House debates

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Bills

Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014, Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014, Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 1) 2014; Second Reading

4:27 pm

Photo of Bruce ScottBruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Photo of Stephen JonesStephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | | Hansard source

Before the debate was interrupted, I made the point that, in the lead-up to 19 March, the chamber, the House and the Australian community were given great expectations of the contents of this omnibus repeal bill. We were going to be invited to a bonfire, and it was as if every kid in the neighbourhood was going to be witnessing a magnificent fireworks display. You can imagine their disappointment when they turned up on 19 March and, instead of fireworks, all they received was damp sparklers. It was a great flop. If only it had been only the kids that were let down, but I have to say that it was millions of small businesses as well.

If you had listened to the rhetoric of the parliamentary secretary, if you had listened to the rhetoric of the Prime Minister, you would have been led to believe that after 19 March a yoke of government regulation and unnecessary red tape was all of a sudden going to be lifted from the shoulders of millions of small-business men and women around the country. Can you imagine their relief when they picked up a copy of the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and they turned their eyes to magnificent sections such as the repeal of the Flags Act 1953, which redefines the size of the Commonwealth star on the Australian flag? It has within it those overburdensome regulations that the federation flag should be three-tenths the size of the width of the flag. You can imagine the excitement of the fish and chip shop down in Dapto! They would be saying, 'We'll double the order of flake. Good times are upon us. Free pineapple fitters for everybody, because we are no longer going to be weighed down by the burden of the Flags Act, this horrendous government regulation which is stopping the queues forming outside our shop every day.'

But it did not end there, because those guys over there are modernisers. They wanted to ensure that they removed from our statute books every anachronism that was standing in the way of small businesses in this country. They wanted to ensure that the Commonwealth legislation kept up with the most modern in electronic communications. That is why they have ensured that the word 'fax' is consistently used in Commonwealth legislation instead of 'facsimile'. You can imagine companies right throughout the country, on receiving news of this, all of a sudden were putting 'Positions Vacant' ads in their local newspaper: 'We are being freed up from this burdensome red tape! Thank God that this regulatory burden has been lifted from our shoulders!"

But it did not stop there, because we know that regional Australia has not been left out. Those North Queensland MPs have been on the job as well. They have indicated the importance of repeal day having something in there for them and ensuring that government gets off the shoulders of tourism operators in Cairns and Port Douglas. They are now anticipating a bumper year, because they are going to their boards and saying, 'We've got good news. The government is on the case and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act had a typo removed from it to ensure that the word 'committed' is now spelt with two t's instead of one.' It is a manna from heaven for those tourism operators in North Queensland. Never mind the fact that climate change is having a dramatic impact on the tourism operators in North Queensland, there is bleaching of the coral and there are unexpected weather events. These are small and trifling issues when it comes to the things the government should be focusing on. Running a spellcheck through our Commonwealth statute book is far more important on repeal day than dealing with the big issues.

This morning I had the great benefit of attending a policy breakfast hosted by the remote rural doctors network. They presented me with a lot of useful information, including this document here, which shows the number of forms that a doctor has to fill out before they are able to gain access to a Medicare provider number. If you look at this document, which contains these forms, you will see that there are well in excess of 15 to 20 forms. I can only imagine what those doctors would have thought, if they were in the chamber on the day that the parliamentary secretary, invoking the spirit of Sir Robert Menzies's great speech in 1946, declared: 'We want fewer forms and more reforms,' and said that these were the ethics that motivated this government. Far from fewer forms and more reforms, far from removing red tape, they are running a spellcheck through the statute books but doing very little, when it comes to removing red tape and removing regulation.

So we are led to think: what is the purpose of all of this? When you have a look at the contents of this legislation, the only conclusion that you can make is that it is a huge smokescreen for their intent to reform the future of financial reform legislation that was introduced by the previous Labor government. They did not like the fact that, when in government, Labor made it a requirement on financial advisers that they must honour a statutory obligation to act in the best interests of their clients. They did not like the fact that we got rid of conflicted remuneration, kickbacks and trailing commissions. They made a promise, before the election, that they were going to reintroduce it. In fact, we were told that over $1 billion worth of savings was going to be realised as a result of these reforms. They were terribly unpopular. The United Investors, indeed financial advisers themselves and many others within the community, are against the minister and against the government on this issue. Despite the fact that these were being trumpeted as their big reforms with $1 billion worth of savings, it has all collapsed like a house of cards. So that is the reason for the omnibus reform bill. If the whole reason is that it is a smokescreen for getting through this unpopular legislation, you have to ask yourself: what is it all about?

There is serious work to be done when it comes to looking at the regulatory burden on businesses. We should be focused on the big issues that are impacting workers, their families and business itself. We should be ensuring that workers are paid a living wage and that dignity at work and retirement are looked after for all Australians. Fairer funding for schools, reliable access to decent broadband and keeping health care affordable for all Australians: these are the big issues. You will not see any of them dealt with in the omnibus reform legislation. All of it is just a huge smokescreen, a damp squib, to get through unpopular reforms contained in the FoFA repeal legislation. The only way it makes sense is that the whole thing is a great charade, a series of press releases covering up the fact that there was no policy substance whatsoever.

Obviously the government has a plan to win government but not a plan to govern, because otherwise we would be seeing more substance in the omnibus repeal day legislation. There is no substance whatsoever. There are no big ideas, no reform agenda, no legislative agenda. Their big initiative of the week is to reintroduce royal honorifics, such as the titles of Sir and Dame. Commas, hyphens, typographical errors and honorifics are as good as they could come to.

What people are left with is a pretty empty piece of legislation—far from a bonfire and far from fireworks. There are a few damp sparklers. The people of Australia, let alone the people of Western Australia, who are going to the polls very soon, must be asking themselves: is this the government that we were told we were going to be electing? I am sure that they will be concluding: the fact is, no. There are no big ideas. They had a plan to get into government, but no plan to govern.

The government have talked up this omnibus reform bill as the answer to small business's woes and problems, but there is nothing in there for small business. Particularly, there is nothing in it for the residents of Western Australia. Is it any wonder that, when the voters go to the polls in Western Australia in a few weeks time, on 5 April, they will question if they did the right thing in voting the coalition into government at the 2013 election. I am not the only person saying this, because we can see that Western Australians themselves, including members of the coalition, are running away from the Prime Minister at a great rate of knots. The Prime Minister was not able to add to the coalition vote in the by-election for the seat of Griffith, and he probably assisted in losing the Liberals the state election in South Australia. It is little wonder, when you cast your eye over some of the paraphernalia the coalition candidates will be handing out—the how-to-votes, for example—that in a few weeks time at polling booths in Western Australia you will not see a picture of the Prime Minister on anything. He is in witness protection. The people of Western Australia have realised, as the coalition parties in Western Australia have realised, that he had a plan to win government but no plan to govern, and that the people they elected were not the government they were told to expect. The government's priorities are all wrong and their policies are hyped-up hyperbole with no substance, and we see that in the legislation before the House today.

4:40 pm

Photo of Karen McNamaraKaren McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to support the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014. The Abbott coalition government is committed to assisting Australia's businesses and community groups by removing $1 billion in red and green tape costs. For the first time in history, two days of parliament each year will be dedicated to removing red tape. Today marks the first of these two days. Today, 10,000 regulations and pieces of legislation are being repealed, resulting in over $700 million in savings, less compliance and fewer hours spent completing paperwork. This represents the largest-ever single bulk repeal in the history of the Commonwealth. This is in stark contrast to the 21,000 regulations introduced in the past six years by the Labor government—as well as the toxic carbon and mining taxes. As a result of Labor's pro-regulation approach to government, Australia has been ranked 128 out of 148 countries surveyed for burden of government regulation by the World Economic Forum.

I have listened to the small businesses and community groups of Dobell who have told me of their struggle with the costs of compliance, which impact on their productivity and ability to grow, invest and create new jobs. No-one would argue that business regulation is essential for ensuring the rights of employers, employees and the general public are protected. Unfortunately, business regulation that is inefficient or unnecessary imposes undue costs on business. The costs of compliance are seen as a major barrier to growth. The average Australian business deals with eight regulators in a given year, spends close to four per cent of their total annual expenditure on complying with regulatory requirements and spends approximately 19 hours a week on compliance-related activities.

I would like to acknowledge in the parliament today the delegation from Dobell, comprising Mr Daniel Farmer from the Central Coast NSW Business Chamber, Mr John Mouland and Mr Phil Walker from Regional Development Australia Central Coast, and Ms Christine Hornery from the Dobell Women's Business Forum. Their presence today demonstrates the support in our community for our government's commitment to removing unnecessary red and green tape. Ms Hornery, CEO of a local financial advice business, the FMS Group, has applauded the government for its FoFA changes, saying:

Without the removal of this red tape, the financial impact on small financial advice businesses in setting up systems, training, supervision, monitoring and reporting would have been significant.

Ms Hornery informed me that the estimated additional costs of compliance would be equivalent to one full-time employee's wage. FMS Group can now retain an additional employee and will not need to pass on additional unnecessary costs to their clients. This is just one example of where the government's deregulation initiatives will have a positive impact on local businesses by strengthening their capacity to grow and deliver more jobs, which we desperately need on the Central Coast, where we have an unemployment rate of 6.88 per cent and a youth unemployment rate of 34 per cent, both well above the national averages. Mr Mouland stated:

It is great to see the Commonwealth introduce measures to simplify or completely remove unnecessary or duplicated regulation that directly adds to the spiralling cost of compliance that local Central Coast businesses face.

Mr Mouland, Mr Walker, Mr Farmer and Ms Hornery, while in parliament today, have had the opportunity to meet with ministers and advise them that the majority of local businesses on the Central Coast are micro-, small- or medium-sized enterprises that will greatly benefit from the repeal of these burdensome regulations. This, in turn, will drive productivity improvements and boost further regional economic growth.

Red and green tape is being cut across nearly every government portfolio to the tune of $700 million. It is worth highlighting that the broader economic benefit will be much larger than this. It has been said that regulation must never be the default option for government but only a means of last resort following genuine consultation with stakeholders. The risk of failure when it comes to deregulation reform is too great to bear. Australia has a $400 billion investment pipeline which represents thousands of potential new jobs in regions such as the Central Coast and around the nation.

In closing, I would like to thank those from Dobell who have travelled to be here in parliament today to mark this special occasion and share in this government's resolve to ease the burden of unnecessary red and green tape, enabling regions such as the Central Coast to prosper under a stronger economy where everyone can get ahead. I commend this bill to the House.

4:44 pm

Photo of Bernie RipollBernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | | Hansard source

This has to be one of the most laughable and hilarious wastes of time of this parliament. It has to be one of the biggest stunts that any government could foist on the Australian people. It is the normal business of a government to do this as a regular part of their work. It is not something that you would crow about. If anybody who is listening to this debate turned up to their job, they would not make a big show and dance of the fact that they merely came to work. That is their job. The job of this parliament is to actually deal with a whole range of legislation and regulations while trying to make Australia a better place. Every once in a while, part of making Australia a better place ought to be about getting rid of a whole heap of old redundant acts and regulations, and that is done all the time.

That is what Labor did when we were in government. We set about the task of getting rid of some of that old legislation, but we did not overly focus on that to the detriment of doing other, more important things—particularly looking at a seamless national economy and particularly looking at the vast range of things needed by people and by small business to make their lives easier. We took it seriously.

This goes beyond just being a joke: it is an insult. The government are talking about the biggest bonfire in Australian history, and they believe that the bigger pile of paper you burn, somehow, the better you have done. It might feel good for five minutes. For five minutes those opposite are going to beat their chest; they are going to crow about how much regulation, red tape and burden have cost small business. They are going to crow about how much better everyone is going to feel. But that feeling of good is not going to last a really long time, because the next day, after the bonfire burns out, when people ask themselves, 'What has changed in my life?' the answer will be very little to nothing at all. This is the problem.

This is just a stunt. They are repealing a whole heap of redundant regulations that are meaningless to anyone—regulations that have no impact. The vast majority of the measures that we are discussing have no impact at all—none. For example, take a look at the 12 acts in the Finance portfolio: old appropriation acts from 2010-11, 2011-12 and so on. These have already been implemented; they have been spent and they are expired. They do nothing. This government think that they can just pick up something that does nothing, burn it and say, 'Look at all the things that we have done'. Removing this legislation from the statute books really has no tangible effect, not for anyone—not small business, not anyone. People will not feel anything; they will just see a big cloud of smoke and a big fire. Nothing at all will have changed.

How ridiculous is this? Well, let me give you some examples. They are repealing two acts that ceased to be effective by the end of 2011. They are also including a single word; in three locations in two acts they are inserting the word 'former'. That is it: from 'was' to 'former'. I do not see how this is going to relieve a whole heap of cost or burden from anyone. In the Employment portfolio, they are repealing an act that administered an agency that was abolished nearly 20 years ago. Good on them! I am sure that will have a massive impact! I can still see businesspeople knocking down my door to say, 'Get rid of that redundant act from that agency that disappeared 20 years ago; it is burdening me in some particular way.'

It is really hard to see how much, if any, of this contributes to the very wobbly, jelly-like number—$700 million-odd—that they claim they are going to save. Curiously, though, the single biggest saving they were going to make was going to be to remove consumer protection for people under FoFA, the very important Future of Financial Advice reforms that Labor undertook after so many tens of thousands of people lost their life savings. They have now hit the pause button. Apparently they had an epiphany last weekend. They had been determined to push through on this no matter what, but something happened over the weekend—whether it is Western Australia, some really bad polling or something else—that made them think, 'Hang on a second, we just might be wrong on this.' They have hit the pause button, but nobody should be misled about what that means. It means they are coming back to it. If I read the minister's words correctly, he is coming back to it full steam ahead to rip away consumer protections to the people that most need them, the most vulnerable in our society: retirees and people saving for their retirement future.

One of the curious pieces of legislation that they are burning on this funeral pyre is a section of the Flags Act which specifies how large the stars on the Australian flag are to be. That is right: they are getting rid of a whole bit of paper that specifies the size of the star on the Australian flag. An enormous cost saving to small business! An enormous impact on the lives of ordinary Australians every day! When they sit around the kitchen table doing their budget they say: 'But, Mum, Dad, what about the size of the star on the Australian flag?' 'It's okay, son, the government has taken care of it. It has been thrown onto the pile to be burnt with all the other acts that do nothing at all.'

What else are the government doing? The Spirits Act of 1915 amended the Spirits Act 1906. It ceased to have effect in 2006. They are going to get rid of that one as well, because—yes, you guessed it—it does absolutely nothing. The Judiciary Act 1914 declared the High Court of Australia to be the Colonial Court of Admiralty. I did not know that it had any impact today, but it must be appropriate given that in the last 24 hours we have seen Tony Abbott and the government revisit the past and revisit history. Joe Hockey came in here with a budget paper from the 1900s. It is appropriate when we are bringing back lords, dames, knights and all sorts of things. These are the big-picture issues, aren't they! Isn't this what Australians were begging for at the election? Isn't this what they said their highest priority was? I do not think so. Earls, lords, graces and bringing a 'grace note' back to Australia are perhaps important to a few people—I do not deny that—but I did not think that it was a priority for government. I did not think that lords, dames and knights were going to make a whole heap of difference to small business. But it is, again, something that this government sees as a priority.

They are also repealing the spelling of the word 'e-mail'. No longer will it be law in Australia that email is 'e-mail'; it is now, by law 'email'. Good job! I know that that is going to save me an absolute fortune! When I type my next 'e-mail' I will make sure to omit the hyphen, which I have not used for a decade. Thank you for clarifying that piece of red tape and regulatory burden.

In a piece of heavy lifting so immense that I cannot even think of the weight of it, in 16 pieces of legislation the words 'facsimile transmission' will be outlawed! It will be substituted by the word 'fax'. My lord, the weight of burden relieved from my shoulders—this is a glorious day! I feel an inch taller; this is good news! On the bonfire of regulation in history: no more shall it be 'facsimile transmission' it shall be 'fax'. This a great government! I can remember the emails and letters I received saying, 'When will the government change the word facsimile to fax?' Well, it has been done. Thank you, Tony Abbott.

It is true that there are a large number of acts and regulations that will disappear, and all of us hate red tape. Don't we want to get rid of red tape? Don't we want to get rid of regulation? Of course we do. It is what Labor did in government. We just took it a bit more seriously. We thought, 'If you're going to get rid of red tape, make it about something that people aren't going to laugh at you for; make it about some regulation that actually has an impact, something that is going to be lasting.' We talk about legacies that we leave in this place—well, I am glad that the legacy that Tony Abbott and the Liberals are leaving behind is changing the word 'fax'. We can see that, in 100 years time—as Joe Hockey likes to say—they will be recounting this great regulation repeal day bonfire stunt because they managed to respell the word 'fax'!

Let us get a little bit serious in this place about our precious time, the cost of parliament and all the things we have got to do. The government is in the mode of: 'We just can't afford anything'—we can afford to waste time in here, of course, because that is different; they do not count what we get paid—'We can't afford anything in the budget; we can't afford to help support orphaned children, veterans, a whole range of people in disability areas or pensioners.' We asked the question today, 'Will you guarantee that pensioners won't be affected in the budget?' That is not a question, apparently, so we did not get an answer.

They talk about all this, and yet they have got time to waste on whether we are going to have new lords, knights and dames. We are going to spend a whole heap of time, effort and money. I would like to know how much it costs. Let us do an RIS on how much it costs for each minister of the government to go to the departmental head of all the departments they administer and say to them: 'Find me something—I don't care what it is: a comma; a full stop in the wrong place. Pore through every single page—thousands and thousands of pages—but find me something I can repeal, because we want a big bonfire.' And so the Public Service diligently follows the instructions of the minister to the letter. I hate to think how much that cost. How much money was wasted in going through this sham of a process? It is the biggest bonfire that nobody cares about.

I will grant them this. If for five minutes they actually think this is going to be really well accepted—the red tape is gone and all the rest of it—then I will give them some red tape that they could look at. What about BAS statements? Now there is a problem for small business and business. What is the government's view on BAS? Or tax, for that matter? Let us have a look at the things that really impact on people.

What Labor did in government was substantial. It had weight and it had purpose. Most small businesses—more than half of them—turn over less than $200,000 a year. That is not a lot of money. One of the biggest things we did for small business and for ordinary people when we came to government was to triple the tax-free threshold from $6,000 to $18,000—now there is doing something serious. That impacts on low-income families, middle-income families, high-income families, small businesses, micro businesses, large businesses—everybody. Now that is something to crow about.

We went in there and said: 'We want to do something about your cash flow, so we are going to give you an uncapped $6,500 instant asset tax write-off. Every time you want to buy a piece of equipment, we are going to help you. Government is going to be there.' That was $4 billion worth of direct assistance to small business ripped away by the Liberals and the Nationals, who earbash us all to death saying that they are the friend of small business. They go up to small business, look them in the eye, shake their hand and then knife them in the back—thank you, friend! These are the friends of small business: the Shakespearean, Camelotian thespians that we see on the other side, who like to come in here and talk about mystical worlds that do not exist—and I am sure the minister at the table knows what I am referring to.

There is also a whole heap of other things that we did in terms of reducing red tape for small business, such as the seamless national economy or business names registration. Instead of having to register right across the country in all the different jurisdictions, do all the paperwork and pay $1,000, we got it down to a single point where businesses can register online seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for $70. That is red tape reduction. That is reducing costs for small business. That is doing something meaningful.

How do you want to be remembered in this place—as the joke ministers who turned up here with blank pieces of paper and said, 'We're going to halve your regulation'? Let me tell you one place they halved regulation. There was an act where there were two commas, one following the other. They removed one. There you go—they halved regulation! 'It is done; we took away a comma.' You think I am kidding—I am not. This is serious; this is real. This government wants people to take it seriously, and this is one of the things that it has done.

And the litany goes on, with a list so long—this bonfire of ridiculous proportions, this having a go at people, this taking the mickey, this thinking that the Australian public are somehow too stupid to realise that after the fire has died down nothing has changed. It is Monty Pythonesque, because there are parts where they have changed things—and these are massive changes, such as changing 'approval of care recipient principles' by adding a single letter or changing the order of the words! I am a big fan of Monty Python, and I remember that really good segment where the Judean People's Front were the splitters from the People's Front of Judea. That is the sort of government we have been given.

This is a mob that went out there on some big-picture stuff and said: 'We won the government, so we can do whatever we like. We might've mentioned it before the election—and now here is the detail, by the way, of all the things we are going to do to you.' Is getting rid of the schoolkids bonus one of those things? Sure, you might have mentioned it before the election, but I am not sure people understood fully that you would actually do it—or maybe they did, but they may not be happy about it. The government has come into this place under the pretence of helping small business, helping families and doing something concrete, and instead is being a laughing-stock. Over time—and I am not talking about a long time, but in the coming days, weeks and months—people will feel no impact. None. Zero. What you are doing with this repeal day stunt is nothing but a joke.

4:59 pm

Photo of Louise MarkusLouise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. This is a momentous occasion for our parliament and the future economic growth of our nation. This day represents one of two days to take place in parliament every year that will be dedicated to removing red tape—a measure that has never before been executed in our parliament. This bill is a clear indication that the coalition government has indeed listened to the Australian people, and I am a bit concerned that those people on the other side have not really understood what the Australian people and Australian business—particularly small business owners—are really calling for.

We heard the cry of frustration, we promised to do something, and now we have begun to deliver. There are some key figures that are significant today—10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulations, and savings of more than $700 million in compliance costs. We live in a nation of innovation, of enterprise and creativity, and small business is the foundation of that innovation and productivity. However, bad regulation and too much regulation hurts productivity, deters investment and innovation, and costs jobs. This is the legacy we have been left with by the former Labor government, which did nothing to stem the tide of rising regulation and compliance. In fact, they added to the burden, introducing more than 975 new or amended pieces of legislation and more than 21,000 additional regulations in little more than 5½ years. This has had a tangible effect on our economy. In the five years from mid-2007, Australia's multifactor productivity declined by nearly three per cent.

This bill implements a range of minor streamlining measures across 10 portfolios which include the amendment of 14 acts to streamline regulatory requirements to reduce regulatory burden or to make minor technical corrections and reference updates. It also sees the repeal of 43 spent and redundant acts and the amendment of 27 acts to repeal spent and redundant provisions. This is just the start of the measures to be implemented by the coalition. This bill is significant for the future productivity of our nation, but it is also important for the small business owners in my electorate. In the electorate of Macquarie there are more than 10,000 small businesses. These businesses vary from tourism to agriculture to retail and manufacturing. Macquarie is a product sector economy driven by small business and tourism, and many small businesses are struggling and crying out for change.

Recently I hosted the Minister for Small Business, the Hon. Bruce Billson, for two round tables with small business owners and stakeholders—one in the Hawkesbury and one in the Blue Mountains. The message the minister and I were given at those discussions was clear: red tape and compliance burdens are hurting small business. We heard that some businesses and organisations are required to hire someone full-time purely to deal with compliance. Small business owners are also having to be full-time administrators rather than having the freedom to do what they do best: grow their business.

Di Sherrington is the president of the Windsor Business Group and owner of Dinky Di Cleaning Supplies with her husband, Roger, in Windsor. Di spoke out at the round table, saying there was an increasing frustration at the hurdles small business had to jump through:

It is the compliance requirements that do nothing but create red tape that is killing small business.

Jo Bromilow, president of the Blaxland Chamber of Commerce, who also attended the forum, agreed. Jo said that it would be renewing to see how the coalition plays out in abolishing red tape and allowing small businesses to grow, to move forward without the constant usage of paperwork that achieves nothing for their business. She says:

Small businesses play a significant role in the Australian economy and it is already apparent that the optimism is returning to small businesses which will only lead to employment growth and investment into this crucial area of the economy.

The measures announced in this bill as well as measures to come that have been previously announced will have a tangible impact for the people of Macquarie. The change of identity verification requirements for pre-paid mobile services will help retailers. Around 30,000 retailers nationwide will no longer have to photocopy ID for pre-paid mobile phone customers, who will not need to prove their identity twice—at point of purchase and at activation. The streamlining of agricultural chemical and veterinary medicine approvals will, among other changes, remove the expiry of AgVet chemicals approvals and registrations and the need for businesses to apply for re-approval or re-registration, which would impose additional costs on industry. This will be of great benefit to the men and women of the Hawkesbury who are involved in the agricultural industry. The small business owner down the road in Windsor will no longer have to administer paid parental leave employers. Paid parental leave will be administered centrally by the family assistance office, removing nearly $50 million in paperwork from employers and having access to a dedicated Fair Work Ombudsman hotline for small business users. And of course the carbon tax—which has already caused so much unnecessary stress and financial burden for small businesses in the electorate of Macquarie—will be repealed.

This legislation goes to the heart of what the coalition stands for. We want to create the best environment for people, for families and particularly for small business to thrive in. We want to remove the shackles and the load and to allow them to dream, create and live without being burdened by unnecessary bureaucratic practices. I commend this bill to the House.

5:05 pm

Photo of Jim ChalmersJim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the package of bills that was in the big repeal day stunt last Wednesday, when we got all the fanfare, all the trumpets, the big carnival atmosphere—how happy we were to see all this regulation go. But when you go through the detail you see that there is a lot to be questioned in this approach.

If you believe the government, the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills repeal more than 1,000 acts of parliament and make all kinds of amendments to existing legislation across a whole range of bills. And I want to make it clear from the outset that we come to these sorts of matters with an open mind, because we will always support the removal of legislation that is redundant, irrelevant or no longer applicable. It is a position we have always held. In the last Labor government we repealed more than 16,000—something like 16,794, to be precise—pieces of spent and redundant acts, regulations and legislative instruments from the statute books. We are up for this kind of effort, and we have got some form given those 16,000 plus pieces of deregulation we did ourselves. We are always up for getting rid of useless or redundant regulation. The fact is regulation is not useless or redundant if it protects consumers, small businesses or the environment. Once you make the decision to repeal this legislation do not over-claim that it has some tremendous compliance cost-benefit for business. I want to get back into that in a moment, because there has been an extraordinary amount of exaggeration in this debate that needs to be cleared up.

In my mind the repeals legislated for in this package fall into one of three categories. Firstly there are worthy repeals, which is legislation that genuinely makes it easier for business to operate without an impact on consumers. The second category is the trivial repeals, like the legislation that corrects typographical errors or removes reference to programs that lapsed a long time ago. The third one, the one that concerns me the most, is the mean and tricky category—the attacks to the FoFA regulations; the abolitions of the Charities and Not-for-profits Commission; and the heartless attacks on cleaners wages hidden inside this package, which were brought to my attention by a colleague.

The package of bills before us today contains repeals of each of these three types. Sadly, the trivial and mean repeals far outnumber the worthy ones. Let me just briefly touch on each of those categories so that you know what I mean.

The first one is the worthy category. A sensible starting point for a discussion of the worthy stuff is to look at the deregulation agenda undertaken by the last Labor government. As I said before, we repealed over 16,000 redundant acts, regulations and instruments from the statute books. What distinguishes Labor's deregulatory agenda from the so-called bonfire of regulations undertaken by the Abbott government is that Labor's reforms were targeted towards the Seamless National Economy objective. We did not over-claim about the benefits and we did not make a big deal of it. As a result of Labor's regulation reforms, Australians are now protected by a single national consumer law instead of 20 separate acts, which ensures more consistent protection for consumers. Our Commonwealth scheme to regulate the licensing and supervision of trustee corporations commenced, replacing eight complex state and territory regimes. I could go on, but you get the point.

All in all, the Productivity Commission estimated that the completion of just the first half of the Seamless National Economy agenda lowered business costs around Australia by a total of $4 billion per year. That was really big achievement of the previous Labor government. I want to pay tribute to a guy who was in the chamber today: the great man David Bradbury, who did a lot of that work for the last Labor government. He has just been appointed to a big job, and we congratulate him. He was a very diligent reformer in the last two terms of the Labor government.

Hidden among the punctuation corrections and spent legislation repeals that make up the bulk of this omnibus bill, there are a few example of good deregulation that Labor will support. These are things like the amendments to the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act, which will improve efficiency of the framework. There are things like the certification requirements in the Aged Care Act, which can conflict with the National Construction Code and accreditation standards. That is in line with the PC recommendation to get rid of it. Labor will support these types of amendments, and they would have been high on our agenda if we had won government last September.

But these worthy repeals are largely lost amongst the second type of repeal, which is the huge sea of trivialities that make up most of this package. I thought the member for Oxley did a very good job a moment ago running through some of those trivialities. We have this bonfire of regulation, and a supposed $700 million of savings that was introduced last week.

It is worthwhile to consider the nature of some of that particular legislation. We have the 33 instances of replacing 'facsimile transmission' with 'fax'. We have got the 47 instances in this legislation where we are replacing 'e-mail' with 'email'. We have 50 instances of grammatical and spelling errors, missing comas, forgotten capital letters, the occasionally missing hyphen, and that kind of thing. That is the sort of farce that a great deal of this bill is about. Whatever—make these changes, but do not over-claim that they have some big compliance cost saving for business. It is a far cry from the biggest bonfire of regulations in our history, as the Prime Minister described it a week ago.

We have had a bit of ancient history this week with the whole knights and dames issue yesterday afternoon. We have some more ancient history here, in the sense that something like 1,120 acts of parliament from as far back as 1904 are being removed in this package. I do not know what this government's obsession with the deep past is, but there you go. All of these acts are currently spent or redundant. No need to have them, but there is no harm in them being there either, and there is certainly no compliance cost saving in them. Many of those pieces of legislation that we wave goodbye to refer to organisations that were wound up long ago. In one case it was the Colonial Courts of Admiralty, which ceased to exist in 1988. In those sorts of redundant acts the bottom line is that they have no effect on business, government or ordinary Australians. In certain cases they have not had any impact for some decades.

It is pretty difficult to understand the explanatory memorandum of the amending acts, which claims they will reduce the regulatory burden, a claim that is repeated regularly by the Prime Minister and the member for Kooyong. Given that these acts do not affect any business, any government or any ordinary Australian, I cannot understand how there will be any reduction in the regulatory burden.

To understand it a bit better I had a look at the member for Kooyong's flashy new website, cuttingredtape.gov.au. In the little red book of deregulation on there he defined regulation as:

Any rule endorsed by government where there is an expectation of compliance.

I think he fails his own test. There is no expectation for those 1,120 pieces of legislation that anyone must comply with them. So you cannot claim it as a compliance savings. They cannot be tape of any colour, red or green or otherwise, if they do not bind anyone. A big number of those do not bind anyone.

The Prime Minister claimed that the repeal package will save $700 million. If there is no compliance burden on a big chunk of these regulations, it is hard to see how they save money. Indeed, the explanatory memoranda of two of the bills claim they will have no financial impact at all.

The Prime Minister likes to describe this package as lighting the biggest bonfire of regulation in our history. I was a bit more enamoured with the way the member for Watson described it. It is like getting excited that we vacuumed the spare room that nobody walks into anyway. All this talk of bonfires, red tape and $700 million in savings has served to obscure the noxious attacks on good regulation hiding in this package. The government's cutting red tape agenda is all predicated on the assumption that every law and every regulation is bad for business and is pointless red tape. As Ross Gittins, a very smart man, wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald this week:

… red tape is in the mind of the beholder: it's red tape if you don't like it and good governance if you do.

Or as President Obama's former chief regulatory policy adviser put it:

Smart regulations save lives and dollars.

I think there are several parts of this deregulation that could seriously affect people's lives and dollars.

Of course, the most topical one in the last little while is the removal of the Future of Financial Advice legislation. That repeal is now frozen. They should dump the repeal entirely. It has been a shambles. That regulation was designed to protect people, to protect older people and their savings and people in the financial system from unscrupulous activity and from collapses—all of that. It is good that that has been frozen but that repeal now needs to be dumped because that is the sort of regulation that is good regulation.

It is just another case of vested interests getting their way on the other side. They get in the ear of the government and before you know it consumer protection goes out the window. These repeal changes were opposed by many of the relevant stakeholders representing small- and medium-sized financial institutions, including the peak financial advice body, the Financial Planning Association. I am pleased to see it is on ice, but the government should go one step further and promise not to make these harmful changes to FoFA regulation in the future. Also, according to the website, the FoFA repeal was worth about $200 million of the $700 million in savings that is claimed. So I hope we do not hear anything more about the $700 million in savings. It was probably a rubbish figure in the first place, but now it is at least $200 million less.

Another nasty thing in the package is the removal of Commonwealth regulation allowing cuts to the wages of government cleaners. This is the bit that I find really offensive about the package. Sure, have a deregulation package, have an argument about it and have the debate in this House, but do not use it as a smokescreen to harm some of the most vulnerable people in our country, the people who clean government office buildings. It is a disgraceful thing that hidden amongst thousands of pages of stuff is what can only be characterised as an attack on vulnerable people. I have a lot of low-income workers in my electorate. My colleague next to me at the table does as well, the member for Blair. It is a disgrace when the Prime Minister stands up and says, 'How great is this deregulation?' It is not great if you are a low-income cleaner in a government building. There are thousands of cleaners who will be hit by these changes, each one of them missing out on between $172 and $255 a week in an already small pay packet. It is disappointing that a cut of that nature, one that will have such a devastating impact on cleaners, has been included in this legislation.

There is also the repeal of the Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. My colleague the member for Fraser has gone through that at some length. I think it is worth noting again that charities overwhelmingly support this regulation. It is the good kind and it should not be repealed for political reasons.

The political stunt that is repeal day has not lived up to the hype and the hyperbole of the government's announcements. As I have said before, the Labor Party will always support the removal of legislation that is redundant, irrelevant or no longer applicable. But it is not any of those things when it hurts people like low-income workers. It is not any of those things when it makes charities more effective in this country and better regulated. We need to be very careful to go beyond the spin, the bluster, the smoke and mirrors, the trumpets and the fanfare of repeal day, and make sure that we are not doing anything that will hurt people in our community who are currently protected by the good kind of regulation. For this reason, the opposition have moved an amendment. It does not decline to give the bill a second reading but does allow us to highlight some of the key problems with the legislation.

The main issue with the package is that amongst the trivialities and the few instances of genuinely worthy deregulation it contains there are several really concerning and callous amendments that have been slipped in. When we discuss deregulation, it is important that we do not confuse so-called red tape with genuinely useful regulation which protects small business, protects our environment and protects ordinary Australians, and then having made those announcements do not overclaim the compliance costs for small business.

5:19 pm

Photo of Natasha GriggsNatasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise today to lend my support for the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. This is a significant step along the path of deregulation and another example of how the coalition are honouring the promises we made before the election. In opposition, we said that we would cut $1 billion in red and green tape from the statutes, and that is exactly what we are doing. This is the first of two repeal days we are going to have each year. Today, we are removing over 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation, saving businesses, NGOs and other operations over $700 million in compliance costs. The previous Labor government introduced more than 21,000 additional regulations, which served only to stifle investment, dull job creation and anchor the Australian economy.

Too much regulation hurts productivity, deters investors, stifles innovation and most importantly costs jobs. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry 2012 red tape survey identified that 44 per cent of businesses spend between one and five hours a week complying with government regulatory requirements; 72 per cent of businesses said that their time is spent on red tape and that increased in the last two years; and 54.3 per cent said that complying with government regulations has prevented them from making changes to grow or expand their businesses. The coalition believe that before regulation is passed we must ask what the purpose, cost and impact is on productivity. I will not answer those questions, instead I will leave it to those affected by regulation.

The National Farmers Federation recently threw its support behind the government's changes. Its general manager of policy, Tony Mahar, says:

Effective regulation is necessary. It safeguards businesses, the environment and our communities. Poorly designed regulation, however, can act like a tax on business, raising costs and stifling innovation. A particular focus on improving regulation surrounding transport of agricultural goods, on-farm labour and environmental assessments could realise significant benefits for farm businesses and should be prioritised by policy makers.

To assist in achieving deregulation, senior public servants will have their remuneration directly linked to their performance in reducing red and green tape.

The Northern Territory, like the rest of Australia, will benefit from today's repeal of legislation. For example, aged-care building certification at a federal level will be removed. Currently, aged-care residences in the Northern Territory must comply with both the territory and the federal building requirements. This is a wasteful duplication of regulation, given that the Northern Territory has such a high building standard because of its occasionally unruly weather. This measure alone will result in an estimated $3.42 million in compliance savings. The coalition will also focus on streamlining errors and costly processes such as removing the requirement for universities submitting capital asset management surveys requiring information on size, use, management and maintenance of assets and spaces. I know the Charles Darwin University, from my electorate, will be really happy about this.

Equipment hire firms and their customers will also benefit. The wacker packers, which are used for compacting soil and can propel themselves at the speed of five kilometres an hour, will no longer be considered a motor vehicle needing registration under the Personal Property Securities Act. And neither will cement mixers. The common sense continues. As some of my colleagues have already stated, after this legislation is repealed around 30,000 retailers nationally will no longer have to photocopy ID for prepaid mobile phone customers, who will not need to prove their identity twice at point of activation.

I wholly support this bill and congratulate many of my coalition members, whose hard work played an important role in delivering on this very important election promise. Those on the other side could just listen and learn. Get on board and stop being so negative. I heard someone make the comment that these things do not impact business. Everything that we do in this place affects business. We on this side know that because many of us are from a private sector background. The burden of red tape and regulation has an impact on business. That is why I am proud to be supporting these measures here today.

5:25 pm

Photo of Amanda RishworthAmanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | | Hansard source

I am going to have to keep my remarks short because, unfortunately, the government has gagged this debate, which is appalling. But, of course, we all know that it is an absolute stunt being pulled today by the coalition. I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 as well as the two other bills before the House. What we have seen from the coalition today are big promises that they would lift the burden of red tape. Indeed, we have heard those on the opposite side evoke American heroes, like Ronald Reagan, as people to hold up high as big deregulators. Of course, if Ronald Reagan were here in the chamber, I think he would be a little embarrassed to have his name invoked by the speakers opposite on this bill, because the focus really has been on a range of legislation that has been on the books—never used—and, indeed—

Photo of Michelle RowlandMichelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | | Hansard source

They are nearly as old as Reagan!

Photo of Amanda RishworthAmanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | | Hansard source

Almost as old as Reagan—and even older, indeed. These laws go back to 1901. They have not been used. But, of course, here the coalition are championing these as big reforms saving large amounts of money et cetera. We see in the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill that, in terms of Defence, this repeals three acts which were redundant and amends another due to the repeal of a redundant act. It repeals an act that administered an agency in the employment area which was abolished in 1995. In finance, it once again has no financial impact. It repeals 12 older appropriation acts that have no effect as government agencies have already appropriated the funds. So you can see here that there has been a lot of bluster. There has been a lot of chest beating and a lot of claims made by the opposition, but today they have not delivered. Indeed, rather than a bonfire, we have seen, perhaps, a tiny bit of kindling—if that.

Buried in some of this absolute rubbish that we are hearing from the coalition, unfortunately, we have a couple nasty things. In particular, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the repeal of the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines, which were set up to regulate minimum pay and conditions of cleaners.

Photo of Josh FrydenbergJosh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | | Hansard source

Very important; market rates.

Photo of Amanda RishworthAmanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | | Hansard source

It is interesting. I hear the member for Kooyong say 'market rates'. I am sure he would like to abolish all minimum protections of wages and conditions and allow workers to be out there as individuals and seeing what the market will pay them. On this side of the House, we believe in a minimum wage and we believe in the protections that are associated with it. While there has been a lot of guff, a lot of typos corrected and a lot of repeals of acts that have not made a difference at all to business, at all to the community or, indeed, at all to the workings of government, we do see a few little sneaky things here.

I am very disappointed that the repeal of the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines makes cleaners in this place and, indeed, throughout the Australian government very, very vulnerable. I have met many cleaners who work at this place. They are always here with a friendly smile, and, indeed, one of the lovely cleaners dropped over some cucumbers to my office the other day. They put in so much effort and show so much kindness to us to make sure that we can do our jobs. All this government can do is, under a buried mound of pieces of legislation that mean nothing, rip away their pay, conditions and protections. I call on the government to reconsider this nasty and tricky act. This is very concerning. I do not have time because, as I have said, I have been gagged by the government, so I cannot talk about—

Photo of Michelle RowlandMichelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | | Hansard source

It's meant to be repeal day!

Photo of Amanda RishworthAmanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | | Hansard source

It is meant to be repeal day, but they are gagging me at 5.30. I had a lot to say, and I would like to talk about the Australian charities—

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

It being 5.30, in accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier today I call the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister.

5:30 pm

Photo of Josh FrydenbergJosh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I take the opportunity today to sum up on the bills before the House: the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014, the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014 and the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 1) 2014. This is very hard for the Labor Party to stomach. We have come up with an idea that you did not think of first. We have come up with an idea to deregulate the Australian economy, not re-regulate the Australian economy. On the omnibus bill, we have heard from the members on our side—not from the members opposite—of how aged-care building certification will no longer be duplicated at the federal and state level and how Telstra will not have to provide 70,000 pages of wholesale contracts to the ACCC because now they can just provide a list of the contracts they enter into to the ACCC, with the opportunity for the ACCC to ask for those individual contracts as they wish.

All the measures within the omnibus bill, together with the legislation that we introduced last week in the House, and a whole range of other measures that we have either previously introduced or have done in an administrative manner, have produced a $720 million pay-off for the Australian economy, for small businesses, for families and for not-for-profit organisations. This has got rid of more than 10,000 unnecessary and redundant regulations and acts. Why didn't you think of that? The reason the Labor Party did not think of this is that their default position is to regulate. The default position in their DNA is to increase regulation. Twenty-one thousand additional regulations were introduced under the previous Rudd and Gillard governments. That is a shameful legacy. And what did it mean? It meant that multifactor productivity in this country fell by around three per cent in the five years from mid-2007. The World Economic Forum did a survey of 148 countries and found that Australia was a pitiful 128th in terms of the overall regulatory burden. The Economist Intelligence Unit did a survey of 51 countries for productivity growth, and where did Australia come? Fiftieth out of 51, only marginally ahead of Botswana.

Ms Rishworth interjecting

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Kingston is not in her correct place and is not entitled to interject.

Photo of Josh FrydenbergJosh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | | Hansard source

That is the legacy that the previous Labor government left us. This is despite Kevin Rudd promising a 'one in, one out' policy when it came to regulations. This is despite Craig Emerson, who was then the minister for small business, one of six small business ministers that Labor had, saying in 2008 that he would take a giant pair of scissors—how big?—to cut red tape. Instead, they gave us 21,000 regulations.

There was the independent Borthwick-Milliner review. The member for Watson should listen to this. Your own previous government commissioned the Borthwick-Milliner independent review into the operation of regulatory processes, and it found that your government was disregarding the need for a RIS process, a regulatory impact statement process. There are more than 80 examples of noncompliance by the previous Labor government when it comes to regulatory impact statements. They include some of the biggest and most important legislative changes that they brought into place: the carbon tax, the mining tax, the Fair Work changes, FoFA, the NBN. All of those were shamefully exempted by the then Labor government from the regulatory impact statement process. You were not interested in understanding the impact on business, on the not-for-profit sector, on compliance, on productivity, on new entrants, on jobs, on jobs, on jobs. That is why, under your government, we saw an increase in unemployment and a slowdown in productivity—because the previous Labor government did not pay attention to the true impact of the regulations that they were introducing.

As I have met with industry groups, with not-for-profit organisations and with small businesses around the country as part of this government's deregulation effort, I have identified five key areas which we need to tackle in our deregulation fight. The first is volume. There is too much volume of regulation, and the previous Labor government gave us 21,000 additional regulations. The second is that there is massive duplication in our federal system between federal and state governments. We are trying to tackle this, because we do not want to see companies go through the process which the BCA documented for one environmental approval, which cost the company more than $20 million, took more than two years, required 4,000 meetings and a 12,000 page report, and then, when the approval came through, had 1,500 conditions attached, 1,200 at the state level and 300 at the federal level. We have said, 'No more do we want that level of duplication between federal and state.' Greg Hunt, the Minister for the Environment, should be congratulated, because he has succeeded in getting signatures from all states and territories, even from the Labor states and territories, onto the MOUs for one-stop shop environmental approvals.

The third area that we must tackle as part of our deregulation effort—in addition to the volume, in addition to the duplication—is the need for better forms of consultation with those who are most affected by regulations. Under the Labor government that the Australian people were subject to over the last six years, there was no genuine consultation. The Labor government presented their 21,000 new additional regulations to those stakeholders as a fait accompli. There was a little bit of negotiation around the edges, maybe, but there was no genuine consultation. So as a government we have said that we will have a RISprocess and we will genuinely consult with those parties who are most affected by any new regulation.

Fourthly, we are going to ensure that we have mandatory post-implementation reviews and a greater use of sunset clauses. Under the previous Labor government there were no mandatory reviews. The Minister for Social Services, the Hon. Kevin Andrews, sitting alongside me, knows that in his own of area thousands of regulations were introduced by previous Labor governments that have lived on the statute books long after their use-by date. We want to ensure that statutes and regulations do not live on beyond their use-by date. We need better use of sunset clauses. We need to ensure that there are mandatory post-implementation reviews and, if we do need to review or renew a regulation, then let us do it, but let us not leave redundant regulations on the statute books.

Finally, a key area for our deregulation effort is dealing with the role of the regulators. Yes, the regulations on the statute books are important but equally important is how those regulations are administered. The member for Watson may laugh. He thinks this issue is funny, but this issue is not funny. This is a very serious issue because the roles of the regulators need to be looked at. We commissioned a Productivity Commission report, which was released last week, which provides us with a framework for auditing the performance of the regulators. We say to the ACCC, to APRA, to the ATO and to ASIC, you do a very important job but you must get the balance right between risk and cost because, if you blindly administer regulations without understanding the impact they have on stakeholders, you will drive up the costs to business to the point where they are counter-productive for the economy.

The Commonwealth has 75 external regulators and 68 internal regulators. This Productivity Commission review provides very important information about how we audit the performance of the regulators. For example, do they distinguish organisations between their licensing and advice functions and their enforcement functions, which is consistent with good governance? Do they encourage self-regulation where it is appropriate? Do they have good regular dialogue with key stakeholders who are affected? We are going to tackle the role of regulators. As I said, we have introduced measures which will produce a dividend, a compliance saving to the Australian people of more than $700 million. We have done that by avoiding duplication between federal and state levels but also between state levels. One of our great initiatives is NOPSEMA's offshore petroleum approvals process because we do not want two federal regulators duplicating there.

We have streamlined existing measures—for example, in the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014, which deals with overlapping building certification requirements for the aged care sector. So we now will not have duplication. We have said on the Personal Property Securities Act 2009, how can you define a motor vehicle as being equivalent to a whacker packer or to a scissor lift, which is currently the definition under the PPSA, meaning that the compliance burden on small hire firms is very prohibitive? We have said to the not-for-profit organisations—like the Brotherhood of St Laurence—when you are managing a $100 million Commonwealth program like HIPPY, which provides education support for disadvantaged families around the country, you should not have to report in detail to the Department of Education on a monthly basis. You can do it on a quarterly basis and that can save you up to half a million dollars.

We have taken a number of measures which have dealt with duplication and streamlining. We have also taken an axe to those regulations which are producing very silly outcomes. The member for Watson may be a great fan of Kung Fu Panda, but I bet he did not know before our repeal day that Kung Fu Panda required four sets of classifications because it was on DVD, in 2-D, in 3-D and in Blu-ray. We have said that we just need one set of classifications to save thousands of dollars.

We have said job service providers no longer need to keep paper records of job applications—one job service provider had 336 cabinets full of paper records—when they can keep those electronically online. We have said to the university sector—where they face a $280 million annual compliance burden—through the Minister for Education, we will do something significant to cut that regulatory burden. It was Universities Australia who said that this government is now walking the talk on deregulation. Universities no longer have to report in detail to the federal departments about how they use their lecture theatres, their tutorial halls and their academic offices.

These are just some of the many measures we have introduced. But more important than the legislative measures and the administrative measures that we have introduced are the processes we are adopting—like the regulatory impact statements which will be adhered to by our government in a way that will ensure we will better understand the true impact of overregulation on the taxpayer, on small business, on families and on the not-for-profit organisations. It is something the previous government had their heads in the sand about, and they gave us 21,000 additional regulations. I am very confident that, as we move towards our $1 billion annual red tape reduction target, as the deregulation units are set up in every minister's department and as the Prime Minister is now taking responsibility, we will not only save money for those people who create jobs or help those most in need but be upholding freedom, encouraging personal responsibility and ensuring that the nanny state lives no longer in Australia.

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The original question was that these bills be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Watson has moved as an amendment to the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question, therefore, is that the amendment be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Pursuant to the resolution agreed earlier today, I will now put the question that the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and two related bills be now read a second time.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.