Party, in less than a year, changed their mind on that bill.

Other changes are very important too. I have already mentioned the EPBC Act changes which we are pushing through which are going to unlock billions of dollars' worth of projects and approvals. There are also changes to personal property securities legislation, which is an arcane piece of legislation. If you lease equipment or have some kind of hire-purchase arrangement with it, you need to make sure that goes on a register—in the case that someone is facing foreclosure by banks. At the moment you have to do that within 90 days. We are going to extend that out to a year.

That is actually quite important. I just spoke to a grazier in North Queensland a few weeks ago who was falling foul of that legislation because he had not registered some cattle that were on agistment. The banks turned up and subsequently sold the cattle. But they were not owned by the owner of the property; he just had them on agistment. This change we are introducing would have saved him. So there is another change which benefits people out there, Senator Bilyk. There are some positive things we are doing here in this legislation.

As I mentioned earlier, you have to deal with the flow of regulatory changes to make sure red tape does not accumulate over time. We are doing things to tackle that. We are going to make sure that cabinet submissions now have regulatory impact statements attached to them, and the deregulation function of government is being moved into the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to make sure that process works. All ministers have established deregulation units within their departments—tasked with the deregulation focus. And, very importantly, we are linking remuneration to senior executives in the Public Service to meeting their deregulation targets. In my view, in my experience, from my time at the Productivity Commission, this is an important change, because the accumulation of bad regulation is largely the result of bad incentives in the Public Service. It is not a consequence of bad intentions. There are not people in the Public Service who want to punish business—at least, not in my experience—they want to do a good job, but the incentives are not really there at the moment within that framework.

One of the worst incentives in government is that—for a government and for the Public Service—regulation can seem costless. Often there are two ways to tackle a policy problem: you can introduce a regulation or you can spend some money. If you take the latter course, if you spend money, then you have to make a budget submission for that money and it requires a huge amount of bureaucratic effort to get that money assigned to you. But, if you come up with a regulation, all the costs are not on the Public Service or the government; they are then borne largely by the private sector or the not-for-profit sector. Those incentives ask you—and there does need to be a very specific focus on making sure that, when regulations are made, they are fit for purpose and are designed with the external costs, if you like—the costs that are being imposed on the business sector—that those are taken into consideration.

Despite all this good work that I think we are doing, there is no doubt that there is more to be done. I was listening closely to Senator Bilyk's contribution and hoping that she would come up with some ideas, because she did say she wants to deregulate and the Labor Party want to deregulate. But I did not hear any ideas of actual bills that should be deregulated or changes. I just heard complaints, I heard our motives being impugned, and I heard us being called 'pathetic'—and 'childish' I think was another one.

But I do have something positive to contribute in my own small way. I think that a few more things need to be done. We have not had a proper stocktake of all of our regulations since the national competition policy process finished in 2005. That process went through 2,000 regulations, and a recommendation of the Productivity Commission after that process in their NCP review in 2005 recommended that we should do another stocktake, a priority stocktake, of some very important areas. I believe that has not properly been done. It should be done. We should focus on that and take up that recommendation of the Productivity Commission.

I also think that, going forward, with making these changes—and they are good changes; they are changes I support—but they may not work as well as we intend, and we must recognise that. And we must recognise that there is some scrutiny of what is happening after we make these changes. I think we would benefit from some more independent advice on those changes; whether it is regular Productivity Commission reports—or some other organisation or some other review—that needs to be kept in mind, in my view.

Ultimately, this is a very important change because, as other speakers have alluded to, we have had declining productivity performance over the past decade. And it has not just been declining here in Australia; it is also declining relative to other countries in the world. We must realise that while many of those reforms from previous decades like opening up the economy and like deregulating financial markets have reduced costs for our country and enabled us to be more competitive. The over-burdensome regulations in this country have been something we have not quite tackled as well. When you open up an economy to the rest of the world, like we have done in the last 20 or 30 years, the costs of those regulations become even more keenly felt because those businesses now are not just competing against someone down the road; they are competing with someone over the oceans. Those countries might not always have the same regulatory restrictions. We need to always keep in mind that we as a government do not make people's lives out there harder than they need to be and that we do not put unnecessary barriers in the way of people who want to make a buck and employ people.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014. If we are going to support this bill then the Australian public really does need to understand fully just what the government is doing here with the bill we are presented with today.

During the election campaign the then opposition made great fanfare of its commitment to reducing what it alleged were masses of red and green tape. All we heard in the lead up to the election was that was what they were going to do. Indeed, in the first few months of the Abbott government, most MPs', senators' and ministers' speeches were peppered with the need to reduce red and green tape. It was almost as if there was no getting away from it whether it was a Senate inquiry or, indeed, in this place here. All of the speeches were about this massive need to repeal red and green tape. We did hear those words over and over.

Whether or not there really is an abundance of so-called red and green tape to be repealed remains to be seen. But really, shouldn't the government be bit more creative? Shouldn't it be committing to improving the lives of Australians through bold and brave initiatives? Shouldn't our national government be able to paint a vision for Australian voters where everyone feels valued, where everyone feels they are respected and acknowledged for the contribution they make, no matter how big or how small that contribution is? And shouldn't those who need a helping hand either from the government, from their employer or from agencies in the community have an expectation that this helping hand will be there?

That is not the vision of this national government. Instead we have a government that focuses its attentions on red and green tape, stating quite believably that there will be some great economic benefit once this unnecessary layer of bureaucracy is removed. I say to Australian voters, do not hold your breath. It is a government of broken promises, and I am yet to see any detail about how this removal of this mass of red and green tape will really impact the lives of Australian business and, indeed, individuals in our community generally.

What now? I have to say, the references to red and green tape has kind of tapered off. For the past couple of months, the government has been almost silent on its red and green tape agenda. It certainly has not been mentioned in this place. Indeed, at Senate inquiries when we have seen change for change's sake, which in the past has been attributed to red and green tape, that reference by departments and government ministers is missing. Why is that? It is because this bill really does not do anything. In terms of timeliness, the government has well and truly dragged its feet on this repeal. So I guess, if it does have some impact that I am missing, that I cannot see and if it does have an impact on improving regulatory burden for business and for individuals and for the community—as the explanatory memorandum tells us that it does—they have been waiting a very long time to see that impact.

Fancy making an election commitment to repeal redundant and spent acts. Seriously, is that the best they could do when in opposition? Does it not just spell out that the Abbott government has no new ideas, no vision and that it spends its time and the time of this parliament on bills which deliver very little? Further, for the government to create such fanfare around repeal demonstrates its complete lack of vision. In fact, this government has spent its first year in government repealing bills. Unfortunately most of the other bills it has repealed have had a real impact, a negative impact, on the lives of ordinary Australians.

We saw yesterday right across the country thousands and thousands—and in Melbourne 30,000 ordinary Australians—of individuals and community organisations come out and let the government know in no uncertain terms that they want action on climate change. Where is the government today? We are here talking about repealing redundant acts and other pieces of legislation. It has repealed Labor's carbon initiatives and it did it proudly, but we can see by the demonstrations in our streets across the country in capital cities and in small towns that that was not well received by Australian voters.

Careful scrutiny of the last repeal bill shows us that these are not all redundant pieces of legislation and acts. In a broad sweep in its last cleaning up of red and green tape, the government did actually impact the lives of ordinary Australians in a very negative way. The savings, if there are any, will be miserly amounts and those savings will be to the government itself, certainly not to businesses.

In their last sweep through, the government reduced the take-home pay of cleaners—cleaners working in this building; cleaners cleaning their offices and other offices and other buildings owned by the Commonwealth. The Abbott government repealed the cleaning services guidelines. Those guidelines guaranteed that cleaners' wages would not change on contract change. The government can dress it up however they like, but that is what they did. When the minister had the opportunity to not go ahead with the change, he went ahead with it anyway—and he did so sneakily. So every time a cleaning contract in a Commonwealth owned building changes, cleaners' wages are up for negotiation. That is the truth. That is a fact. These contracts change every couple of years. So a cleaner who might have worked in Parliament House or in another Commonwealth owned building for five, 10, 15 or 20 years will have seen many, many different employers over the course of their working every day in that Commonwealth owned building.

My experience as a former union official who negotiated with those contractors is that, unfortunately, the contracts usually go to the cheapest bid. One of the sure ways of reducing costs is to reduce the wages bill. Contractors do that in a number of ways. They increase the workload of cleaners—and the cleaning guidelines created some certainty around that, so that cleaners' workloads would not be unreasonably increased—and, if the cleaners are earning above award rates of pay, they reduce the pay to the award level. For cleaners, that is a difference of $2 or $3 an hour. If the government took the time to investigate—or, indeed, if the government cared—they would soon discover this fact for themselves.

When Labor were in government, we put in place a system where wages could not be negotiated down at contract change and we put in place a fair system that guaranteed cleaners certainty around their hourly rate of pay. That in turn gave certainty to employers, to contracting companies, around their tenders and it meant that they had to actually compete on issues of quality and how they would do the job—for example, what sort of supervision they would put in. They were not able to run their contracts by reducing cleaners' wages or increasing the workload. That was actually a win-win for cleaners and their bosses.

But, of course, this government did not see this or did not want to see it and claim that there is some cost saving for contractors—but there is not. Those contractors who want to do the right thing by their cleaners and pay a higher rate of pay will be penalised for doing so. They will be priced out of the market. They will not be able to compete with those contractors who are paying the award rate. That is what the last repeal did. It created hardship for individuals—in this case, cleaners—and the government, who had an opportunity not to repeal those guidelines, simply went ahead in the full knowledge that cleaners' take-home wages would be reduced. They went ahead with that knowledge and did it anyway—and that was a shameful thing to do.

It is not as if when Labor were in office we did not clean up redundant acts and reduce regulatory burden; of course we did. But we did not inflate the importance of these repeals with the fanfare we have seen from this government. We did not do that. The only thing the government stopped short of was calling a national holiday to celebrate their repeal day—so big was the hype around these repeals. We had a lead-up, we had a countdown and we had some kind of massive celebration here on the day that the first omnibus repeal bills were introduced. I, along with other Labor senators in this place, would like to know how much time and how much money was spent on this kind of absolutely unnecessary hype.

But I return to the current bill—a great fuss about nothing. What the government is really doing is spruiking up it election commitment. It is a lot of ideology masking as legislation. It is another way to give itself a tick on meeting its election commitments. That is what the government is doing here. That is what is going on with this repeal bill.

Meanwhile, Australians are still waiting for housing policy. They are still waiting to know what is happening on the homelessness front. Just this morning our office here in Canberra had a call from a woman who is homeless. Along with her teenage daughter, they have experienced homelessness on and off over the past few years—because it is such a tight situation when trying to find decent accommodation. That is the reality for this woman who called us this morning. Unfortunately and sadly, this woman and her teenage daughter, who are currently in New South Wales, will continue to wait, because the Abbott government not only is focused on irrelevant pieces of legislation such as this bill but also still has no housing policy, after 12 months in office. Further, the government has reduced the amount of funding available to make housing affordability realistic. There is no money for capital investment.

So, despite the claim that this bill will assist individuals, it will do nothing for the woman who called us this morning expressing her frustration at not being able to be housed anywhere. How disgraceful! I am sure that those in the Abbott government will start to say, as they do with education, 'Oh, it's not our responsibility; it is up to the states.' And after 12 months without one skerrick of policy on housing affordability or homelessness, that is obviously what the government wants to say to the states in this area—'It's not our responsibility; we don't build the houses for those who are not able to afford a roof over their heads for themselves.'

What are we doing here today? We are repealing legislation which has no impact. Labor senators have made the point and we will continue to make the point because it is really important that Australian voters appreciate what the government thinks should be debated in this place. We need it on the public record: what is at stake here is absolutely nothing—old, redundant legislation. Why are we doing it? We are doing it for the sake of spin, so that the Prime Minister of the country can get up at his next important address and say, 'We have reduced red and green tape in this country,' but there will be no detail about what sort of money will come back to government in doing that. I would like to know what the impact on business will be. I am still waiting to hear about that. I heard a government speaker talk about floating the dollar and somehow went on to reducing red and green tape. Let me assure the voting public: floating the Australian dollar, which was a Labor initiative, has nothing to do with reducing red and green tape. I am not quite sure how that ended up in the same sentence, but it does show how desperate the government is to try and make this seem something more than it is, by trying to link those two thoughts.

So, it is old, redundant legislation. We are doing it for the sake of spin. Why? Because the government is in serious trouble with its budget. It is a budget that the community says has failed. What an interesting last week. I still cannot quite believe that it is true. Did the Prime Minister seriously give his ministers As and A-pluses for performance? For what? For producing a budget that affects almost every person in the community in a negative way, except the big end of town, because we know they are the government's mates. Thousands and thousands of Australians in our capital cities and regional centres took to the streets yesterday to let the government know, well and truly and loudly, that they do not like what the government has done on carbon, and somehow we have ministers getting As and A-pluses. Australian voters are not fooled, because they have given the government a fail on every aspect of its budget. That is why the government is intent on talking about a repeal bill—repealing stuff from the 1920s. So, let's not talk about your harsh and cruel budget; let's not talk about the effect on pensioners, on school kids, on Australian families, and the no savings to be had from electricity companies. Luckily the government could not control them. I got a letter the other day that told me I am saving something like $48 a year, and yet I was promised $550.

We are here today talking about the omnibus legislation because the government does not want to talk about its harsh and cruel budget—a budget which creates hardship for almost everyone in the community, and yet what does the government focus on? Repealing old legislation. Why does it do that? Because it does not know what else to do. Instead of putting its hand on its heart and saying, 'We got it wrong. We're an inexperienced government. Give us a fair go. We've only been around for a year. We don't quite get it. We went too far with the budget. Let's look at how we might fix it.' No. Instead, we are focusing on repealing stuff which has no effect on anything. It is a government without a vision; it is a government without a forward thought; and it is a government that knows its budget has failed, which is why it wants to focus on red and green tape.

One of the other points I heard this morning from a government senator was about how the government has linked the performance pay of its senior public servants to reducing red and green tape. At the same time, the government refuses to negotiate with public servants around their enterprise bargaining agreement—the government which likes to just poke sticks at the Community and Public Sector Union and somehow blame them, saying that they are being irresponsible. A four-per-cent-a-year wage claim is a reasonable claim and yet the government wants to put zero on the table. Again, making that link and ignoring negotiation needs—not negotiating with the union around pay and conditions—show that the government is completely out of touch.

Labor will obviously reform areas that need reforming, but we will not do it with fanfare and we will not do it to the detriment of other really important issues, such as the government's inability to talk about its budget.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014. Buried in a mass of evidently redundant legislation that the government has seen fit to make a big song and dance about repealing are a handful of important weakenings of environmental protection. That is a great cause of concern for us. They centre around protection for water in the Murray-Darling Basin, around protection for marine areas and around protection from ozone depleting substances. I do not know whether it was deliberate that these were buried amongst a mass of errant commas and unnecessary hyphens, which the government thinks important to deal with, but these issues are important. They are protections for the environment and they stop big business from doing whatever it is that they want to do to the environment to simply turn a profit.

The first section that is proposed for repeal is section 255AA of the Water Act, which says:

Prior to licences being granted for subsidence mining operations on floodplains that have underlying groundwater systems forming part of the Murray-Darling system inflows, an independent expert study must be undertaken to determine the impacts of the proposed mining operations on the connectivity of groundwater systems, surface water and groundwater flows and water quality.

That sounds pretty good to me. That says: if you are going to mine in the Murray-Darling and you might stuff up the groundwater, you should probably do an independent study first that works out just how much damage you are going to do. That is an eminently sensible provision that is on our law books for good reason and, as one of the previous speakers mentioned, it has been used.

The previous speakers' contention was that this is duplicative of our other new regulations. But it is not. Clearly this section covers subsidence mining in the Murray-Darling. What the government and, sadly, also the opposition are contending is that somehow we do not need this anymore because we have already got protection from large coalmines and coal seam gas in relation to their water impacts. Well, we do have that protection, if you can call it that, because when it comes to coal and coal seam gas everything always gets approved by the environment minister no matter which side is in charge. But those provisions in the EPBC Act only relate to large coalmines and coal seam gas. The provisions in the Water Act relate to subsidence mining. We do all sorts of mining in the Murray-Darling. Clearly there is coalmining and coal seam gas mining. But there is also mining for copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc. Those are the mines that are captured by this provision in the Water Act. So it is not duplication. This is protection for our groundwater systems in the Murray-Darling which this government, with absolutely no objection from the opposition, is proposing to remove from our law books. I think that is an absolute tragedy and it once again demonstrates the influence the big mining companies have on this government and, sadly, also on the opposition.

This section has a very interesting history. Back when it was introduced in 2008, the then member for New England in the other place, Tony Windsor, proposed an amendment to strengthen that section. That amendment was that, if substantial risk was identified in that independent study that was mandated to be done, an exploration licence must not be granted. Again, that second part was perfectly sensible. It said that, if you have done your study and you have found that you are going to stuff up the groundwater, you will not be allowed to do that and you will not have a water exploration licence granted to you. That is very sensible. And we moved a similar amendment here in this place under the former Leader of the Greens, Senator Bob Brown.

One day we were debating that amendment and we had folk like Senator John Williams and former Senator Barnaby Joyce speaking in favour of the amendment. They said they would give the government the numbers so that this amendment would succeed. Senator Williams said: 'We need to have a proper independent inquiry into underground aquifers in these areas. It is vital that the truth be brought out about these prime agricultural areas. It is vital that this study be undertaken. Hence, I offer my support for this amendment.' So the National Party were prepared to say: 'Yes, let's give this section some teeth and let's make sure that when you do this independent study, if it shows that the subsidence mining is going to affect groundwater in the Murray-Darling, you will simply not be allowed to proceed.' Unfortunately, the following day, when that amendment came on for a vote, the Nationals did not support it. So the day before the vote they were crowing that they would support it, but on the day of the vote they did not support it.

Rumour—and Hansardhas it that the Australian Minerals Council frequented the building on the night of those amendments. So one wonders what pressure was placed on the then Nationals senators to ditch their protection for groundwater in favour of doing the bidding of the mining industry. Today, it seems the Minerals Council and their ilk are coming back for the rest of this little section which is a bit of a thorn in their side. They do not want to have to do groundwater studies. They would rather ignore the impact that the industry has and just be allowed to reap profits unhindered by regulation.

I have talked about how, clearly, this is not duplication, as some of the previous speakers have contended. It is a great shame that the Abbott government wants to take away this section and ignore communities who want better protection for their groundwater, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. We have seen huge opposition to, in particular, coal seam gas and coal mining. There is now some regulatory oversight of those areas with the water trigger, but it only applies to large coalmines. So we have small coalmines that are not covered and we have copper, gold silver and other mines in the Murray-Darling that will now also not be covered. So, again, we have got open slather for the convenience of the big mining companies. It seems we are getting pretty used to that situation here in this place.

The other two sections that this oddly titled bill seeks to repeal relate to ozone relating substances. Senator Canavan was saying they are just trying to make it easier for small business because they are proposing to exempt small importers from the regime entirely. Indeed, they are exempting small importers from the fee and levy regime for ozone depleting substances. But they are also changing the rule about 'the heel', the 10 per cent that is left over in a gas canister once the container is used up. In other jurisdictions—the USA for one—there is a certification process in place to make sure that that left over ozone depleting substance—that pretty serious stuff—is not just emitted somewhere else. Once this section is removed, there is nothing on our law books that would cover that left over ozone depleting substance. To cut a long story short, we are weakening the protection for our atmosphere from ozone depleting substances by allowing these left over ozone depleting substances to go unaccounted for and by removing small importers from the fee regime entirely.

'Sea installations' is the third tranche of environmentally damaging repeals that are proposed by this bill—things such as pontoons, artificial islands, fish aggregating devices and even offshore hotels. There is currently a permit system which requires installers to have a permit to build those sorts of things in the marine environment. This bill proposes to repeal that. They are also proposing to change the objects of the Sea Installations Act to omit the need for installations to be consistent with the protection of the environment. So, again, this means that they are leaving the environmental impacts of sea installations to a different regime, the EPBC Act, which we know only covers actions which are going to have a significant impact on a matter of national environmental significance. So any of those impacts—which may still be great but do not pass that very high bar of 'significant impact'—will now be unregulated. So there is no way you can say that this is not just a reduction of environmental protection for marine areas.

So on that basis the Greens will be moving amendments to block the repeal of those three important environmental provisions. We would like to keep those provisions and see them remain on our law books. However, it is no surprise that we have this government's approach of trying to gut what limited environmental protections that we already have on our law books. Get in line! The Abbott government has been very busy in the last 12 months, repealing as many environmental protections as it can possibly think of. We have got rid of the ministries for science and climate change and we have got rid of the carbon price itself. Instead of fixing the flaws in the mining tax, we have repealed that as well because, apparently, we are in a plutocracy here and not a representative democracy.

The environmental defenders offices, which help people use the law to protect the environment, have been defunded for the first time in their entire existence, again, leaving the community without access to legal advice to implement the laws of this nation. The Climate Commission was of course abolished. The government are still trying to get rid of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and they have succeeded in defunding the Renewable Energy Agency. They have also abolished the Water Commission and I am sure Senator Rhiannon, who will also be making a contribution on this bill, will have some more remarks on that. Mr Abbott thinks we have too much forest locked up in national parks. Their attempt to delist the Tasmanian World Heritage forests brought us great international shame and, thank heavens, that did not succeed.

The federal government are now turning their sights on marine protection and are trying to reduce the excellent work by reviewing those science-based management plans and are, again, creating uncertainty for environmental protection and for the rights of people who are fishing sustainably.

The government have, unfortunately, ticked off on every single big coalmine and coal seam gas proposal that has ever passed their desk, which makes an absolute farce of our already weak laws. The government have approved the world's biggest coal port, the Abbot Point coal terminal expansion, in this day and age in no other place than the Great Barrier Reef. It is just sheer madness. They have cut the Reef Rescue funding, which was a great program, working with farmers to try to modernise their farming practices and reduce run-off into the reef, which is clearly a big problem for water quality. The federal government, sadly, took $40 million out of that successful program.

So, as I say, get in line! The list of environmental assaults by the government just keeps on growing. Of course, the biggest concern that we have with the government's agenda of attacking the environment at every turn is their plan to wash their hands of their responsibilities under our federal laws and leave it all up to state governments.

If this plan for a so-called one-stop shop, which will sell out the environment, goes ahead it will be the biggest backward step this nation would have ever taken in environmental protection in 30 years. I was invited by one of the previous Labor speakers to focus on that issue. So thank you. We indeed have been, ever since the then Labor government proposed this awful idea. I am very pleased that the Labor Party have now decided that indeed it is an awful idea and now no longer support that concept.

However, I just want to take the previous speaker, the member for Lines, to task in that we have been focusing on this for the better part of two years, with amendments, private members' bills and motions. So, thank you, for the recognition that this is indeed a terrible proposal that the Abbott government has now adopted. I can assure you that we will be doing everything we can to try to keep that protection for our nationally significant environmental icons where it belongs: in the hands of the federal government. We need that oversight. We have international obligations to protect these amazing areas and these iconic, unique species.

You simply cannot leave that job to state governments. It is not their job to act in the national interest. They will never act in the national interest. They will act in their state's interests and that is fine; they are state governments. That is why they should not be charged with protecting the national environment. We have already seen throughout history that if we did not have these federal protections we would have had oil rigs in the Great Barrier Reef. The Franklin River would have been dammed. There would have been cows in the Alpine National Park. The Mary River, in Queensland, would have been dammed. We have seen instances where those federal laws have been able to protect areas and species that the world holds dear, contrary to the wishes of state governments of the day. So, please, let us not junk those important protections in some misguided attempt to make it easier for business to get their approvals.

There are two things about that. Clearly, the plan to try to fit a round peg into a square hole by squeezing the federal rules into state laws will actually make it more complicated. Any business that is trying to operate across state borders will now be met by different regimes. So, far from making it easier, it will in fact make it more complicated.

We await the return of the bill, which seeks to allow the accreditation of state regimes to do the federal government's job for it even without the protection of those federal standards being enshrined in state laws. What the government are seeking to do is truly horrific. They are washing their hands of environmental responsibilities that took 30 years to build, when then Prime Minister Bob Hawke took to the High Court the plan to dam the Franklin and established that yes, when there is an international convention, such as the World Heritage convention in that instance, then the federal government does have the right and indeed it has the responsibility to act to protect those environmental assets. That is now all under threat with this hasty plan to ditch the ability of the federal environment minister to actually do their job in protecting the environment. And to put cowboys, such as Campbell Newman, the Premier of Queensland, in charge and in sole control of the Great Barrier Reef just fills me with fear. This is the same guy, who, when asked about international concern for the Great Barrier Reef replied with the comment, 'Queensland is in the coal business.' I am afraid that Queensland is also in the tourism business, with 69,000 people—

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. The standing orders are clear in reference to members of other parliaments. I would have to say that referring to the Premier of Queensland as 'a cowboy' is a demeaning statement and I ask that the senator withdraw.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Acting Deputy President Dastyari, I draw reference to the considerable history in this place of dynamic debate across this chamber, where numerous comments have been made about a various number of people. I do not believe that the reference in any way impugns the reputation of the Premier; in fact, the Premier may actually enjoy that kind of discussion about his name. I would think that the comment of 'cowboy' is not in any way impugning the reputation of the Premier of Queensland.

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order, but I do remind the senator of the standing orders and that she is sailing quite close to the wind.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Premier Campbell Newman has a great defender in Senator O'Sullivan—an interesting choice there. It is better left unsaid. I will not withdraw that comment.

As I said, unfortunately, it is not just the federal government with this program of repealing and reducing as many environmental laws as they can but also the government of Queensland. We are up to 19 environmental laws that have now been either watered down or repealed. In fact, it is pretty easy to lose count. We have lost our wild river protections; the vegetation management laws, which protect the beautiful biodiversity; and of course the carbon stores and the uniqueness of many of our ecosystems in Queensland—they have been watered down almost beyond recognition.

Perhaps the most insulting recent change happened just a week or so ago. The Queensland government have now removed the ability of Queenslanders to object in the Land Court to large mines, except if you are a neighbour or a local council that has its infrastructure impacted. I am just incredulous. This is a silencing of the community at a rate we have not seen since the Joh days. The thought of putting folk like that in complete control of icons that are not just nationally environmentally significant but are globally environmentally significant would be laughable if it were not so serious. This is exactly why, when you have proposals such as today's to just quietly and sneakily repeal protection for groundwater in the Murray-Darling Basin, to not worry so much about ozone depleting substances, and to allow sea installations to be built without reference to environmental issues, you just have to hold the line and say, 'Enough is enough.' That is why in the committee stage we will be moving amendments to keep those three positive environmental protections on our law books and why we will continue to rail against the tendency towards a plutocracy that we see from this government in giving the big mining companies absolutely everything that they want. It seems that they are simply running the show. I just remind senators in this place that actually we are elected here to represent people; we are not elected here to just further the vested interests of big corporates, who are, with their activities, threatening the sustainability of our environment for future generations. Thank you.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I endorse the comments of my colleague, Senator Waters, our spokesperson on environment and mining matters. She set out a very clear case when we come to this Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 that there are some aspects that definitely should not be repealed. If the repeal goes ahead it gives a considerable leg-up to the mining industry, a mining industry that already gets great benefits, irrespective of which party is in power at a federal or state level. The mining industry regularly benefits and they certainly would here if section 255AA of the Water Act were repealed.

Senator Waters read the section out. It is an important section that sets out very clearly why we need to be protecting all aspects of the water in the Murray-Darling. That protection was obviously put in there for a clear reason: our forebears had the wisdom that there needed to be some checks and balances on this industry. They set it out very clearly that, prior to licences being granted for subsidence mining operations, certain studies had to be undertaken. This is a section that we should not lose. I repeat that: it was put in there for good reason. Those who were looking to balancing the needs of the Murray-Darling with regard to the pressures of farming, irrigation and mining saw that there was a need for this study. That is why we certainly should not lose it.

What is being proposed—the justification is, 'We've actually got something new that will undertake the work'—is a weakening of what is there presently. We should be improving on what we have got, not weakening it. If this repeal were to go ahead what we would end up with is the independent expert scientific committee. That would only look at coal and coal-seam gas. This is one of the aspects that highlights what a big step backwards it would be. Mining is expanding across the Murray-Darling Basin. It is expanding across Australia in so many areas. We need these thorough studies to be undertaken in terms of subsidence and the impact that would have.

One example of that that is very serious within New South Wales is a giant gold mine, the Cadia goldmine, near Orange. This is Australia's largest underground goldmine. It is the fourth-largest goldmine in the world. The amount of water it would use on a daily basis runs into millions and millions of tonnes. I have had the opportunity to talk to the farmers in that area on a number of occasions. One occasion was just after Senator Christine Milne had been elected as the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. She went on a tour around the country, listening to folk and their concerns. That was one of the first places we went to. We met a lot of farmers with very productive orchards—a whole range of produce comes out of that area—and some fantastic sheep farms. It was very interesting to hear about it. But from the many visits I have had there a concern that comes up time and time again is about the future of the water resources in this area because of the expansion of this goldmine—something that Labor and the coalition have ticked off time and time again.

I will just run through a few of the issues that arise with this mine, because it highlights why we need to keep the present section. It should not be repealed, because any mining involving subsidence needs to be thoroughly investigated. There has already been a groundwater study for this mine that predicted a permanent drop in the water table north-east of the mine if an expansion goes ahead—because Cadia has expanded enormously—and that study was undertaken early on. It was also found that the subsidence zone could break up the aquifer, and that concerned a lot of surrounding farmers—some of them with thousands of hazelnut trees as well as some very important breeding ewes, which are some of the very rich aspects of this area. All this was to be impacted on.

Another big concern that comes up is the value of the property. People would say to me, 'Who's going to buy our property when they don't know if those water resources are protected or if they will be there?' because when similar mines have been undertaken people have reported a drop in the levels of the bores they access their water from. Water supplies are under threat when this type of mining goes ahead, so surely we need to retain this section so that the impact of subsidence on groundwater can be thoroughly studied.

One thing that came up for us about the value of the property is that some of the farmers reported that they were finding, from talking to their neighbours, that it was expected that there would be a fall in the value of their properties by a third, with some of them just not being able to sell. This puts people under enormous stress, wondering about their future—about how they will go as they get older and whether they will be able to sell and move up and enjoy their retirement after years of working so hard on their farm.

This Cadia mine is owned by a company called Newcrest. This brings us to some of the interesting developments in New South Wales politics that have not been fully answered with regard to some of the ICAC inquiries, and also to how some of the former ministers have operated.

One of the ministers who has now resigned because of how some of these ICAC issues have played out is Chris Hartcher. He was the mining minister and had some very interesting connections with this Newcrest mine. He actually took the extraordinary step of introducing legislation which effectively ended a court case. He acted to introduce that legislation and push it through—as is sometimes done in these parliaments; when governments have the numbers they will sometimes push laws through very quickly. The law that Minister Hartcher was pushing through was in favour of Newcrest, which, as I have said, runs Australia's largest goldmine, and was in a dispute with Gold and Copper Resources. The legislation was the Mining Amendment (Development Consent) Bill 2013. Its introduction effectively ended a court case. That case was a commercial dispute—which periodically you get between mining companies, and between all sorts of companies. So why did Mr Hartcher intervene in such a decisive way? Even before we had heard everything play out in ICAC, it already seemed quite questionable for a minister to take such action.

What the bill did was to amend the provisions of the Mining Act 1992 relating to the need for development consent before a mining lease is guaranteed. This issue came out—and on the one hand, as I say, it was a commercial dispute, but it was a commercial dispute with some interest, with fraud allegations being revealed, with departmental documents disclosed in legal battles between Gold and Copper Resources and Newcrest, and with accusations of departmental officers swapping the front page of a renewable application lodged by Newcrest for an exploration licence next door to its Cadia East goldmine. These things happen in the business world. But when you put on it the overlay of ICAC, and the overlay of how Mr Hartcher is now quite discredited, it certainly is another chapter in the story of this very murky world.

What is also interesting in terms of the time line here is that, on the day that ICAC released its report into the administration of mining in New South Wales, the then mining minister, who was Mr Hartcher, moved to push his bill through the New South Wales parliament with no consultation—it was just rushed through; nobody was expecting it. So, again, there are so many unanswered questions.

Some of you may think, 'What's this got to do with the issue that we have raised about section 255AA of the Water Act?' We are saying that it should not be repealed—that the protection for our water resources needs to be improved, not watered down. There is a link here, because we need to be strengthening our regulations here—strengthening our laws to cover this issue, not allowing a run-down in the planning laws and other relevant laws, which, as we have seen in New South Wales, does lead to some very undesirable practices and possibly, at some times, corrupt practices. So there is a need to retain this section of the act. It is just calling for the reports to be undertaken, so it is really quite minimal already. It should not be weakened.

Another aspect—and my colleague Senator Waters went through this—is that mining of many minerals is occurring now. I have mentioned copper; I have mentioned gold. There are others as well. But what is also in the pipeline—possibly in Queensland and possibly in New South Wales—is uranium mining. Again, we need to have these laws strengthened. The impact that any sort of mining can have on our groundwater, our surface water and the interaction between those water resources can be very serious. We need to weigh up, of mining, whether it should go ahead and under what conditions it should go ahead. But if this were repealed that would be weakening the minimal protection that our water resources have. So there is a very clear case why section 255AA of the Water Act needs to be retained.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contributions, especially Senators Seselja and Canavan. We did hear some rhetoric from those opposite, but regulation of itself does not mean protection; it is the quality of the regulation that counts. Also, duplication does not mean extra protection; it means waste and destruction, and it brings institutions into disrepute. In relation to Senator Rhiannon's contribution about governance, forcing things through the parliament, I remind her of the very sullied record of the Australian Greens and being in lock-step with the Australian Labor Party, and on one occasion forcing over 40 pieces of legislation through this place without a single word of debate allowed to be spoken on them. I will not be lectured or hectored by Senator Rhiannon when she personally voted to achieve that outcome with the previous government. So, please, let us have none of this hysterical nonsense that we get from the Greens now that they find that they are no longer in control of the chamber.

We are debating the coalition government's commitment to getting rid of red tape. On 26 March this year, the government held its first ever red tape repeal day, removing—and this is a very interesting statistic—over 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation, which it is estimated will save over $700 million in compliance costs. The repeal day is an important part of the government's deregulation agenda and will cut $1,000 million in red and green tape each year. The government will designate two parliamentary sitting days as repeal days each year. This will result in more efficient government and more productive business and not-for-profit sectors. Ultimately, this will boost Australia's competitiveness, helping to create more jobs. As Minister for Employment, I am very excited by that prospect, especially given that we as a nation face an unemployment rate with a six in front of it. Not only will cutting red tape boost our competitiveness and help create more jobs; it will also reduce the cost of living.

Bad regulation and too much regulation hurt productivity, deter investment and innovation and in turn cost jobs. That is the bottom line and that is the motivation for this government to get rid of red and green tape. We want to ensure that we are more competitive, which in turn will increase our nation's wealth. That will then allow us to have the money to pay for the welfare, hospitals, roads and infrastructure that people want and, of course, that in turn will create jobs.

In the five years from mid-2007, Australia's multifactor productivity declined by nearly three per cent. In 2012, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the productivity growth of 51 countries. Australia came in second last behind Botswana. That is the reality, yet those opposite have the view that everything is okay and nothing needs to change. When you come in second last just above Botswana in the productivity growth of 51 countries, you realise the difficulties that we as a nation face and that is why there is this importance on enhancing our productivity. It is not only the Economist Intelligence Unit that has reported; in 2013, Australia ranked 21st in the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index, slipping six places in four years. We were ranked 128 out of 148 countries for burden of government regulation, sandwiched between Romania and Angola. We believe as a government that Australia can do better, she needs to do better and will do better, despite the obstruction from those opposite.

The Productivity Commission has estimated that regulation compliance costs could amount to as much as four per cent of Australia's gross domestic product. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry 2012 National Red Tape Survey found that 44 per cent of businesses spend between one and five hours a week complying with government regulatory requirements—that is, federal, state or local—filling out forms, applying for permits and reporting business activity; 72 per cent of businesses said the time they are spending on red tape has increased in the last two years; and 54 per cent said that complying with government regulations has prevented them making changes to grow or expand their business. If it is preventing businesses from growing and expanding, it is preventing them from putting on more workers and creating jobs. The Australian Institute of Company Directors' most recent 2013 Director Sentiment Index found that 60 per cent of those surveyed believe that the amount of red tape and the time spent complying with regulations has increased over the last 12 months.

It is interesting to hear those opposite not wanting to come on board with us in cutting red and green tape. They actually know that it needs to be done; they just do not have the will or the capacity to do so. Let us not forget what was the Labor manifesto in 2007. In 2007, the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd, promised one regulation in, one regulation out. In 2008, the then Minister for Small Business, Craig Emerson, said that Labor would:

…take a giant pair of scissors to the red tape that is strangling small business.

They had all the rhetoric right and they had all the arguments right, but let us have a look at what they actually did.

In little more than 5½ years, Labor introduced more than 975 new or amending pieces of legislation and over 21,000 additional regulations. Their promise was great, but their delivery was completely in the opposite direction. Under Labor, there were more than 80 examples of non-compliant and prime ministerial exemptions from the regulatory impact assessment process. Once again, then, what does Labor do? They sign up to the regulatory impact statement process but then exempt themselves from implementing it. What sort of legislation did they exempt themselves from assessing the impact of? There was the carbon tax that they promised we would never have. There was the mining tax which has been so destructive of our resources sector, the debacle of the National Broadband Network, FoFA and changes to the Fair Work Act. These measures all escaped detailed regulatory impact scrutiny following exemptions provided by Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard. The Borthwick-Milliner review, which was, as it happens, commissioned by Labor, reported last year and found 'a widespread lack of acceptance of and commitment by ministers and agencies' to the regulatory impact assessment process.

What is the coalition's approach? The coalition is committed to a new approach where questions must be asked first before new regulations are passed. We simply ask the questions, 'What is the purpose of the regulation, what is the cost of the regulation and what is the impact on productivity?' Only after these questions are answered and only when it is absolutely necessary, with no sensible alternatives available, should government proceed to regulate. The simple fact is that removing these huge amounts of legislation—10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages—and saving $700 million in compliance costs will go a long way towards ensuring that we move up a little bit from coming second to Botswana at the very bottom of the league tables. It might actually allow us to get out from between Romania and Angola when it comes to burden of government regulation.

This is all about freeing up our economy so that jobs can be created for the 6.1 per cent who are currently unemployed. These are people who do not have the satisfaction of being able to go to work, of being able to look back on a day's work and of being self-reliant, and who do not obtain all the benefits of being in work: the physical and mental health benefits, the self-esteem and the social interaction—all the positives that come from employment. So often we talk about the dignity of work. That is right. But what those opposite fail to talk about is the indignity of nonwork. We as a government are absolutely committed to getting rid of obstacles that stand in the way of job creation. That is why we have got rid of the carbon tax, that is why we have got rid of the mining tax and that is why we want to get rid of all the red and green tape encompassed in this bill, which I commend to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.