Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The federal bureaucracy in Australia is a swollen behemoth. More people work for the government than ever before, meaning there are more people dependent on government than ever before. Meanwhile, starting a small business has never been more difficult and cumbersome, yet the federal bureaucracy and accompanying red tape is set to get even more swollen and even more restrictive. It's largely thanks to this government's incoherent climate agenda, which it's been implementing haphazardly.

Federal government employees engaged in regulatory roles are set to increase across all government portfolios by an average of 11 per cent this year, or to more than 98,000 people from the current 90,620. A large chunk of this increase is due to staff increases in the Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water portfolio, which is set to increase by 51 per cent in the current financial year. By the way, that's three times more than any other portfolio is expected to increase over the same period. Specifically, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is expected to expand considerably by adding 1,481 employees. Furthermore, five federal agencies are expected to increase their staff numbers by more than 30 per cent this financial year, and four of those agencies are concerned with environmental regulation.

Simply put, we can expect a lot more green tape over the next few years. The number of restrictive clauses within federal legislation and regulations has also increased by 88 per cent since 2005, and we've seen a considerable increase in bureaucratic power in this country in the relatively short amount of time since then. Ninety-seven per cent of these restrictive clauses have come from laws made directly by ministers and regulators, not parliament. It appears that we, as elected members of parliament, are barely even needed to pass laws anymore.

In February, this Labor government released a report titled Cleaner, cheaper to run cars: the Australian new vehicle efficiency standard. However, the title is clearly misleading. The reason Labor claim they want to make cars cheaper to run is that they intend to make cars that consume larger amounts of fuel, such as utes and bigger family vehicles, too expensive to buy by taxing them for their supposed contribution to climate change. The same government report states:

Transport is Australia's third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and will soon become the largest source if nothing is done … Overall, cars make up about 60% of transport emissions.

Australia emits 1.16 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. By the way, China emits 29.18 per cent and the United States emits 14.02 per cent. This government is telling us that Australian transport is responsible for 60 per cent of 1.16 per cent of global carbon emissions, which is 0.69 per cent of global carbon emissions and hardly a global emergency. The aim, of course, is to redirect buyers to purchase electric vehicles in the long run.

Recently, we learnt that this Labor government is about to introduce amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act under their so-called Nature Positive Plan. What this will look like is as yet unknown, but I'm going to gaze into my crystal ball and predict that behind the glossy brochures of koalas and rainforests lurks more job-destroying environmental handbrakes, more scope for green 'lawfare' and more green tape.

When the bureaucracy is trimmed, economic growth follows. Businesses grow, employment increases, wages increase, money gets spent, property gets bought and so on. Sadly, the climate change and renewable energy agenda is impacting the cost of living and the economy, and it's swelling the bureaucracy. Furthermore, a government which employs so many people rather than facilitates employment in the private sector has made citizens highly economically dependent upon it. I prefer the principle articulated by my party, which strives for government that nurtures and encourages citizens through incentives rather than putting limits on people through the punishing disincentives of burdensome taxes and the stifling structures of Labor's corporate, state and bureaucratic red tape. I think it's almost time to update that statement to include the scourge of the new hard left, which is green tape.