Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today was a glorious Canberra summer day. In just over a week it will be March, and autumn will be upon us. The leaves will change colour and start their descent to the ground. The flame tree in the courtyard here at Parliament House will dramatically alter its hue just in time for budget day. And who knows, maybe there will even be an election campaign in the offing. It is easy to get sentimental about autumn. It is a beautiful season. But just as another autumn is almost upon us, I am pleased to be able to stand before the Senate today and relive the autumn of last year in all its glory—because here we are debating the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015.

Introduced in the other place on 18 March 2015, the bill is indeed a reminder of another era. Mr Abbott was Prime Minister, and the biannual repeal days were his signature contribution to microeconomic reform. Back in the old days, when we had the first red tape repeal day, the former Prime Minister himself used to introduce the legislation. The other place would dedicate an entire day to debating the bills. My colleague the shadow minister for finance, Mr Burke, described it as 'a festival, a bonfire of bits of paper and regulations that were going to be destroyed'.

Now look what it has come to. It is such an urgent piece of legislation—which will relieve the businesses and people of Australia of such burdensome regulation—that six months elapsed before the bill was even debated in the other place. That's right, after all the fanfare of repeal day it took the government until September 2015 to bring on the debate in the other place! Now I am sure there are many on the other side who do not mind visiting the Northern Hemisphere from time to time, but I am pretty sure that when the government decided to call this bill the 'Autumn 2015' bill, they were doing so based on the timing of the Australian seasons, not the advent of autumn in North America, Europe or anywhere else.

Once the bill eventually passed the House of Representatives, it was rushed up here to the Senate and immediately used as a backstop in government business on the weekly program week after week after week. The bill was introduced here on 12 October 2015, and on the Thursday before every sitting week we would see it come up on the list—only for it to never see the light of day. The government must have finally run out of legislation, because here it finally is.

We know that there has not been much urgency from the government to move ahead with debate on these bills. We also know the real reason for this. The problem for the government is that, among these bills, there is not much red tape being repealed. There is a lot of fanfare and excitement but, as Mr Burke wittily put it, it is sort of like that moment at the end of The Sound of Music where they announce the Trapp Family Singers and no-one walks in: they announce it two or three more times and then they went off in a chase scene trying to find them. But they had been duped.

Each time the government announces repeal day, they say there is all this regulation that that they will be getting rid of for small business. Red tape will be obliterated. But what do we end up with? Bills that are already obsolete being removed, punctuation changes going through, committees being abolished that already have no members and programs being removed that already have no funds. That is what is left. That is why Red Tape Repeal Day has gone from being something that the government would get front-page stories on. There would be a big build-up and it would be part of their economic narrative to being like so many of their other policies—just a fizzer. It is just a situation where they are committed to going through the motions. So we go through the motions of it, and no-one's heart is in it anymore.

I understand the responsible parliamentary secretary, Mr Hendy, has recently announced that the government will be discontinuing the biannual repeal days that gave rise to legislation such as that which we are debating today. Given the extent to which the government has been shown to have no economic narrative over the last week, with its failure to present a decent critique of Labor's positive plans in the area of negative gearing, for example, along with the Treasurer's embarrassing, rambling performance at the National Press Club, perhaps it might not be too long before these repeal days are revised. Obsolete repeal days might be the best plan they have!

Nearly 12 months have gone by since the bills were initially introduced. We are now debating them. I remind the Senate that one of the previous bills, the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014, has still not passed the parliament. It is languishing in the other place. No-one has really noticed, because none of it really matters; but some of that legislation that had all the fanfare back then is still parked in the lower house. No-one talks about it being a double-dissolution trigger because nothing rests on it anyway.

Today we have the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015. It contains seven schedules reflecting amendments in the portfolios of Agriculture, Environment, Health, Indigenous Affairs, Social Services, Treasury and Veterans' Affairs. All of it is reasonable stuff to do, but it is a bit weird to get excited about it. It is delusional to think that this is an answer for small business, that it is something that shows this government is committed to abolishing red tape. The majority of the items do not have any deregulatory savings attached. Two items supply the total deregulatory savings in this bill. There are changes to the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Act 1995 to remove requirements relating to compensation recipients submitting statutory declarations about benefits provided estimated to lead to $41.4 million in deregulatory savings. In addition, changes to make it easier for the public to access aggregate data relating to social security, family assistance, student assistance and paid parental leave legislation that does not disclose information about a particular person are estimated to lead to $3,000 in deregulatory savings. I will repeat that, lest any senator may be concerned that I may have misspoken: just $3,000 in savings.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's still $3,000.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the benefit of Senator Birmingham and for the Senate, I am pleased to outline each of the measures proposed in this bill and their impact. Schedule 1 relates to the Agriculture portfolio and contains no deregulatory savings.

Repeals of acts: items 1 to 7 of the schedule relate to the repeal of the following acts. The Dairy Adjustment Act 1974 was enacted to provide financial assistance for the purposes of dairy adjustment programs, allowing agreements to be made with the states to make payments. The last agreement came into effect in 1976, and the period for the approval of these new agreements lapsed in 1977. There are no agreements currently in place and all loans, payments and repayment obligations have been finalised. The Domestic Meat Premises Charge Act 1993 provides for the imposition of a charge payable by an operator or owner of certain accredited killing or processing plants. The Department of Agriculture deregistered the last two meat establishments that were covered by this act on 12 June 2009.

The Meat Export Charge Act 1984 was enacted to impose a charge on applications for the inspection of export meat and meat products. As part of the Export Certification Reform Package we implemented when we were in government there were new arrangements that covered this. Cost recovery arrangements are set out under the Australian Export Meat Inspection System and fees are collected under other legislation. The Meat Export Charge Collection Act 1984 was enacted to provide for the collection of the charge implemented under the Meat Export Charge Act 1984. The Meat Inspection Act 1983 was enacted to provide for the domestic inspection of meat intended for human consumption or for use as animal food. None of the activities covered by this act are currently carried out by the Commonwealth. Domestic meat inspection is carried out by the states and territories under their own statutes. The Meat Inspection Arrangements Act 1964 was enacted to enable the Commonwealth to enter into arrangements with the states for Commonwealth inspectors to inspect meat for consumption in Australia. As the Commonwealth no longer employs any domestic state meat inspectors, which is done at the state and territory level, this act is redundant. The Primary Industry Councils Act 1991 was enacted to establish industry councils for primary industries. There are no industry councils established under the act that exist, and none have been established since 1993.

There is the abolition of the Australian Landcare Council. Items 8 to 16 of the schedule relate to the abolition of the Australian Landcare Council. The plan was to consolidate the Australian Landcare Council and the Natural Heritage Trust Advisory Committee into the National Landcare Advisory Committee. There are currently no members on the Australian Landcare Council. In other amendments, items 17 to 30 of the schedule relate to amendments that are consequential as a result of the proposed repeals of acts in this schedule.

Schedule 2 relates to the Environment portfolio and has no deregulatory savings. There is the abolition of the Natural Heritage Trust Advisory Committee. This committee is being merged with the Australian Landcare Council to form the new National Landcare Advisory Committee. The Natural Heritage Trust Advisory Committee has not met since 2010

Part 2 of schedule 2 relates to the abolition of the Biological Diversity Advisory Committee. Membership of this committee lapsed in 2007. Items 7 to 12 of the schedule will remove duplicative exemptions covering Heard Island and McDonald Islands relating to protected area management plans. They are covered by exemptions covering the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve. In relation to director's functions and powers, item 13 repeals a redundant section in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 that relates to the portion of the Australian National Botanic Gardens that is in the Jervis Bay Territory.

Schedule 3 relates to the Health/Human Services portfolio and contains $41.4 million deregulatory savings. This schedule relates to amendments to the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Act 1995. It removes the requirement for claimants to sign a statutory declaration when submitting a compensation claim, and removes the requirement for both the compensation payer and claimant to sign a notification to Medicare of the settlement of the compensation claim. The claimant will instead be able to declare that the information provided is true and correct using existing forms required for the process. In terms of signing the notification to Medicare, only the compensation payer will need to sign the form, which will reduce the burden on the payer and reduce the risk of non-compliance.

Schedule 4 relates to the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Indigenous Affairs and contains no deregulatory savings. It repeals the Aboriginal Affairs (Arrangements with States) Act 1973. This act enables persons employed by the states to be appointed to the Australian Public Service and Australian Public Service permitted persons to perform functions under the laws of the states relating to Indigenous Affairs. A similar arrangement already exists under the Public Service Act 1999. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Discriminatory Laws) Act 1975 will also be repealed. This act was enacted to supersede certain Queensland state laws that discriminated against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. The Queensland laws have since been repealed.

Part 2 of schedule 4 contains consequential amendments on repeal of acts. Item 3 repeals section 16 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Reserves and Communities Self-management) Act 1978 as it will be made ineffective upon the repeal of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Discriminatory Laws) Act 1975. Schedule 5 relates to social services and contains $3,000 in deregulatory savings. In relation to the use of protected information, part 1 of schedule 5 makes amendments to the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999, the Paid Parental Leave Act 2010, the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 and the Student Assistance Act 1973, to facilitate greater access to aggregated information that does not disclose information about a specific person. Previously, you could only access the information if the purpose was one that satisfied the relevant act. The amendments will allow greater access to data for use by researchers and the public. These amendments are estimated to generate $3,000 in savings.

Part 2 repeals spent indexation provisions from the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 and the Social Security Act 1991. These provisions have passed their date of effect. Part 3 repeals the Retirement Assistance for Farmers Scheme and the Retirement Assistance for Sugarcane Farmers Scheme from the Social Security Act 1991. These schemes closed in 2001 and 2007 respectively. Part 4 repeals spent savings, transitional and application provisions from the Social Security Act 1991. These provisions relate to rules that were required to deal with former amendments dealing with persons transitioning from one set of arrangements to another. They have no effect as they deal with circumstances that can no longer occur—for example, a clause dealing with the transition arrangements for people who were receiving rehabilitation assistance before 20 March 1994 and two other clauses relating to provisions for payments, which contained end dates of 30 June 1999 and 30 June 2003, are being repealed.

Schedule 6 relates to Treasury. The Income Tax (Withholding Tax Recoupment) Act 1971 will be repealed. The act imposes a tax on interest from borrowings that received a particular exemption from withholding tax. Owing to changes to the tax law in September 2006, such borrowings can no longer arise, and so this act is redundant. The International Monetary Agreements Act 1959 will also be repealed. This act related to an increased quota in the International Monetary Fund, and an increase in the capital stock of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. As these transactions have been completed, the legislation is no longer required.

The Occupational Superannuation Standards Regulations Application Act 1992 will also be repealed. This act modified the time at which the Occupational Superannuation Standards Regulations 1987 were taken to have commenced. As these regulations were repealed in 2013, this act is no longer required. The States Grants (Aboriginal Advancement) Act 1972 is another act that will be repealed. This act provided for the payment of grants to the states and territories in the 1972-73 financial year. All grants under the act have been paid and therefore the act is no longer required.

The Taxation Laws (Clearing and Settlement Facility Support) Act 2004 will be repealed. This act was introduced following amendments to the Corporations Act relating to the transfer of responsibility for providing financial backing for parts of the clearing and settlement support system from the National Guarantee Fund to ASX Clear Pty Ltd. As the transfer of responsibility has been completed, this act is now redundant.

Other amendments in schedule 6 repeal sections 23E and 23J of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936. Section 23E provides that an amount received by a person upon the redemption of a Commonwealth special bond—other than an amount paid as accrued interest—is not assessable income and not exempt income. The Commonwealth no longer issues these special bonds and all such bonds that were issued have matured. Section 23J provides similar treatment for many types of securities that were issued at a discount prior to 1982. Section 26C of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 will also be repealed. The section provides a tax concession for certain securities which is currently available under the general tax law. As such, it can be repealed. Paragraph (c) of the definition of 'traditional security' in subsection 26BB(1) of the act will be removed. As section 26C is being repealed, the reference to section 26C in the definition of traditional security is also being repealed.

Subdivision CB of division 3 of part III is proposed to be repealed as no entity has sought to have the Treasurer make a determination under this part of the act to entitle them to deductions relating to pre-establishment expenditure. That is because in 1999 the rules around this type of expenditure were changed so that it was available to all taxpayers.

Items 12 to 15 in this schedule deal with consequential repeals of references to section 26C. Items 16 to 18 make repeals to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 as a result of the repeals to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 relating to section 26C and subdivision CB of part III.

There are others, but I would like to end my remarks by saying that what we are dealing with here today is, rather than hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in savings, a minuscule percentage of the total deregulatory savings that the government would want to claim. It is a saving of just $47.1 million, which is less than 10 per cent of the government's claimed $475.7 million in savings that have been reported between the spring 2014 bill and this bill. Serious deregulation can be done, but the government should not be pretending that it is making a difference when it is not actually getting rid of regulation in any real way. (Time expired)

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed a pleasure to rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015, a week out from Autumn 2016. I certainly concur with Senator Brown that it has been a long time coming. This bill does not seem to have been a priority of the government. I am so glad that we are actually here. This is the third day this week that the bill has been listed on the Notice Paper, so I am very pleased that we have finally got to it.

These omnibus repeal days are presented by the government as an opportunity to get rid of red tape, to fix up little bits of legislation and to be just generally smoothing legislation out. I am rising to speak to this bill tonight to add to it. I will be moving an amendment to this bill. These omnibus repeal bills give us the opportunity not just to repeal little bits of legislation but also to add bits of legislation. The amendment that I am going to be moving tonight will add a small amendment to the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008, which was removed very sneakily by the government last year.

As Senator Brown outlined in her contribution, this omnibus repeal day covers, I think, seven different areas of government, so adding in consideration of the infrastructure act is quite appropriate. I also think it is quite appropriate that, given that a lot of the focus in infrastructure is on transport, we are talking about an omnibus bill—omnibuses and buses and trains and trams and public transport and all of that.

The amendment I will be moving will reinsert a provision that was added to the Infrastructure Australia Act in 2014. The Infrastructure Australia Amendment Act 2014 inserted part 3A, Planning and Reporting, to the Infrastructure Australia Act. That part did a number of things but in particular specified some things that needed to be included in the annual report of Infrastructure Australia. The key aspect of that amendment to the Infrastructure Australia Act that I am focusing on tonight was that the annual report must include:

(d) details of each method of preparing cost benefit analyses approval of which was in force under subsection 5B(3) at any time during the year, including the weight required to be assigned to each factor the method required to be taken into account.

Basically, that said cost-benefit analyses are really important when you are considering, judging and trying to work out which bit of infrastructure we are going to invest in, but a cost-benefit analysis by itself, without any information about how it was undertaken, can be meaningless. We have to have that information so that we know whether we are comparing apples with apples, so that we know that the cost-benefit analysis that has been done actually stacks up. So this was a very important provision that was inserted into the Infrastructure Australia Act in 2014.

However, last year, under new legislation, the Public Governance and Resources Legislation Amendment Act (No. 1) 2015, this part of the Infrastructure Australia Act was repealed and the section of the act was replaced. The result is that section 39C, which contained all the information about cost-benefit analyses, just disappeared, and all that then had to be included in the annual report was that it must:

… include details of any directions given to Infrastructure Australia by the Minister …

The revised explanatory memorandum made very little reference to the rationale for change except to say that this relevant provision would bring it into line with the Public Governance Performance and Accountability Act. So very sneakily there was removed from the act a provision requiring the explanation of what type of cost-benefit analyses were going to be done.

It was a small thing, but it resulted in a big reduction in the transparency and accountability of the work that Infrastructure Australia was doing. That is so critical when we are making decisions about where to invest our precious taxpayer dollars in infrastructure. We need to know how various projects stack up against each other. We need to know that we can compare on the basis of one methodology—or at least to know what the methodologies are—so that we know whether, when we are looking at a road project here and a rail project there, the cost-benefit analyses are comparable. This information is critical because otherwise we can have a cost-benefit analysis that is essentially just a black box and we are told, 'Oh, a cost-benefit analysis has been done and it has returned a benefit to cost ratio of just over one.' There are a couple of projects I am particularly interested in at the moment in Melbourne. One is the Western Distributor road project. We are told that that has a benefit to cost ratio of 1.1. We had the announcement of the Melbourne Metro Rail tunnel, which we are told also has a cost-benefit analysis of 1.1. But we need to know, when we are looking at those two projects and trying to decide which of them is of more benefit to the community, how those cost-benefit analyses were done, what methodology was used.

The amendment I am moving today is simply to have the need for inclusion of the methodology of the cost-benefit analysis reinserted in the Infrastructure Australia legislation. I am hoping that this will not be a controversial thing. I am hoping that it will have the support of my parliamentary colleagues across the parliament, because I think it is really in the interests of transparency, accountability and making good decisions about our infrastructure that this be done. This bill, the omnibus repeal day bill, gives us the opportunity to fix small things up, to make small tweaks and changes to legislation, so that we ensure that the legislation is of the most benefit to the community.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to close the second reading debate on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015. I am terribly excited to speak about this bill, notwithstanding the cynicism that Senator Brown displayed in her remarks—though I am pleased, Senator Brown, by your remarks about the wonders of autumn, which left a warm inner glow that I am sure all in the chamber benefited from. We do look forward to the onset of autumn—a wonder of living in a nation with such wonderful seasons which are, of course, distinct between the northern and southern parts. Enough about the weather; that is my old portfolio. This bill also is not in my portfolio but still I am delighted to be summing up the debate in relation to this bill.

As many in the chamber have alluded to, the government has sought to make sure that regulatory and red tape reduction has been central to the activities of government. I am sorry that Senator Brown seems to be so dismissive of even minor savings that can be achieved. Senator Brown spoke almost with contempt at the idea that $3,000 of regulatory savings could be achieved somewhere. Well, I think if $3,000 of regulatory savings can be achieved somewhere then $3,000 of regulatory savings should be achieved somewhere. And of course, overall, I think the $41.7 million of regulatory savings attached to this bill are worth achieving because they are a good strong step in the right direction.

Senator Brown did kindly go through in extensive detail many parts of the measures that are proposed, so I do not intend to repeat all those. I would simply highlight the fact that the bill does amend or repeal 14 acts across a number of portfolios. Yes, some of them are spent and redundant and have remained on the Commonwealth statute books for some time; and others have been amended or repealed but have provisions that have been superseded by other pieces of legislation. But, importantly, there are measures that do have real savings, and the largest of those relates to one particular measure that results in over $41 million of deregulatory savings.

These amendments to the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Act 1995 will remove the requirement for compensation recipients to separately submit a statutory declaration when submitting a claim for benefits provided under Commonwealth programs for Medicare, nursing home, residential care and home care services. This will be of benefit and will reduce the regulatory burden on both compensation payers and around 50,000 claimants per year and allow automation of certain compensation recovery procedures for the government. That is one example of a very worthwhile change that is contained within the bill. There are, as I indicated, changes that reduce the number of unnecessary agencies that are defined within legislation or committees or advisory bodies or the like and a range of other changes.

Senator Brown suggested that, in some instances, the bill might correct punctuation. Whilst I do not hold myself up to be the nation's great and virtuous guide on appropriate punctuation, as Minister for Education I do at least think that is a worthwhile objective to pursue when you have the opportunity. To be serious, I commend the bill to the Senate. It adds further to the government's deregulation agenda and, most importantly, in doing so reduces real costs across government as well as for those who have to deal with and respond to government legislation.

Bill read a second time.