Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've recently heard a lot from Elon Musk about the fact that he's going to implement a DOGE system in the United States to cut down on bureaucratic waste. This particular idea, the need to cut down on bureaucratic waste, was first mentioned by me in my maiden speech back on 10 September 2019, where I called for a constitutional review, or a federation convention, to look at removing the duplications of roles and responsibilities between state and federal governments. We do not need two environment departments in this country. We don't need two health departments. We don't need two education departments. We don't need two policing departments. Indeed, last week, we again saw the use of the war on terror to implement more laws around violence when, in actual fact, policing is controlled by the state governments in this country. It is just another example of the many duplications of roles and responsibilities that we see in this country. If we really want to get serious about economic reform, I suggest that we have this federation convention sooner rather than later.

This isn't a new idea. I know many people like to make out that this is something that is a recent phenomenon. It's not. Very few politicians—I have been one of them—have called for this particular reform for a very long time. I want to add that one of the reasons we've got governments more interested in control than in serving the people today is that we've had an exponential rise in the bureaucratic class at the expense of front-end workers. We need more teachers. We need more policeman. We need more nurses. What we don't need more of are bureaucrats introducing regulations that are only strangling productivity in this country.