Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is rare in the parliament to have so much hype over so little. I congratulate the member for Kooyong on what is an extraordinary level of spin over legislation that says very, very little—arguably, close to nothing. I am not surprised that the House has just carried a resolution, with majority support from government members, to make sure that they have to speak on these bills for today only. If I were them I would not be wanting this debate to continue beyond today either.

With this bonfire it is all smoke. People on the government benches are getting all excited about the fact that someone has decided to vacuum the spare room that nobody walks into anyway. The legislation that is in front of us—the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and related legislation—is a series of legislative instruments that no-one has looked at for years, that have no impact on anyone, that have no effect at all. But we keep hearing from those opposite that this legislation is going to make a big difference for business. I hope that during the debate we hear from government members about the repeal within these bills. The legislation repeals the Defence Act 1903, which amended a definition relating to a naval officer of a state navy. The states have not had navies since 1913. But just in case Queensland or Tasmania or Western Australia decide to bring back a state navy, the member for Kooyong is onto them, making sure the repeal has taken place first.

The legislation also repeals the Defence Act 1909, which, among other things, stipulated that the owner of a mule or bullock required for naval or military purposes shall furnish it for such purposes and that the owner may have to register it from time to time. So, just in case new orders come from members of the Defence Force whereby they want to reintroduce mules and bullocks to the ADF, the member for Kooyong is onto them, making sure we are up to date and repealing the relevant regulations. How this is going to make a difference to small business, only the member for Kooyong knows; only the media releases from the member for Kooyong can tell us how this is removing red tape for business. But he is clearly proud of it—proud of it enough to ask the Leader of the House, 'Please, can we just make sure this debate goes for only one day?'

The legislation also repeals the Judiciary Act 1914, which made the High Court of Australia a Colonial Court of Admiralty. Colonial Courts of Admiralty ceased to exist in 1988, but, just in case someone decides to bring one back, the member for Kooyong again is onto them, making sure that it can be dealt with. The legislation repeals a series of spirits amendment acts, including from 1915, 1918, 1923 and 1932. The main Spirits Act ceased to have any effect in 2006. The legislation also repeals the Passports Act 1948, which used a definition for the meaning of an Australian citizen for the purposes of obtaining a passport which was changed anyway in 2007.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So why didn't you get rid of the statute?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is out of his seat when he is interjecting, which is just silly. Repealing legislation which has no impact is not something we are going to vote against. It is not something to get all excited about and say, 'How dare they do that?' We did similar things. What we did not do was the fanfare, pretending that this will make a scrap of difference to business, because it will not. All this is is cleaning and vacuuming the spare room. You have got to do it from time to time. It is a reasonable thing to do. But it is not something where you can pretend that somehow this makes you the friend of business.

The legislation repeals an amendment to the Flags Act 1953 which amended the size of the Commonwealth star on the Australian flag from three-eighths of the width of the flag to three-tenths of the width of the flag. As the size change was made into law, the amendment act is redundant. It does not matter whether the amendment act is there or not. You want to get rid of it? Not a problem, but I want to know which small business out there is going to say, 'The red-tape burden is lifted for me because I was checking and was not sure what the size of the Federation star on the flag was, and I was confused that the amendment act was still there on the books.'

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 amends or repeals legislation almost all of which has no consequence at all. I challenge those opposite, when they are referring in their speeches to the difference this will make to small business, to refer to one section of the bill—just one. I reckon what is going to happen for those opposite today is that they will give a general red-tape speech. They will give a general speech about regulations being bad. They will give an example of too much legislation and things like that. But I reckon they will not be able to make a single link in their speeches between a single word within the legislation that is before the parliament and there being a difference for business. Maybe they will prove me wrong. Maybe there are small businesses in the mule and bullock trade that have been anxiously waiting for this to be clarified on the statute books. But I reckon we are about to see a day of speeches where no-one opposite can draw a single link in their speeches to a single act that is being repealed through these items of legislation that are before us today.

Here is a classic one. In the finance portfolio every year we have appropriation bills go through. The appropriation bills that went through in 2010-11 and 2011-12 are going to be repealed. What does an appropriation bill do? It has parliament voting for money to be transferred across. In 2010-11 and 2011-12 the appropriation bills were carried and the money was transferred across. They are now repealing those acts. Well, the money has been transferred. It makes no difference at all. There is no small business in the country, no business in the country and no government department in the country where this will make any difference at all, but today they are being repealed. If it were just being done in the way these items were dealt with in the previous government, where it was a standard clean-up, then no-one would have any argument. But to hold this up as being a serious example of economic reform is one of the strangest, most creative arguments I have heard in this place.

In the social services portfolio the legislation repeals 12 housing assistance acts that related to the provision of financial assistance to the states and territories. The acts were all made redundant in 2009, when payments to the states and territories became governed by the Federal Financial Relations Act. So they get repealed. So what? If those opposite want to deal with red tape, to provide clean air for, or to remove restrictions on, business, then maybe they should consider today's legislation having something to do with business—and not their shorthand for business legislation, where it is all about removing consumer protection; those issues are not in the bills before us right now.

In the employment portfolio the legislation repeals an act that established the Construction Industry Development Agency. Maybe we are going to hear passionate speeches about why the Construction Industry Development Agency has to go, notwithstanding that it went in 1995. But they are going to repeal the act and somehow that is meant to be making a difference.

Those opposite are going to be giving very, very short speeches, I am told. That is probably merciful. That is probably being kind to the parliament and the public. It is also being particularly kind to those sitting opposite who have to speak on this. We have hundreds of pages of legislation before us, none of which are particularly objectionable, from what we have seen. We will make sure, in the ordinary Senate inquiry process, that there is a Senate check on these issues, but nothing that we have worked through at the moment contains anything offensive. But the reason that we have not been able to find anything offensive in there at the moment is that, on these particular bills, we have not been able to find anything. There is nothing there. There is absolutely nothing before us that makes a difference to anyone in the world. It does not make a difference to anyone in the world.

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

You haven't read it!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kooyong is interjecting out of his seat—

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

I'm here!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No; he was standing when he was interjecting. But please do not kick him out, because it is funnier when he is here. It is much funnier when he is here, because the member for Kooyong is the person who single-handedly inflated this issue as though it were going to be a standard-bearer for the government to prove that they were on the right side of business, that they were the people who would remove red tape—

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

And the not-for-profits!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again, he is referring to a bill that is not in this particular group that is before us. I think that shows exactly the challenge that he has in trying to have any level of passion about the legislation that is in front of us. If the parliamentary secretary who is responsible for the bill cannot even interject something relevant to the bill in front of us, then how on earth are his backbenchers going to be hung out to dry during the debate today to have to meet the challenge? Can they say something relevant on the legislation before us?

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 repeals or amends the provisions of a total of 81 pieces of legislation in the portfolios Agriculture, Communications, Defence, Employment, Environment, Finance, Industry, Prime Minister, Social Services and Treasury. It is claimed to be a bill that will reduce the regulatory burden for business, individuals and the community sector.

We will vote for the bill and I challenge anyone to find a reason to be passionately in favour of or against the bill because this legislation is a clean-up of issues which were already largely irrelevant. I will be moving an amendment to the motion—just a second reading amendment, nothing in detail—simply to get some things on the record but largely as a favour to those opposite. Unless I move a second reading amendment, they will have to be relevant to the legislation. I do not know how they are going to do it.

The member for Kooyong might be willing to hang government backbenchers out to dry but I am not. I am willing to move a second reading amendment to at least let them give speeches that have very little to do with the bill but do have something to do with the debate, to make sure that at no point are government backbenchers facing the humiliation of having it drawn to their attention that what they are saying has nothing to do with the bills in front of them. The poor Prime Minister had to deal with that—with talking about issues that are not in fact anything to do with these bills. While the member for Kooyong might be willing to hang his own side out to dry, we, in the last 24 hours, in a gallant fashion—I guess that is an appropriate description—

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Riding to the rescue!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, that is right—like a knight in shining armour, we come to the rescue and provide the assistance to government members that is not being provided by their own side. I will come back to the second reading amendment in a moment and will continue with some general remarks first.

There are issues in front of us which are not part of this set of bills but are part of the government policies that have been tied up with the rhetoric of repeal day and which cause real harm. The future of financial advice reforms cause real harm. Those reforms, originally advanced in government by Senator Sinodinos, were passed to the Minister for Finance and have now been put on the backburner until after the people of Western Australia have voted. I am not surprised that the government have done that, but it is a cynical and a shallow tactic to, in the first instance, claim that removing consumer protection for people's retirement savings is important in a red-tape context, but, secondly, to think that they can get away with just parking the issue, as they have with the Commission of Audit, until after the people of Western Australia have voted.

There is another bill which is not before us in this section, which deals with the impact on charities and the abolition of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission—a commission that provides a one-stop shop that people often refer to when they ask: what is a way of making sure that we can remove red tape? The government's proposal here is that the way to remove red tape is to get rid of the one-stop shop—the exact opposite of what they will argue in a whole lot of other areas. It shows that they are willing to remove transparency for charities under the guise of red tape removal. Similarly the stripping away of the wage protection for cleaners as part of revoking the fair work principles in the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines has been caught up in the rhetoric and the language of this, notwithstanding that it is not in the bills before us today. For those opposite it is a real message. When they talk of removing red tape, they are either talking about a pile of legislation which has no impact on anyone at all or they are talking about the impacts such as removing consumer protection, removing transparency and cutting wages. That is why they want to ramp up the rhetoric and talk about the bonfire, so that they can smuggle under the smoke as many issues as possible to hurt people. The record we had in government of removing regulation never had attached to it the fanfare we have seen from those opposite. If their test is removal of regulations, we need to compare the nearly six years we were in office. Take legislation like today's as the test, where the government are clearing 9,000 regulations that do not matter; we repealed 16,794 spent and redundant acts, regulations and legislative instruments from the statute book

I do not put that forward as a proud boast or as something that made a massive difference, because it did not, just like today's bills do not. The clearing of regulations that are already redundant does not make a big difference. It is a good thing to do. It is not worth anyone getting excited about opposing and it is not worth anyone getting excited about pretending that here is a test of being an impressive government. This is not. This is something that is routine.

If they really think that changing the rules on mules and bullocks in the Australian Defence Force is what small business is asking for, then it is an example of how far away from reality this government is. The government that launched the most bizarre distraction into knighthoods and dame titles yesterday, the government that thinks that one of the big issues to talk about is bigotry and the government that thinks the way to deal with red tape is to get rid of the regulations that are not having an impact on anyone at all and put them in a big bonfire and ramp up the rhetoric is a government that is horrifically out of touch.

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

There were other reforms instituted by the previous Labor government that demonstrated our commitment to the deregulatory agenda. I remember as agriculture minister that one of the first things I did was make sure that wheat growers in Australia could export and sell their wheat to whoever they chose. That was something that was not available under the Howard government. Under the Howard government if you wanted your wheat exported, you could go to only one business, the AWB. That was the only place available to export bulk wheat. That was an appalling situation. So we removed what was a very real form of red tape. A proportion of those opposite, I acknowledge, voted with us on that. They were never able to do it in government. We came through in government and did it. For the entirety of the Howard years a proportion of them sat on their hands on the deregulation of wheat exports. The protectionists opposite, who have now returned to the government benches, lost the day, as they should have. Once again, since then we have seen on some issues, including foreign investment decisions, that the protectionists have managed to get a new level of power and authority in the coalition government that certainly did not happen when we were in office.

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

Let me take you back to last Wednesday when the Prime Minister made his statement on deregulation. The Prime Minister stated that the first repeal day—that is today—would accomplish a number of things. However, when you look at the legislative program, there would appear to be a few things missing. The Prime Minister said the first repeal day will abolish the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission. That is not in front of us today. They have gagged debate—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a great interjection. It was only the Prime Minister telling the parliament. Excuse me for thinking that that might matter. I mean, come in spinner, do not stop interjecting now that you have started. We were told that that would be debated and would be abolished on the first repeal day. They have decided to gag the debate and rush through all the changes that mean nothing, but they will not do that one. Once again, anything that is causing real harm they are trying to park until after the people of Western Australia have voted.

The Prime Minister said that the first repeal day will abolish the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. That legislation is not being debated this week either. The Prime Minister told us that as a result of today's repeal day business will not have to reapply to use agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines. Surprise, surprise! After being told by the Prime Minister that that would be achieved today, they have not bothered to have it debated today.

We were given a dollar figure for what the difference the repeal day would make to the economy, but that dollar figure is not as a result of the bills that are being debated on repeal day. That dollar figure has already haemorrhaged significantly if the government is actually serious about taking a step back on the freedom of financial advice reforms, which form the lion's share of the savings that it was claiming.

Something has changed since the Prime Minister spoke to us last week. The Prime Minister told us a whole lot of things were going to be happening today but all that is left of the bonfire is the smoke. All the bits that we could have a decent argument about—such as red tape versus consumer protection, red tape versus transparency for charities, red tape versus a one-stop shop and the total dollar figure that might be seen to be achieved from a day like today—have gone. All we are left with is the vacuuming of the spare room that nobody walks into. That is all that has been left for us to debate today. Unsurprisingly, we got a very early confession from the Leader of the House that speeches today are going to be really short and the debate today is going to be cut as short as possible. If this were something that they were proud of, they would be wanting to debate this every day. If this were something they actually thought mattered, they would want the scrutiny of parliament because they would think it would advance their cause.

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

I challenge the speakers from the government side to come up with their own examples of something to be repealed in the actual bills before us that will make a difference to Australian business. I do not know which business in Australia has been wanting to get rid of the regulation about mules and bullocks for the Defence force—but maybe I just do not talk to enough people! Maybe they are out there, and maybe we are about to hear it. I do not know which state is about to introduce its own navy—but maybe there is information from some of the Liberal states that those opposite will be able to tell me about. But I do know that today is not a significant day for economic reform. And I do know that today the government is caught out on massively over-egging the content of what they call 'repeal day'.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member wish to move an amendment?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In relation to the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014, I move:

That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading the House notes that:

(1) the former Labor government had a strong record of deregulation reform which significantly improved the competitiveness and productivity of the Australian economy. In particular, the former Labor government:

a. repealed 16,794 acts, regulations and legislative instruments during its time in office; and

b. through its Seamless National Economy reforms was delivering significant cost savings to businesses—just 17 of these reforms were estimated by the Productivity Commission to lower business costs by $4 billion per year with the full reforms to increase Australia's productivity and deliver a $6 billion boost to GDP per year;

(2) a vast majority of the changes in this bill have no impact in terms of costs or regulatory burden on businesses, individuals and the community sector in Australia;

(3) the parliament supports sensible deregulation which removes cost and regulatory burden, but does not support the removal of protections for seniors, consumers, workers and investors under the guise of cutting red tape; and

(4) the government is using these bills as a distraction from cuts to protections for seniors, consumers, workers and investors."

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In conclusion, and to reiterate, we will be voting for the bills. There will be no dramatic division at the end of all of this unless someone during the debate can find something that matters that we can have a debate about. If anyone can find something that matters, we can then have a debate as to whether we are in favour of it or against. But to date, no-one has been able to do that. What we have in front of us is a standard clean-up which is not worth getting particularly frustrated about but is also in no way worth the fanfare that has been associated with the fizzer that is repeal day.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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. If it suits the House I will state the question in the form that the amendment be agreed to. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would seek to know whether the member speaking is willing to give way under standing order 66(a).

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member willing to yield?

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is not willing to yield.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 1) 2014 and the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014. My colleague the member for Watson has spoken on the other bill before the House, the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014. Statute law revision bills are a routine piece of housekeeping undertaken by this parliament. They correct typographical and grammatical errors, they update language and they repeal spent or obsolete provisions. They are a completely unremarkable, largely clerical, practice which, in this country, dates back to before Federation. Commonwealth governments of both political persuasions have tended to introduce one or more such bills each year.

In the past, the Liberal Party has acknowledged as much. In 2013, Liberal Senator Gary Humphries spoke briefly in favour of the similar statute law revision bill which I introduced last year as Attorney-General in the Labor government. This is what Senator Humphries had to say:

Bills of this nature are traditionally non-controversial and receive the support of the parliament because they are regarded as an essential tool in the process of keeping the Commonwealth statute books accurate and up to date.

Bizarrely though, the new Abbott Liberal government has dressed up this humble housekeeping practice in the extreme ideology which is fast becoming its hallmark. The member for Kooyong has, quite grandly, said in this place that this routine legislation will reduce the regulatory burden by improving the accuracy and usability of Commonwealth legislation. As a result, the legislation will help to save individuals, businesses and community organisations, time and money. I am sorry that the member for Mitchell, who spoke before me, was not prepared to take an intervention, because I was going to ask him to explain how it is that the statute law revision bill saves even one cent for any organisation, business organisation or non-business organisation in this country. The answer that he would have been forced to give is 'not one cent', and he would not have been able to name one.

We are told, however, that this run-of-the-mill piece of legislation is an integral part of the government's repeal day stunt. In the ministerial statement that the Prime Minister delivered last week, the Prime Minister explained:

… repeal day will scrap more than 9,500 unnecessary or counterproductive regulations and 1,000 redundant acts of parliament.

He also said:

Removing just these will save individuals or organisations more than $700 million a year, every year.

The Prime Minister said that he was creating the 'biggest bonfire of regulations in our country's history'. We are not here debating the 9,500 spent and redundant regulations. All of them have been tabled and no doubt, in coming months, the parliament will have an opportunity to look at those. But as the names of them suggest, and the way in which repealing regulations is expressed, they deal with spent and redundant regulations—in other words, regulations that are no longer having the slightest effect on business life, on community life, on social life in our country. Just to deal with the statute law revision bill, I cannot really improve on the way in which Lenore Taylor, one of Australia's more observant and perceptive journalists, writing in the Guardian last week, helpfully summarised some of the mighty blows for freedom struck by this brave government in that piece of legislation. I quote from Lenore Taylor's article in the Guardian about the statute law revision bill:

1. Part two, paragraphs 10 to 57, lists the clauses in 11 different pieces of legislation where from now on the law will “omit the word “e-mail”, and substitute “email”.

So 'e-mail' with a hyphen is being replaced by 'email' without a hyphen. Lenore Taylor goes on:

Part three, paragraphs 58 to 91, lists the clauses in 16 pieces of legislation where from now on the law will “omit the words “facsimile transmission” and substitute the word “fax".

…   …   …

Schedule five lists 10 cases in which a reference to “legislative assembly for the Northern Territory” must now be substituted with “legislative assembly of the Northern Territory”.

…   …   …

Schedule one, part 27, corrects a punctuation error in the Fair Work Act 2009 to insert a comma in between the words “aircraft” and “ship”.

…   …   …

Schedule one, part 39, corrects a spelling error in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act so that the word “committing” has the requisite two “t”s.

It is a pity that this government was not paying less attention to the spelling of the word 'committing' in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act and a little bit more attention to the problems that might be caused to the actual marine park that the act deals with by the depositing of millions of tonnes of dredge spoil. The arrogance of this government and of its Attorney-General is staggering. The Prime Minister, the Attorney-General and the member for Kooyong should be ashamed of themselves for dressing up this sort of proofreading exercise as any sort of reform. They should be ashamed to front the Australian people promising to remove red tape and then serve up this laundry list of spelling corrections and style-guide pedantry.

The piece de resistance of this laughable, pathetic, repeal day stunt is the amending acts repeal bill, a bill which does nothing more than formally repeal transitional and amending legislation enacted between 1901 and 1969. It removes from the statute books pieces of legislation which are already inoperative. An example is the repeal of the Flags Act 1954, a piece of legislation that amended the Flags Act 1953. The amending act, that no longer has any force, changed the outer diameter of the Commonwealth Star, set out in the Flags Act 1953, from three-eighths to three-tenths of the width of the flag. I mention this because last week my office fielded concerned calls about the repeal of this amending act—'Would the government's repeal of the amending legislation mean that the national flag, and in particular the Commonwealth Star on the national flag, would change its dimensions?' Apparently the Prime Minister's office, who the callers had asked first, were quite certain that this was not the case, but were unclear and unable to explain why that was so.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you telling me you don't support the flag?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a nonsensical intervention, showing that this government has nothing of substance to say and should not have dressed up these bills as some magnificent piece of deregulation when in fact they are nothing of the kind. This repeal of course does not change the flag. Repealing an amending act does not revive the previous version of the principal act. The operation of this amending act was spent in 1954. The Minister for Health would do well to listen to this because, instead of pretending that this is some vast piece of regulation, the government should be owning up and admitting that it is not. The Flags Act was amended in 1954, the Commonwealth Star has had the same diameter for some 60 years now and the repeal of amending acts is nothing more than a media stunt. It changes no rights and no obligations. It has no effect other than allowing the Prime Minister a glib line in his ministerial statement.

Much like our Prime Minister, this is a great big loud spectacle with not one iota of substance. This amending acts repeal bill is a mirage. There is not a single person or company in Australia subject to a regulation which this bill will remove—not one. The bill was concocted entirely so that the Prime Minister could say in his ministerial statement that he would repeal 1,000 acts. It is quite an extraordinary use of the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. This bill must surely be one of the longest press releases in the history of Australian politics. The Prime Minister made a ministerial statement to celebrate his make-believe deregulation. He held press conferences. He launched a website. And yet, for all the brave talk of freedom, small government and cutting red tape, the Statute Law Revision Bill (No 1) and the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill will not remove a single operative piece of regulation.

This government is all tip and no iceberg. They love to speechify; they want to revive the pomp and pageantry of knights and dames. They have the gall to tell the Australian people that they are 'working for them'. They have the nerve to tell the Australian people that their repeal stunt 'is about saving you money, saving you time and trusting your common sense to make more choices about your life.' I defy the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General to explain to the parliament and to the Australian people precisely what part of their $700 million saving will come from spelling 'committing' with two Ts. I would love to see a quantification of the deadweight loss imposed on our economy by the spelling of the word 'email' with or without a hyphen. I want to hear from a single Australian shopkeeper who thinks that the biggest problem facing their small business in uncertain economic times is a misplaced comma in federal legislation.

The partisan pretence that the Liberal Party practises deregulation better than the Labor Party is just that—a pretence. We know what real deregulation is. The Abbott government will not tell you about the previous Labor government's deregulation effort. It will not tell you that the previous Labor government repealed 16,794 acts, regulations and legislative instruments during its time in office, or that the seamless national economy reforms delivered significant cost savings to business. Just 17 of these reforms were estimated by the Productivity Commission to lower business costs by $4 billion a year while the full reforms of that Labor package were estimated to increase Australia's productivity and deliver a $6 billion boost to GDP each year.

It is already clear that the business community sees through the government's repeal day stunt for the circus that it is. The Business Spectator this morning reported that the PM's bonfire of regulations had fizzled. The Spectator, a publication not known for condemning attempts at deregulation, reported:

The culling exercise does not target any specific red tape that hamstrings family business and only a handful of measures are aimed at small business.

The Prime Minister does not actually have the bottle to pursue any real, thoroughgoing reform of Australia's regulatory framework. The Prime Minister is happy to spout lots of ideological cant and deliver little substance.

Most of his repeal day is a stunt of smoke and mirrors, yet there is a darker side to the Prime Minister's repeal day showboating. Among the stunts, there are some very concerning repeals proposed by this government. Though the bills today are of no real substance, the Prime Minister does have some real cuts in the offing. For instance, the Abbott government proposes to repeal the legislation which provides for the Office of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. That office is responsible for reviewing quite onerous legislation in the national security area to ensure that the restrictions it imposes are still necessary. In a very real sense, the monitor is responsible for an ongoing kind of regulatory reform. The Abbott government cannot see the wood for the trees.

The Abbott government is also committed to the repeal of important parts of the last Labor government's Future of Financial Advice reforms. These Labor reforms are a paradigmatic example of the good to be achieved by government regulation: they corrected a market failure, protected vulnerable consumers and safeguarded the retirement savings of Australians. The Abbott government's unwinding of this reform raises once again the prospect of costly disasters like Storm Financial. We should be worried that after all of the cheap tricks of repeal day—the confected numbers and the overheated rhetoric—are long forgotten these two foolish repeals will come back to haunt us.

Repeal day might be just Mr Abbott's overindulgence in his own ideological obsessions, but it could be ordinary Australians who wake up with the hangover. So, while we will oppose the government's substantive attacks on responsible regulations like the Future of Financial Advice reforms, and while we will not let this government get away with their absurd political grandstanding, Labor will not oppose the uncontroversial bills before the House today.

As I have said, the routine housekeeping of the statute book has long been a bipartisan undertaking. I thank the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for the time and effort which goes into these statute book maintenance efforts. I regret that their hard work on the important task of maintaining the Commonwealth statute books has been so cynically exploited by a government much more interested in stunts and circuses than in substantive reform.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The suite of deregulation legislation for debate before the House is the largest single reduction of federal law in the nation's history. Today, red tape repeal day, is a specific sitting of parliament designed to facilitate the ditching of 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation, saving more than $700 million in compliance costs—10,000 bizarre, redundant and often punitive laws, regulations and guidelines. It is little wonder the Prime Minister has referred to such a mass extinction as a red-tape bonfire. But just as important is what will rise from the ashes—that is, certainty and clearer air for business.

As a result of this landmark day, government will be that much further from sight and will be that much less a practitioner of meddlesome oversight so that our lives are less cluttered, so that businesses, especially, can free their arms and breathe and grow again. That means a stronger economy. It means more jobs for Australians.

The list of redundant and archaic standards headed for the scrap heap is truly astonishing. For example, job service providers will no longer be forced to keep paper records of applications, a requirement that demands thousands of filing cabinets just to hold them. Universities will be spared from submitting reports on the use of lecture theatres, seminar and tutorial rooms, laboratories, academic offices and computerised student workspaces. The saving for each tertiary institution will be about $87,000 a year.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I wonder if the member Longman will yield to a question under standing order 66A.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to take a question.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Longman. Could the member for Longman explain how his constituents will benefit from the removal of the hyphen in the word 'e-mail'?

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for the question. Taking a lecture from the Labor Party, who introduced over 21,000 new regulations, is insane. Seeing that the member for Isaacs is sitting at the table, I will take this opportunity to talk about things that have a real impact. He called this legislation change 'imaginary' and 'a smokescreen'. I know that Canberra is a bit of a bubble, but I would suggest to Labor members opposite and their advisers, who I am sure are watching on TV, that it is a good thing to get out of this place and go and talk to local businesses around this country about how removing red tape and regulation makes a big difference in their lives. It is one thing to talk about it, but we should walk that walk. I think that the Labor Party's record is very bad: 10 new or increased taxes and over 20,000 regulations.

Let me go through the detail of what this red tape repeal day actually means. As I said, there will be $87,000 of savings for universities—that is a benefit to my electorate. Childcare centres will be relieved of 1,280 pages of law, 345 pages of regulation and 1,149 pages of guidelines—constraints that inevitably have meant fewer services and higher fees for parents.

The coalition promised a deregulation agenda that would slash $1 billion in red and green tape every year. We are delivering, with hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs to be removed today—the first of many dedicated repeal days that this government will bring to this place.

I would like to touch on one more case in point—and the members for Fraser and Isaacs, who are sitting at the table, might want to listen—where I took up the cause, and which I will expand upon during a future and related legislative debate. Under the former Rudd government's Personal Property Securities Act 2009, PPSA, hire firms lending goods for 90 days or more must pay fees to register a security interest in the property, such as construction machinery, with the federal government. That spells red tape, but what is worse is that the bizarre configuring of the law means if they do not register, they risk losing the equipment if the business to which they are hiring the goods becomes insolvent. A liquidator may actually be able to take back a title and sell the property to help pay back creditors.

I took up this case with the member for Kooyong at a local forum. We have managed, as part of this red tape repeal day, to bring legislation to this place that will make this significantly easier for local businesses. It will save those businesses thousands of dollars a year and help them grow and expand. I note that the Labor member from Canberra at the table said to me, 'How does red tape repeal day help local businesses?' This relates to thousands of dollars of savings directly for local businesses. It means they can go out there and they can employ more people.

I know that Labor members, particularly those based in Canberra, think that this place is the wealth of all knowledge for our nation, and that there is not a single problem that can be fixed until a bureaucrat or a politician in Canberra has had a look at it. But what this red tape repeal day means is that we will get Canberra further away from our lives—we will get government out of our lives and we will allow the private sector and businesses in my electorate to do what they do best, which is to go out there, to thrive, to prosper and to employ more people. So, by having less government and less of Canberra in our lives, we can have more jobs and a stronger economy. I commend these bills to the House.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unfortunately the member for Longman made no attempt to answer the question—which I asked him under 66A—as to how his constituents would benefit from the removal of the hyphen in the word 'e-mail'. He made no attempt to answer that question—and he is now scurrying from the chamber—because the answer is that it does not help his constituents at all. Instead, he engaged in another orgy of Canberra bashing, which those on the other side of the House are so fond of doing.

On breakfast TV, the Treasurer was happy to joke about how the election of a Liberal government would drive down house prices in Canberra. Those on the other side of the House so often seem to think that the residents of Canberra are their punching bag to be used in their political stunts, rather than good, honest men and women in a great city who are working hard, just as the people in Longman are. To recognise the decency of Canberrans is something that I think all members of this House should be able to do, given that all members of this House are residents of or guests in this great city.

Regulation per se should never be the enemy. Regulation ensures that our balconies do not fall down, that the wheels stay on our cars and that we know the food we buy at the local shop is safe. Regulation ensures that we get to lead safe, decent and productive lives. The member for Longman referred—as many members opposite have done—to one of their favourite talking points: 21,000 new or amended pieces of legislation under the Labor government. What they will never tell you is that, of those 21,000, 3,400 were air safety directives. Do those members opposite really believe that those 3,400 air safety directives should not have been passed? If so, let them go to their constituents and explain why they believe that air safety directives are not appropriate.

Also, of the 21,000, 4,200 were tariff concession orders—tariff concession orders specifically requested by business to save them money. Do those opposite believe that those 4,200 tariff concession orders should not have been granted—that the government should have said to business: 'No, we are not going to do it. It involves a regulation which will help you, but because we are so antiregulation we will not have it.'

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member for Fraser willing to give way?

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would be only fair to do so, given that I asked a question of the member for Longman.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my honourable friend. I ask him whether, in the course of his speech, he will try and reconcile Labor's views in the last parliament that the success of the 43rd Parliament was measured by the number of pieces of legislation that were passed, with Labor's current view that they are the party of cutting red tape and regulation, which some speakers are putting in their remarks this morning.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the House for his question. In his question is an important point, which is that we need to get the balance right on regulation. We need to ensure, as the Leader of the House well knows, that we have the right air safety regulations. So it is not about simple-minded stunts of the number of regulations passed or repealed; this bill is a straightforward bill, which will be supported by the Labor Party.

It does a set of things which, frankly, no-one could object to. Removing the hyphen from 'e-mail'—that is a good thing, frankly, but I do not think it deserves a press conference by the Prime Minister. Changing the words 'facsimile transmission' to 'fax' is, again, a measure which probably did not require a press conference of the Prime Minister. Indeed, in other bills, changing 'electronic facsimile to a facsimile' to the words 'fax to a fax' probably did not require grandstanding by the government. In other contexts, correcting the spelling of the word 'committing' probably did not require grandstanding by the government. Changing the word 'trademarks' to two words, 'trade marks', is again something which members of this side of the House will not be objecting to, but let us not claim it as a nation-changing event. Changing 'Legislative Assembly for the Northern Territory' to 'Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory' is doubtless the correct way of addressing the legislative assembly in the Northern Territory, but it is not a measure which is going to make business or the community better off.

As the second reading amendment makes clear, the former Labor government had a strong record of deregulation and reform and of removing unnecessary acts from the statute books. We repealed 16,794 acts, regulations and legislative instruments during our time in government. We put in place seamless national economy reforms—real deregulation that lowered business costs, according to the Productivity Commission, by $4 billion a year, with full reforms to increase productivity by $6 billion per year.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene. I wonder if our good friend may take a question on this very important topic.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would that be under standing order 66(a)?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, 66(a).

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To indicate my great geniality and willingness to yield, I am happy to do that.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fraser for being so gracious. I ask the member, in reference to the figure he just quoted, whether or not that included any correction of spelling mistakes or other related issues of which he has been critical in his debate. During Labor's time, did the number he referred to include any of these clean-up aspects?

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that, yes. The member asks a good question. He is quite right that some of those repeals involved what Fred Hilmer, the father of competition policy, has referred to as 'ghost acts'. And doubtless Labor changed typographical errors. We on this side of the House are not objecting to typographical errors—I am not standing before the House today arguing that typos should remain on the statute books. I am merely pointing out that the benefit of this to our constituents is zero—that no constituents' lives will be made better off by changing the spelling of 'email', just as no constituents' lives will be made better off by changes in the regulations governing mules and bullocks in the defence forces. No constituent of the Minister for Health and no constituent of mine will be made better off by ensuring that states cannot have their own navies.

These are uncontroversial things to do, and let us not pretend that they are reform. Real reform means making hard decisions. What we see from this government is smoke and mirrors. The smoke involves the bonfire of ghost acts; the mirrors involve the government attempting to deflect attention from the fact that its changes to the future of financial advice laws and its scrapping of the charities commission are opposed by all the relevant interest groups. FoFA is the classic: the government achieved the unique configuration of having its changes opposed not only by the consumer groups but also the financial planning association. You have to really stuff up in order to get that configuration.

The government has pressed the 'pause' button on their anti-consumer changes to financial advice legislation. What I encourage them to do is to press the 'stop' button, take the Betamax video out of the machine and throw it onto the bonfire. The other mirror is the attempt to distract Australians' attention from the repeal of the charities commission. The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission is supported by four in five charities. When asked in a survey, 'Would you like charities regulations returned to the Australian Taxation Office?' only six per cent of charities said they want this to happen. Charities as diverse as the Hillsong Church, the RSPCA, Lifeline, SANE Australia, the Myer Foundation and ACOSS have argued that the government should change its policy on getting rid of the charities commission.

So there are important things at stake in the government's so-called repeal day. The fact is that the important things will make Australians worse off, and the unimportant things will not affect Australians' lives one whit. What you will not hear from those opposite is the statistic quoted by PolitiFact that, under the Howard government, the volume of regulations—372 a year—was higher than the volume of regulations under Labor, with around 300 regulations a year. So, when those opposite claim to be the party that does not bring in red tape, that in fact flies in the face of what happened under the Howard years, when the volume of regulations was more rapid than it was under Labor.

We need to look not at the number of regulations but at the quality of regulations. When those opposite rail against air service directives—which they effectively have been doing—and they rail against tariff concession orders requested by business—as, again, they have effectively been doing—then they are making Australians worse off. And when they change the spelling of 'email' they are having no effect on Australians' lives. Serious reform requires hard public policy work—working with the states rather than attacking the states. It requires—indeed, as the minister at the table has said—one-stop shops. That is why it is so extraordinary that when Labor had set up the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission—a one-stop shop for the charities sector—the coalition wants to come in and destroy it. The minister is in favour of one-stop shops, as am I. But the minister wants to get rid of a one-stop shop for the charities sector—a one-stop shop that would reduce state and territory duplication of reporting requirements. Certainly South Australia and the ACT have indicated a willingness to cede their powers to the Commonwealth government. If the minister at the table seeks to make further interventions, I am certainly happy to take those as well.

Government members interjecting—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are disorderly and should be ignored.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The one-stop shop of the charities commission is a great Labor reform. Instead, what we are seeing from this government is that they have not quite pressed the 'pause' button on it but have certainly pressed the 'slow' button—that button on the remote control that makes the picture freeze-frame forward. We were to have been discussing ACNC repeal this week, but the government has put it off, because they do not know what is going to replace the charities commission. They promised a consultation paper by the end of February, but Minister Andrews did not deliver it. They promised extensive consultation with the sector, but the sector is outraged, saying, 'Minister Andrews doesn't want to speak to us.' He has a tin ear for consultation. And so, extraordinarily, the ACNC (Repeal) (No. 1) Bill does not take effect until repeal bill No. 2 comes along. Were this parliament to pass it, it would sit on the statute books like a ghost regulation. How ironic is that? This government wants to repeal bills that do nothing, that have no effect on the statute books. Yet, in the ACNC (Repeal) (No. 1) Bill they want this parliament to pass a bill that will be a ghost regulation. It will haunt these halls like Banquo's ghost, just waiting for the ACNC (Repeal) (No. 2) Bill to come along.

The sector is waiting too. They want to know what could possibly replace the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, a body supported by four out of five charities. They know that the bad old days of charities regulation being done by the Australian Taxation Office is an unworkable system. That is why many other countries' charity regulators are coming to Australia in the coming weeks to learn about the Australian model. They are coming to hear from people like ACNC Commissioner Susan Pascoe, who is broadly respected across the sector, about how Australia has done a good job on charities regulation.

This government, which wants to get rid of red tape, is aiming to get rid of an ACNC that has a red tape reduction directorate. It is ironic, and it is a stain on this government's reputation.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and against the amendment proposed by the Manager of Opposition Business. I will certainly be taking up the challenge that was made by some previous opposition speakers, to say how this bill will improve the life or the business of any enterprise or business. I will certainly be doing that. I also want to make the point that while some of these bills may not do much in isolation, on the whole they do a lot. This is day one, and there will be more. In the coming days we have further repeal day bills, and they are going to make a big difference.

Firstly, I want to say why this is important, and give some statistics showing why this is a very important day in our parliament. We know that bad regulation and too much regulation hurts productivity, deters investment and innovation, and costs jobs. In the five years from mid-2007 Australia's multifactor productivity declined by nearly three per cent. In talks we had with business, and around the country, the common thing that came back from businesses and organisations was that a big part of that is too much regulation.

In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the productivity growth of 51 countries. Australia came in second-last, ahead of Botswana. It is very important that we look at this and talk to people around our country about why they think this is the case. Again, they keep telling us the reason is too much red tape. In 2013 Australia ranked 21st in the Global Competitiveness Index, slipping six places. We are slipping—

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wonder if the honourable member might yield to a question under standing order 66A?

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member, but I will decline, because I want to answer some questions that were asked earlier by the opposite side and my time is limited.

We have falling productivity, we are slipping in competitiveness indexes, and we keep getting told by businesses and institutions that the reason for this is red tape. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in their 2012 National Red Tape Survey, found that 44 per cent of businesses spend between one and five hours a week complying with government regulatory requirements such as filling out forms and permits, or reporting business activity. In addition, 72 per cent of businesses said the time they are spending on red tape has increased in the last two years. Further to this, 54 per cent say that complying with government regulations has prevented them making changes, or expanding their business. That is a very telling statistic.

The question has been asked, as to how this repeal day bill will improve the life of businesses or organisations. There are three themes to this bill. One is removing duplication. One is about streamlining onerous and costly processes. The last theme is about having a common sense approach.

Let us go to removing duplication. This is real, because this is what is going to happen because of this bill. Aged care building certification at the federal level will be removed as this merely duplicates requirements at the state level. This will save aged care providers an estimated $3.42 million in compliance savings. With an additional 74,000 aged care places needed over the next 10 years, we need less regulation to provide the incentives for the required investment. So that is one thing, but there are more.

Australian companies that operate in multiple states will be eligible to self-insure under the Commonwealth workers compensation scheme, instead of having to apply separate workers compensation schemes in every state. That is going to save real money and real time. Small businesses will also benefit. Grant and procurement guidelines will be amended so that standard contract terms are applied across agencies' procurements under $200,000. Universities—and there is one in my electorate—will no longer have to submit a Capital Asset Management Surveys, which require information on the size, use, management and maintenance of their assets and spaces. Instead, results from the surveys by the Tertiary Education Facilities Management Association will be used, saving Universities an estimated $87,000 a year. This is another real example.

I want to finish up by giving some third party endorsements for this. I have third-party endorsements of our repeal day legislation from the Brotherhood of St Laurence, from the Business Council of Australia, from the Master Grocers Association, and from others. I speak in support of the bill and against the amendment.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

About half the pages in the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 repeal legislation in the communications sector. Most of it is pretty straightforward. As the Minister for Communications has said, it gets rid of redundant regulation and it removes regulation that mandates the production of information that no-one uses. In other words it is a cleaning up exercise.

It is a good thing that it is being done, but its value should not be overstated. You do not put out a press release when you vacuum the lounge room. That is effectively what the government are doing here. They are making a very big deal about something which is straightforward, a rudimentary cleaning-up exercise. To demonstrate how rudimentary this is, the Liberal Party claim that all up this will save business about $700 million a year and, of this, the changes to the communications sector, we are told, will save about $35 million a year. In other words, the communications sector reforms are about half the pages in this bill but they represent only about five per cent of the savings—not what you would call big reform.

Interestingly, a number of the laws being repealed here were put in place by the Liberal Party themselves. A good example of this is schedule 2 part 8. It repeals parts of the universal service regime that require Telstra to provide an approved universal services marketing plan. It was put in place by the Howard government. It was actually put in place when the member for Bradfield, who is the parliamentary secretary responsible for putting these reforms in place, was an adviser to the former minister for communications, former Senator Alston. So he put it in place and now he is getting rid of it. Another example is schedule 2 part 14. That changes the way changes in control of broadcasting licences are reported to ACMA. They were put in place by Senator Coonan when she was the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and Arts. So there is a delicious irony in all of this. The Liberal Party put many of these regulations in place and now they are making a virtue of getting rid of them. I guess you could say what the Liberal Party giveth, the Liberal Party now taketh away.

The repeal of the Telstra accounting separation requirements is something also worth mentioning here. This is being done not in this bill but by repealing a legislative instrument. It highlights one of the great telecommunications policy failures of the last two decades. In introducing competition in the early nineties, Labor did not structurally separate Telstra. I think that was a mistake. It was a mistake that was compounded by the Howard government when they privatised Telstra as an integrated whole. This was a conscious decision by the Howard government. They resorted instead to a series of measures to try to compensate for this—first, accounting separation and then, later, operational separation. Instead of dealing with the fundamental issue of Telstra's vertical integration, the Liberal Party's response at that time was more regulation. Ultimately, it was the Labor Party that had to cut this Gordian knot.

As part of the National Broadband Network project, we required the structural separation of Telstra, one of the more important microeconomic reforms of the last decade. What did the Liberal Party do when we did this? They opposed it and they accused us of holding a gun to Telstra's head. It is interesting how things change over time. Last week, Telstra's submission to the Vertigan review was released and it said:

Telstra supports the core principles of the National Broadband Network … policy, including a wholesale-only NBN and the progressive structural separation of Telstra.

That is what real reform looks like, not the piecemeal regulation of the Howard government or this rudimentary cleaning-up exercise that we are debating here. That said, let me congratulate the telco industry for the way in which they have engaged in this process. I particularly want to congratulate Communications Alliance for the role that they have played in coordinating the views of different members of the sector and importantly consulting with the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, ACCAN. The way they have done this is the right approach—consulting with industry in all its parts and consulting with consumer representatives. The work that they have done has helped to produce this outcome, a package of straightforward measures that are supported both by members of the industry and by consumers. Doing this is not that hard. This will get harder. It will get harder as the government embark on more serious reforms.

This bill is rudimentary. The next stage has been described by the Minister for Communications as real reform. The minister said that this will involve further consultation with industry, and I welcome that. That is the right approach. It is the approach that I took as a minister in the reforms that I presented to this parliament over the course of the last three years. I took the approach of engaging directly with industry, getting their best ideas and bringing them forward to this parliament. Because the next stage of reform will invariably get more difficult, more contentious and more complex, it is important that the government thinks carefully and consults widely with industry and with the general public. The opposition will do the same and we will judge any of the reforms presented to the House on their merits.

The Minister for Communications has foreshadowed reform in a number of areas, including changes to the taxation arrangements for employee share schemes and changes to facilitate crowdsourced equity funding. I said recently at the tech leaders conference in Queensland that there is a strong case for reform of employee share scheme arrangements, particularly in the case of start-ups. The same is true of crowdfunding. A number of countries have enacted legislation dealing with crowdfunding, including the United States, New Zealand and Italy. It is particularly useful for the start-up industry. A number of start-ups and innovation accelerators have made the point to me that it helps fill a gap in the market for capital between $50,000 and about $750,000. A lot of prospective businesses can get access to seed capital but find it hard to get access to capital to make the next step. Crowdfunding will help. Obviously, a balance needs to be struck between access to capital and investor protection. It is important that investors know the risks that come with effectively becoming a venture capitalist and how that is different to investing in a firm that is listed on the ASX. The Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee is looking at this and we look forward to seeing their report on the reforms that are brought forward to the parliament by the minister.

Over the Christmas break both the Minister for Communications and I were in the United States and spoke to a number of tech companies in Silicon Valley. The minister wrote about this when he got back. He made the point on his blog that the sector was looking for government to remove obstacles to innovation and gave two good examples, the examples I have just cited—employee share schemes and crowdfunding. But the same could also be said of copyright reform. The same companies that are seeking reform to share schemes and to crowdfunding are also asking the government to overhaul our copyright laws. In February, the Attorney-General released the Australian Law Reform Commission's report Copyright and the digital economy. The commission argued in this report that this reform would:

… make Australia a more attractive market for technology investment and innovation.

The Attorney-General has in releasing this report indicated that he is unlikely to support this reform. But, given the Minister for Communications's desire to remove obstacles to innovation, I suspect that he may have a different view. He has to make that clear. He is following me in this debate, and this might provide an opportunity for the minister to give us his views on the importance of copyright reform. This is an important debate. It is one that will invariably happen in the cabinet room and also happen in this parliament, but it should also happen in our community.

It is important that the government consults widely on this and keeps an open mind, because there is potential here for real reform that will boost investment and innovation in the tech sector in Australia. These sorts of reforms—employee share scheme reform, crowdfunding and copyright reform—are all what you might call relatively easy. They involve consulting, making decisions, legislating and ensuring they are properly implemented. What is a bit harder is building the skills that we need in this important sector of our economy. We are not doing that sufficiently at the moment. This is where real reform is needed.

Seventy five per cent of the fastest growing occupations in Australia require STEM skills and knowledge. But the number of students taking up STEM courses has not kept up with demand. In February, The Financial Review did an analysis of this. They looked at take-up by domestic undergraduate students. They found a 36 per cent decline in students taking up IT degrees since 2001. They also said that the changes that the last government made, around uncapping university places, have seen a boost in numbers in the last few years, but not by much—not by enough. In the last 10 years, there have been 100,000 new jobs created in the tech sector. But, in the same time, only 49,500 students have graduated with technology degrees. This is hard—turning around these sorts of numbers is a big task. We need to do a number of things if we are going to be successful here.

Here are a few suggestions. We need to embed technology in the curriculum from primary school up. Alan Noble, the head engineer for Google in Australia and New Zealand, talked about this at a start-up event in Canberra last week. He said we need to teach young people how to think like a computer scientist—they do not need to code, but they need to know how code works. Unfortunately, the Minister for Education has stalled the rollout of the new digital technology curriculum in primary schools. The Australian reported this week:

States and territories had signed off on the digital technology aspect but the new national curriculum hasn't received a final tick of approval because of a review at the behest of Mr Pyne.

I am not sure what the motivations of Christopher Pyne, the Minister for Education, are, but I would say that that review needs to be done as quickly as possible and the new digital technology curriculum needs to be rolled out as soon as possible. It is the sort of real reform that is needed in this area. The minister might be able to inform the House as to where that is at.

I also have made the point recently that I think we need to change the way STEM subjects are taught. We need to increase the digital literacy of our teachers and the way that we provide career advice in this area and in others. We also need to get universities to take a more proactive role in encouraging students to take up STEM degrees and get universities to collaborate more with business on research projects. If this government is interested in real reform and removing obstacles to innovation, then it has to tackle this issue, as well as the others that are currently being proposed.

Of course, they also have to build the NBN—not wreck it, which this government is currently doing. The NBN is the biggest and most important infrastructure project in Australia, and the legislation we are debating here is supposed to be about helping business. That is what the NBN does; it is the engine that will help to create jobs, build companies, drive productivity and increase trade. To do that, we need to build infrastructure not just for the next five years or the next 10 years but for the decades to come—not the second-rate version of the NBN that this government is building.

Before the election, the Liberal Party promised that every Australian would have access to the NBN by the end of 2016. After the election, they broke that promise. Actually, on election night The Herald Sun published a letter from Tony Abbott to the Australian people in which he said:

I want our NBN rolled out within three years and Malcolm Turnbull is the right person to make this happen.

Well, it is not happening. That has gone. The promise has been broken. The promise that everyone would have access to 25 megabits per second by the end of 2016 is now gone. It is a broken promise and the people of Australia were deceived. They were also promised that nine million homes and businesses would get fibre to the node. That is not going to happen, either, now. That promise has been broken. As a result, businesses will suffer. They will not get what they were promised.

If the government is to live up to its purported aim of helping Australian business, it has to do a lot more than what we see in this legislation. This is, as I said, a rudimentary cleaning up exercise—no more, no less. It gets rid of old laws that people do not use. As the Manager of Opposition Business said at the beginning of this debate, it is a bit like vacuuming a room in a house that nobody uses anymore. The government has said that this legislation will save business about $700 million a year. But it will save the communications sector only about five per cent of that. And all of that is pretty tiny, pretty small, when you compare it to the new cost that the government wants to impose on Australian businesses—the new tax that it wants to put on business to pay for the Prime Minister's paid parental leave scheme. That will cost business about $5½ billion a year. So business saves, on the one hand, about $700 million a year from this legislation, but, on the other hand, it will have to pay an extra $5½ billion a year. It is not a great deal. The real test is what comes next. (Time expired)

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014. I have been listening to the remarks of the shadow minister for communications, who just preceded me. I could not help but note that, in his discussion about employee share schemes, he said that reform in that area was easy. That is a remarkable concession, given that the reform that is required is to reverse an extraordinary decision taken by the Labor Party in 2009 which has single-handedly done enormous damage to the innovation sector and basically made it unaffordable for start-up companies to issue shares or options to their employees. We are all familiar, as I am sure the shadow minister is, with companies that have had to move to the United States because it is simply not feasible for them to employ the talent that they need in Australia, because of the penal taxation arrangements with respect to these share schemes. It really is remarkable that the shadow minister is such an enthusiastic reformer and thinks it is all so easy, because the problem was entirely created by his own side, and only a few years ago, despite many warnings from us that their reforms would have this impact.

The shadow minister also went through the usual rigmarole of saying that the government is wrecking the NBN and stopping the NBN. I notice that in the last week over 9,000 premises have been passed by the NBN. The rollout is continuing and at a greater rate than it was prior to the election. Yes, we are determined to complete the NBN—sooner, more cheaply and more affordably. The shadow minister does himself no service by saying that the government had promised, or forecast, before the election that there would be nine million premises passed by fibre to the node. That certainly was in the example that we set out in our plan, but since the election it has become apparent that a superior technology, HFC, can be used for a large part of the rollout. HFC has performance characteristics that in most circumstances are even better than what can be delivered under fibre to the node, so, if they had the choice between fibre to the node and HFC as a broadband channel, in most cases people would prefer to have the HFC. The reality is that, with the NBN, what Australians want is very fast broadband, at the least cost to the taxpayer and as affordably for them as possible. They are not fussed about the particular technology. They want the service levels that enable them to do their work and enjoy their entertainment and so forth. That is what we are seeking to deliver and that is why our approach is a technology-agnostic one.

Having dealt with those matters raised by the shadow minister, I will return to this bill. This year marks 10 years since I gave my maiden speech in this House. In that speech I said:

Lucy and I have found that much of our satisfaction in business has come from starting new enterprises: creating new jobs and new markets for Australian technology. Our life's experience has been that there is little reward without risk. We believe Australia's economy and prosperity depend on a culture of initiative and enterprise which supports Australians doing what we do best—having a go—and, when things do not succeed, getting up and having another go.

One of the Liberal Party's core beliefs is that we see government's role as enabling citizens to do their best rather than telling them what is best. That is why we have adopted a strong deregulatory policy agenda and we are progressing the changes to the way in which regulation is created, implemented and reviewed. The key principles of this reform agenda include regulating only where absolutely necessary and that regulation should not be the default position in dealing with public policy issues. In the Coalition's Policy to Boost Productivity and Reduce Regulation that we took to the Australian people during the election, we set a target of reducing regulatory cost to industry, not-for-profits and individuals by $1 billion per annum.

Across my portfolio, the current media, telecommunications and radiocommunications regulatory frameworks are still fundamentally based in a mid-1990s world of relatively stable technologies and business models, but we now live in a world that has seen the explosion of the internet, the ubiquity of the mobile device, social media, the rollout of fast broadband across many platforms, the end of analog television and the rise of cloud computing. All of these changes are having a substantial impact on the regulated entities and bringing new challenges and pressures: the challenges to the print media business model, the increased competition for advertiser and subscriber dollars; the market effects of the structural separation of Telstra; and the expectations of consumers regarding the way they communicate, the services they use and their demand for content. Meanwhile, largely unregulated industries have provided innovative services which have significantly increased access to content but which have been accompanied by increased concern around matters such as privacy and the use of personal information.

The pressures on the regulatory arrangements and the negative impact of outdated regulation on the communications sector will only increase. So we are reviewing every piece of legislation and regulation across the sector, and these are the questions we are asking of regulation. Does it serve clearly identified public policy goals? Has it been effective in achieving those goals? Could those goals otherwise be fulfilled by more efficient and simpler means? Does the regulation produce benefits that outweigh the costs, including those imposed on industry, compliance; government, enforcement; and consumers, reduced innovation, fewer services and higher prices? Is it consistent with other regulations and policies, including those relating to competition, trade and investment? Is it as technologically neutral as possible, to avoid creating regulatory distinctions between similar services that are delivered differently?

In this context, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation for the very constructive role my parliamentary secretary, the member for Bradfield, has played in assisting me with this significant and critically important task. Our aim is to deliver real reform in the communications sector, while maintaining important community and consumer safeguards and ensuring better outcomes for businesses and consumers now and in the future.

The bill before the House includes many communications measures. In fact, they take up a large part of the bill, with a particular focus on burdensome and redundant regulation. Examples of key measures before the House today are, firstly, repealing obsolete sections of telecommunications regulation that were superseded by a stronger, industry-led consumer protection code in 2012. This results in carriers no longer needing to maintain duplicate summaries for each product or service, meaning the government can repeal this measure and reduce red tape on industry without any negative impact on consumers. I note that the consumer group ACCAN has supported abolition of these requirements. Secondly, streamlining requirements to lodge telecommunications access agreements with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission—these lodgement obligations have long been considered an administrative burden not only for access providers but also for the ACCC. Thirdly, broadening the Australian Communications and Media Authority's discretion so it can determine whether they investigate complaints will allow the ACMA to focus its resources on complaints of a more serious nature, including those that might indicate systemic problems. Fourthly, the ACMA will be given the discretion to exempt smaller commercial radio broadcasting licensees and commercial television broadcasting licensees from submitting audited accounts. In addition the requirement for controllers of certain media assets to report annually to ACMA on changes to the control of commercial licenses and newspapers will be removed. Fifthly, duplicated universal service obligation requirements which are now redundant will be removed as they are covered under legislative instruments.

As part of the repeal day today, the Communications portfolio will also simplify the regulatory scheme by removing outdated and redundant provisions which serve no purpose in the current environment, including regulation relating to the National Relay Service levy that was replaced by the Telecommunications (Industry Levy) Act 2012; early standards for analog mobile phone signals; services that were phased out in the beginning of 2000; information requirements relating to the original National Broadband Network request for proposal process, which ended in April 2009; and, telecommunication sector requirements in the event of service provider failure which have never been used.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is also assisting the government on delivering on this regulatory reform agenda. The ACMA has already revoked 46 redundant instruments and is well progressed in removing unnecessary reporting requirements across a range of them. In the context of deregulation, it is also important to recognise that since the election the government has reduced the burden of regulation on the telecommunication sector by streamlining identity checks for prepaid mobile services, amending the permit process for submarine cables and simplifying telecommunications industry code-making arrangements.

The government has consulted widely with companies, consumer advocates and regulators in the communications sector to ensure that we get these measures right. The level of cooperation, specifically from industry and consumer groups, has been crucial to the reforms before the House today. It is evident from the submissions I received before Christmas that industry and consumer groups understand the need for reform and are eager to assist the government to ensure that there is change. The fact that they have worked together, reached a consensus and then come to government with a proposal for change is refreshing, and I welcome and thank them for it.

The deregulation in communications is not just a short-term process. We have made a very strong start on deregulation in the Communications portfolio, but in the longer term real reform will only be achieved through careful consideration of a vast range of complex policy issues. We will need to work together over the coming months on aspects of the existing framework which are not readily removed or adjusted. In Sydney, a few weeks ago, I led the first meeting of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Communications—an initiative of the government to get an industry perspective on key areas for reform and deregulation to boost productivity and reduce the cost of doing business. I am continuing to work closely with the sector and have received very constructive feedback which is assisting me in deciding the priorities for reform—from better regulation for telecommunications consumer protections to looking at the laws relating to radio communications licensing and allocation arrangements, to media ownership and content rules.

We will continue to undertake this consultation openly and positively, balancing industry and public interest concerns and recognising the realities of the industry of today and tomorrow. This is a very different approach to the previous government, where the previous minister, Senator Conroy, dealt with proprietors and chief executives one at a time—all too often telling each of them what they wanted to hear, instead of dealing with them in one room openly, and of course most notoriously with the attempt to the regulate the print sector, imposing sweeping and unprecedented regulations on the industry without any consultation and even without any warning.

We take a very different approach. We are not going to measure our success as a government, as the previous government did, by the number of new regulations and burdens imposed on businesses. Regulation should not be the default position in dealing with public policy issues. Any future changes to the media or telecommunications regulation regime will be undertaken consultatively and will reflect our ongoing commitment to better regulation, which lowers the cost burden on business, while maintaining, at all times, necessary consumer and other safeguards.

I commend the bill to the House.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 repeals or amends the provisions of a total of 81 pieces of legislation in Agriculture, Communications, Defence, Employment, Environment, Finance, Prime Minister, Social Services and Treasury portfolios. Of course, we support the removal of legislation that is redundant, irrelevant or no longer enforced. As the Leader of the Opposition said last week:

Labor have always believed in making it easier for business to do business. We have always believed in competitive, productive and profitable enterprises. We believe in successful enterprises that provide Australians with good jobs.

What did we do in office to that end? Over nearly six years in office, we repealed over 16,000 spent and redundant acts, regulations and legislative instruments from the statute books.

We also had a deregulation agenda aimed at reducing costs for business in complying with unnecessary and inconsistent regulation. That, of course, was the seamless national economy program. The benefits from these reforms are very significant. The COAG Reform Council reported in its final report on the seamless national economy in early February this year that the completion of most of the reforms by the end of 2013 had meant cost savings to Australian businesses worth billions of dollars every year. The Productivity Commission estimated that completion of just 17 of the seamless national economy reforms were estimated to lower business costs by about $4 billion a year. The Productivity Commission also estimated the full implementation of the seamless national economy reforms would increase GDP by improving productivity by about $6 billion a year. So we took a number of steps and instituted policy measures that are already making a difference to lowering business costs and improving productivity.

While Labor support the broad aims of this bill to reduce the regulatory burden for small business, individuals and the community sector, we also have to point out that what is happening in the parliament today is not quite the substantial range of reforms that the government is claiming. What we see today is a lot of ideology masking as legislation. The vast majority of the items in this bill relate to amending or repealing legislation that has literally no impact on people or organisations at all. So there is no harm in doing it, but there is no real benefit. For example, these bills repeal 12 acts in the finance portfolio—old appropriation acts from 2010-11 and 2011-12. These financial years have already occurred and the Commonwealth government agencies have already been provided with the appropriations that are stated in those acts. Taking those acts off the statute books will have no tangible effect on the lives of everyday Australians at all.

In the industry portfolio we see the repeal of two acts that ceased to have effect by the end of 2011 and we see the inclusion of a single word in three locations in two acts. It is really not going to make the slightest bit of difference to people's lives. In the employment portfolio we see the repeal of an act that administered an agency that was abolished nearly 20 years ago. Of course it is a perfectly sensible thing to do and there is no harm in it, but there is simply not the great benefit that the government is claiming. I cannot really see the regulatory burden of a redundant act that relates to an agency that no longer exists.

The government is making a series of changes to a succession of spirits acts from the 1910s and the 1920s which have long been superseded by subsequent legislation. Again, I am not sure what the regulatory burden of the definition of 'methylated spirits' from 1919 has on Australians but, if there is one, I am very pleased that the regulatory burden has been lifted. Likewise, the Melbourne Commonwealth Games were held in 2006 and I am perfectly prepared to accept that there is no longer a need to have legislation governing the use of the Commonwealth Games logo. I am delighted to see that piece of legislation repealed; I just do not really know what effect it will have in the real world.

Combined with the over 1,000 acts that are repealed by the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014 it is hard to see how this contributes to the $750 million in savings that has been claimed by the government. Yes, it is true that there are a large number of acts and regulations that will disappear. It is not a bad thing to do; it just makes very little real difference to people's lives and certainly not the difference that is being claimed.

There is one area where people will see a real difference, but not an improvement. The abolition of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission is part of a separate bill but related to this piece of work by the government. This is a body that regulates the charities sector—and it is comprehensively supported by the sector—reduces red tape and protects the public from fraudulent or scamming behaviour from the small minority of people who abuse the role of charities in our community. As Tim Costello said last week:

The Commission is actually working for us and gives the public confidence, it underpins the consumer benefit to charities.

David Crosbie, the Chief Executive Officer of the Community Council for Australia, said:

The ACNC is more efficient than the government regulators it replaced, is doing good work and deserves a chance to achieve its three goals of reducing red tape, increasing public trust and strengthening the charities sector.

We will be debating this separately, so I am not going to dwell on the charities commission abolition. I have long had a very close personal interest in the establishment and the running of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. It is doing exactly what I designed it to do, which is reduce the regulatory burden on charities but increase public confidence. As part of this effort to ostensibly reduce red tape it seems ironic in the extreme that one of the measures in this package will, in fact, increase the regulatory burden on charities and take them back to the bad old days where they were being regulated essentially by the ATO, which does not have an interest in streamlining and making their lives easier. Indeed, the support of the sector for the ACNC shows that.

The other very important thing that the ACNC has managed to do is give the public more confidence to donate. Every time people hear a story about one bad apple in the not-for-profit and charities sector, unfortunately some people will make an assumption about the whole sector. It is such an unfair assumption, because the charities and not-for-profit sector does such an important job in our Australian community. To think that the fine, upstanding, well-run organisations we see every day might be tarred with the same brush as the minority of organisations, or people who do the wrong thing, would be a terrible disappointment.

A terrific benefit of the ACNC is that people who are considering donating money or are requested to donate can very easily check whether a charity is legitimate by carrying out a free check on the ACNC's register—an online database of nearly 60,000 charities. What a terrific service to offer Australians who are generous and want to help their fellow Australians. To the government that might be red tape but it is regulation that helps our charities sector run smoothly and do what they want to do, which is to focus on helping their clients.

Of course, it gets worse. As the shadow minister for employment pointed out during the week, the government's red tape stunt will also see some of the lowest paid workers in Australia lose out because of a vital set of guidelines that are being axed. The bulk of this program makes very little difference to real people's lives, but this is an example of where it makes a big difference but not for the better. The Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines, which regulate the minimum pay and conditions for cleaners, will be abolished on 30 June this year. The guidelines apply to cleaners working for Australian government agencies and contractors. According to a story that was published in The Sydney Morning Herald,this change will see between $172 and $225 a week cut from the pockets of full-time contract cleaners of government buildings.

The government has tried to hide these changes among 8,000 other regulatory changes announced as part of this agenda. But it shows the government's priorities—and they are wrong priorities. Amongst all this bluster about cutting red tape they are prepared to cut the pay of their own office cleaners. I think it tells you a great deal that on the day that we are debating a cut to the wages of low-paid workers we have this public discussion going on about reintroducing dames and knights. We are cutting the pay of thousands of cleaners and bestowing knighthoods on a select few. It is a classic example of how this government has its priorities all wrong.

The government talks about award payments being a safety net and that people have the freedom to bargain above that, yet where you have very low-paid workers who have managed to get themselves a slightly better deal than the bare minimum pay that they can be paid, the government actually undermines that agreement.

Unfortunately, this is an agenda for the government that is already in chaos. On Monday, we saw the government announce that it was 'pausing' its planned changes to the Future of Financial Advice reforms. That was going to dismantle important consumer protections in financial advice and open the door to the return of a culture that prioritised product sales—and volume product sales—over providing tailored advice, and where financial planners were under no obligation to act in a client's best interests.

In a week that sees the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Storm Financial affecting many thousands of people, these reforms were supposed to be a centrepiece of the red tape repeal agenda. But they did not even make it through the week. This was a reform which the chair of the Financial Planning Association of Australia said would be bad for consumers, and it is easy to see why. The government has paused this so-called reform; it is about time they went back to the drawing board completely.

As has been stated, as a party we are committed to a bipartisan approach to minimise, simplify and create cost-effective regulation—our record in government is testament to that. But we should not forget why we have regulation in the first place. Good regulation make our workplaces safer. It means we have clean drinking water, it means our roads are not lawless and it means the environment is protected. Good regulation is actually what helps our society to function—the alternative is the law of the jungle.

The government should not confuse the repeal of redundant legislation with the gutting of real protections.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and the other two bills being debated by the House this morning. The omnibus repeal day bill contains a very significant number of measures in the communications portfolio. Indeed, schedule 2 of the bill runs from page 6 to page 50 and all of those measures deal with the communications portfolio.

In the brief time available to me today, I want to make three points about the measures in the bill: the first is that the communications sector is subject to a substantial regulatory burden and that reflects a number of factors, including the passage of time since key legislative measures in the sector came into effect—particularly the 1 July 1997 commencement of the Telecommunications Act 1997. The second point I want to make is to highlight a number of the provisions in the bill which will deliver tangible reductions in the regulatory burden applicable to participants in the communications sector. And, thirdly, I want to make the point that over time there will be additional deregulatory measures in the communications portfolio.

Firstly, let me turn to the proposition that the communications sector is one in which participants face a heavy regulatory burden. That proposition justifies the belief that it is timely to ask whether the policy objectives which underpin particular regulatory measures in the sector remain valid, because if those policy objectives do not remain valid then, of course, the case for retaining those regulations is a very weak one.

I would argue that there are three reasons why communications as a sector is subject to a particularly heavy regulatory burden, and in particular why there is scope for re-examining that regulatory burden at this time and identifying whether there are efficiencies which can be secured. The first proposition is that communications, by its nature, is a sector that is heavily regulated for reasons that I will explain. Secondly, we have seen several successive waves of regulations over the last two to three decades and they have generated some inconsistency and some redundancy. Thirdly, I want to highlight the changes in the underlying technology which are driving changing business structures and which also drive a need for changing regulations.

If I first make the point that the communications sector is intrinsically a heavily-regulated sector that tends to suggest that the scope for deregulatory measures is going to be higher in a sector where you are starting with a very high level of regulation. Let's look at some of the reasons why we do start with a high level of regulation in communications.

Firstly, the key business assets in this sector tend to be intangibles granted by governments, such as the right to use spectrum, or the right to broadcast a television or a radio signal. It is also an industry where, necessarily, the players often need to work together, and so there is regulation to set the standards under which those interworking arrangements occur. For example, in telecommunications: if the A-party—to use the industry jargon—is on Optus and the B-party is on Telstra, then if the A-party wants to make a call to the B-party there needs to be cooperation. There needs to be interworking between Telstra and Optus and, indeed, all the other participants in the industry; and there is extensive interworking, and much of that is the subject of a regulatory framework.

An additional factor underpinning the extensive regulation in the sector is the essential nature of many of the services that are provided in the sector. That tends to mean that there is extensive regulation that deals with the availability of those services, the price at which they are provided and so on. Another factor which has meant this sector is heavily regulated is that many businesses in the communications sector were at one point government owned but have subsequently become privatised. I could point to what used to be Telecom, which is now Telstra, and AUSSAT, which became part of what is now Optus.

The second reason why there is good potential for finding deregulatory initiatives in this sector is that over the last two to three decades you have had several successive waves of regulation which, over time, have necessarily and inevitably produced a degree of inconsistency and, in many cases, overregulation. We could look to history. In 1991 we saw legislation which first exposed the then Telecom to competition. In 1997 we saw legislation which opened up the telecommunications sector to full competition. In 1999 we saw legislation which provided for the arrival of digital television and the allocation of new spectrum to the existing operators. We had, of course, between 1996 and 2007, several successive acts authorising the privatisation of Telstra and we had the tsunami of regulation which accompanied the establishment of the National Broadband Network.

Overlay that with the fact that, in addition to several waves of regulation, we also have multiple layers at which regulation can occur—be it through legislation; regulations and determination made by the minister of the day; determinations made by the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority; or self-regulatory measures such as the codes that are made by the Communications Alliance, previously known as the Australian Communications Industry Forum, which are then given formal status once approved by ACMA. So you have several layers of regulation, and that combines with the several successive waves over time of regulation. There are ample examples of internal inconsistency, redundancy and scope for efficiency.

Another factor which is particularly pervasive in communications is the change in technology and the way that that is driving changes to business structures. That means that regulation increasingly needs to be reviewed to determine whether it continues to be appropriate. We have seen an explosion of mobile communications. The mobile network is the default network over which many Australians make their phone calls—fixed-line is what you use if you cannot get a mobile service.

We have seen the internet explode from being a niche hobby-like area of activity for academics and a few technical specialists 20 years ago to now being a mass-market consumer service. We have seen the dominance of internet protocol, so that voice is increasingly now just an application delivered over internet protocol like all kinds of other data applications—no more analogue voice; that has an increasingly reduced presence.

Mobiles now deliver data services just as much as they deliver voice services. We have seen the arrival of over-the-top services. For example, whereas under the GSM standard for mobiles the short messaging service—SMS—was an intrinsic part of the standard, now short message services are typically delivered by over-the-top IP applications like iMessage on iPhones or stand-alone applications like Viber. So we have seen enormous technological change and technological convergence so that players in all parts of the sector are competing with each other and competing with new classes of players.

When every newspaper has a website which also carries video and is competing against websites from around the world, how valid are detailed regulatory constructs which divide media businesses into different categories of print, radio and television? So, with all these factors in play, it is very timely indeed to ask whether the regulatory constructs of 20 or more years ago remain appropriate or whether there is a need for some change and some removal of unnecessary regulation.

That brings me to the second fundamental point I want to make today. There are key measures in the omnibus bill before us today which lighten the regulatory burden in communications and do so in a way which recognises the application of some of the factors I have spoken about. For example, currently there is a requirement that telecommunications providers must give a so-called standard form of agreement to consumers. That is a requirement under the 1997 act, and the policy intent is good—to give consumers information about the services that they require.

However, there is a separate requirement, which was introduced fairly recently, under the telecommunications consumer protection code, that providers must give consumers what is called a critical information summary. That is an easy-to-understand short-form summary of the services. That means that the original requirement to provide a standard-form agreement is outdated and unnecessary and can be removed to lighten the regulatory burden without in any way disadvantaging consumers who are still getting this information under the critical information summary arrangements. That is an illustration of several of the points I have highlighted in my remarks—that, with the passage of time and the multiple layers of regulation, there are ample opportunities for inconsistencies, duplication or redundancy between them.

Another set of measures in the bill before the House this morning that I want to highlight are the measures which streamline the requirements to lodge telecommunications access agreements with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC. Today, every time an industry participant—in the jargon: a carrier or a carriage service provider—reaches an agreement with another industry participant, or varies that agreement, there is a requirement to provide to the ACCC within 28 days the full text of that agreement. That is very burdensome. Telstra says it produces over 70,000 pages of these agreements to the ACCC a year.

The underlying policy intent—that the ACCC be able to keep an eye on the various deals that are being done in pursuit of the important objective of maintaining and strengthening competition in communications—is not under challenge here. What is being questioned is the particular form of the measure, and what the bill proposes—in fact, what the bill gives effect to—is that there will now be a requirement on industry participants simply to provide a quarterly list of all the contracts they have entered into.

So there is no automatic provision of 70,000 pages; a brief list goes to the ACCC and, if it requires further information, it can always ask for the full text of the agreement. It is another good example of regulation which has become overly burdensome, imposing cost and compliance requirements which can be stripped back and streamlined without in any way compromising the underlying objective.

Another measure I could speak about is the duplicate requirements which exist under the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 for Telstra to have in place a universal service obligation standard marketing plan and a policy statement. That provision is redundant. It replicates other requirements which apply to Telstra and it can usefully be removed. There are plenty of other examples in this legislation, in schedule 2 of this bill, of specific measures which will lighten the regulatory burden but without compromising the policy objective or the key consumer or other protections, whatever the objective might be.

My final point in the time available to me is that the measures in the bill today are only the first part of what we seek to achieve in the Communications portfolio. I have talked about the fact that Communications is a heavily regulated portfolio. Indeed, during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, a government which could not be characterised as being run by small-government people—they were big-government people; they loved big government; they loved more regulation—when it came to communications, the pages of new regulations kept flooding out, particularly in relation to the national broadband. So we have had for several years in the communications sector a steady, rapid, daunting and burdensome increase in regulation. This government is determined to turn that around to reduce the regulatory burden on the communications sector and capture the efficiency benefits that can therefore be realised. This is a high priority.

The measures in today's omnibus bill from the communications sector are just a first step. I am very pleased to say that we are removing through these measures over 1,000 pages of burdensome regulation in the communications sector. We believe that the measures in this bill, together with other regulatory measures being taken at the same time through delegated legislation, regulation and so on, are expected to save the sector around $35 million a year. So this is an important set of measures to reduce regulatory burden, but there is more to come.

As I have highlighted, there is good reason to believe there is significant potential to reduce the regulatory burden in the communications sector. It is a heavily regulated sector. We have had several successive waves of regulation over the past two to three decades and we have seen significant changes in technology. Today's measures are a first step on the agenda of this government to reduce the regulatory burden in the communications sector, improve efficiency and deliver better outcomes to businesses in the sector and the consumers of the services the sector provides.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will support the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and associated legislation. Rarely do you see so much political puffery as we have seen in relation to this particular piece of legislation. Most of my speech will deal with the shadow portfolio areas that I have responsibility for: Indigenous affairs and ageing.

I recall in the last six years speaking many, many times on statute law revision bills that were introduced by the former federal Labor government. Most of those speeches were made not here in the House of Representatives chamber but up in what we now call the Federation Chamber. I do not recall many coalition members actually speaking on those bills. We got rid of nearly 16,800 pieces of legislation, legislative instruments and regulations and some of it was minor but necessary. For example, some had problems with hyphens, semicolons and full stops; some were in relation to things like redundant sections, sunset clauses and provisions that needed to be undertaken and got rid of. Some of it was minor. There was a legislative drafting error, for example, referring to a section that did not actually exist.

We did a lot of that clean-up stuff when we were in power, but those opposite are making a huge thing of this. You would think there was a bonfire outside the House of Representatives with flames going up and bills being burned or public servants everywhere in front of computers pressing the delete button, because they have made such a big thing of it.

Where are the major changes they are talking about? Most of this stuff is pretty meaningful, but it is actually quite minor in many ways. We will support a lot of it. It covers a range of portfolio areas. Some of the stuff, if we were on that side of the chamber, we would simply do as well. I do not recall much dissension in relation to that statute law revision. Some of the most entertaining speeches I have heard—especially by the member for Greenway, who made some incredible speeches in relation to this—were pointing out errors that took place in legislative drafting and redundancies.

I think this is important legislation, but the amount of hype that those opposite have created is simply an appalling piece of political point-scoring somewhere else to get away from the fact that what they have made across the portfolio areas is cuts, cuts, cuts. There has been no focus on jobs, which is such an important issue in the life of this country and our economy in the last few years, particularly since those opposite have come into power. I have spoken on this many times, and I will speak on this particular legislation again today.

One of the things that really amazes me is simply the fact that, in the legislation that we have before this place, they are getting rid of appropriation acts from back in 2010-11 where the appropriations have actually taken place. I do not quite get why they have made such a huge thing to set aside a whole day for it. We dealt with this kind of work purposefully, meaningfully and with, to the credit of the now government, the support of the opposition when they were on this side of the chamber.

In relation to the portfolio areas that I have responsibility for in the opposition, Indigenous affairs and ageing, there are a number of changes. We will agree to the schedules, but I want to point out a couple of things in relation to them. First, for example, part 1, schedule 8 of the omnibus repeal day legislation repeals the Coordinator-General for Remote Indigenous Services Act 2009. This, as I said before, has gone on the altar of cuts already. In MYEFO at the end of last year the government said they achieved savings of $7.1 million over three years by ceasing the funding for the Coordinator-General for Remote Indigenous Services—this from the 'Indigenous' Prime Minister, who really was going to look after Indigenous people across the country. This was part of a national partnership agreement on remote service delivery, improving government services across 29 remote Indigenous locations. It is very important in terms of tackling disadvantage in remote Indigenous communities. So the NPA delivered improved services in communities, early childhood centres and programs, new and upgraded school facilities, new and upgraded health clinics, new and refurbished housing and more local employment and training opportunities. But that is not good enough for those opposite, so we will get rid of this position; we will get rid of the coordination.

The former coordinator-general, Mr Brian Gleeson, had worked relentlessly to bring governments, communities and service providers together to effect positive change in these communities. His independent and firsthand experience cannot be denied. He had 149 visits to remote service delivery communities and gathered information through a vast network of stakeholders. He was able to provide an informed and unique view of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs from his perspective. This was an important provision, an important operation. There was positive and strong engagement through six regional operation centres, government business managers and Indigenous engagement officers providing a single point of contact with government—a one-stop shop. Those opposite want to get rid of the Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, a one-stop shop. This also was a one-stop shop. Community governance and local decision making was strengthened through community and local reference groups, and 28 of the 29 communities signed local implementation plans with governments delivering on these commitments. But the government got rid of it just to save $7.1 million. This is consistent with a government that across the area of Indigenous affairs is engaged in cuts systematically. We can expect to see more in the May budget because that is what coalition governments do across the area of Indigenous affairs.

We have already seen $13 million cut in Indigenous legal services and $2 million given back to help those people who fight native title claims. We have seen $1 million ripped from Indigenous health programs, a $15 million cut to the representative body National Congress of Australia's First Peoples and at the same time the implementation of a paternalistic approach with the Indigenous advisory group as well. There is no commitment to fund Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander early education centres. The national partnership agreement expires in the middle of this year, but no commitment has been made to continue. In COAG last year they got rid of the idea of a national partnership agreement that was being negotiated by us on Indigenous health. They have made no commitment to the national strategy for Indigenous health plans, a 10-year strategy that the member for Lingiari was involved in drafting, implementing and announcing in the middle of last year. So this is part of the process.

They have in part 2 repealed section 17A of the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000, claiming there is duplication. They have stated that the section is no longer required as there are now other reporting arrangements that provide more publicly available information, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education action plan annual reports, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority National report on schooling reports and the Productivity Commission Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage: key indicators biannual reports. They maintain that those particular aspects and other reports provide the statistical quality information about Indigenous education and wellbeing. We will see whether that is the case. If the information that we need across this space is not released and available publicly then we will know.

This government seems to be very focused on the area of truancy, taking about $46.5 million from a remote jobs plan, programs that they say they supported in opposition, and putting it into a truancy army, Senator Scullion's truancy army. It has mixed reports and mixed outcomes, and that is what has come through in Senate estimates. Those opposite claim they support Indigenous affairs and claim they are represented by a Prime Minister for the Indigenous communities of this country, but all we have seen so far across this space is cuts, cuts and cuts.

Another area of my shadow portfolio responsibility is aged care. Changes the government have made in this legislation relate to an area we agreed to, and that is certification. What they are doing here is getting rid of the certification that is provided in the Aged Care Act 1997 as to the certification of residential care services, which then flows through in terms of funding from the government. Get this, Deputy Speaker: this is legislation of the Howard coalition government they are getting rid of. The Howard coalition government brought in the building certification introduced in a 1997 reform package to improve the physical standards of aged-care facilities across the country because there was real concern in the sector. At that stage I was a lawyer in private practice but I was on the board of what we then called Queensland Baptist Care. I know that across the sector, and I had many clients in the aged-care sector, there was real concern, and there was real concern in the community too. The Howard government did the right thing at the time, because we had to lift up the standards of the aged-care facilities in this country. This was a bipartisan agreement to do it. The Howard government got this well and truly right. It served our country well, but I do accept that what the Productivity Commission has had to say in relation to this and what the stakeholders have said in relation to this mean that it is appropriate now to do away with the certification additional requirement.

It is the case that we have building certification and legal requirements in terms of local government and also in terms of the BCA, the Building Code of Australia, which do duplicate it. But this idea that somehow it is going to save millions and millions of dollars in the aged-care sector is not borne out by the evidence. What the Productivity Commission said in their Caring for older Australians report is that the Australian government will save about $350,000 per year. That money could be used for other purposes, such as supporting the orphans who are going to miss out on the income support bonus. That is $250,000. We could use the $350,000 for that purpose if they wish to. That is an option now. We will support them across both areas if they wish to changes their minds in relation to the income support systems.

The aged-care sector does support this. I note the comments in relation to this by Aged & Community Services Australia CEO, Adjunct Professor John Kelly, who said that this is a significant win for the sector. Leading Age Services Australia have welcomed the announcement because it gets rid of some red tape. Recently, I visited HammondCare and caught up with Dr Stephen Judd, Chief Executive Officer of HammondCare since 1995. He is a very eminent Australian with great knowledge in this area—I am reading one of his books at the moment—he is one of the Australian government's Minister's Dementia Advisory Group. He also has made comments in relation to this and supports it.

We have consulted with the stakeholders across this sector. We see the benefit; we see their argument. The government seems to put a lot of emphasis on getting rid of certification, and we support them in that. But we released our Living Longer, Living Better package on 20 April 2012; legislation last year through the chamber, supported by those opposite. They said that they would not support the workforce supplements. They spent a lot of time today on this legislation; but there is $1.1 billion which is sitting there in the Treasury coffers. The sector wants to know what will happen to that money. That money was put aside by us, with the sector's agreement and the unions' agreement—ACSA, LASA, COTA, United Voice, the Nurses Federation—they all agree, and all the stakeholders across the whole sector agree, that that money should be used for wages and conditions because nurses, carers, IT workers and administrative workers in this sector are not paid enough.

We will lose about one-third of our workers across this sector in the next 10 years. And it is an ageing sector as well. We need that money put aside for that purpose. They are putting a lot of emphasis on getting rid of certification which, according to the Productivity Commission, will save the taxpayer $350,000; but there is $1.1 billion that needs to go back into the sector for the workers in the sector.

There are 14,000 workers in the sector in Western Australia now who are going to vote very shortly in a Senate by-election. They want to know what will happen to that money. So I call on the minister to do the right thing—to concentrate on what the sector needs, and to listen to the sector as we have and as we did in government and in opposition. They also have major reforms coming in on 1 July this year, and the sector has hardly been consulted. There has been a lot of concentration on certification; almost no concentration on the reforms that are going to take place.

I call on the government to get their priorities straight in aged care. Stop the cuts in aged care and stop the cuts in Indigenous affairs as well.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this bonfire of bills, which together repeal red tape on businesses and individuals to the value of more than $700 million per year, every year. I want to take this time to highlight the importance of repealing the more than 9,500 unnecessary or counterproductive regulations and 1,000 redundant acts, which equates to more than 50,000 pages being cleaned out of the statue books.

There are many positives in repealing red tape. The financial benefits to individuals and small businesses are certainly substantial; equally as significant is the time and energy that can now be spent on actually delivering front-line services, getting on with the job and productively working, rather than spending aeons climbing mountains of paperwork.

Another major benefit of repealing red tape is that quite simply it is good housekeeping to keep the statue books up to date and functional. Legislation incorporates the norms by which society operates, and its availability in an up-to-date, accessible and coherent form is crucial for the orderly and effective functioning of society and in particular for the rule of law.

From the perspective of both the nation and its citizens, it is vital that up-to-date versions of legislation relevant to an issue that concerns them are capable of being identified and accessed. If legislation is not readily and immediately accessible, finding it will prove to be a task that is beyond not only lay people but also experienced lawyers. In an ideal world, legislation should be published in a manner that will facilitate its being identified and located by members of the public. Ensuring this outcome should be relatively straightforward. Unfortunately, this is by no means always the case, as I shall try to detail.

An initial problem faced by someone searching for the relevant legislation on a particular topic is that it is not necessarily to be found in one act. In many cases, the relevant provisions are scattered among a number of statutes and statutory rules and, quite probably, judicial decisions. In most common-law countries, the practice has been to publish statues and statutory rules in annual columns. Normally, each volume will consist of public general acts arranged in the order of enactment, with any private acts being included separately at the end of the volume which are not updated or revised, although in some common-law countries it has been the practice to issue annual publications containing annotations setting out amendments to earlier statutes.

Statues that are repealed, become spent or otherwise lose their force are not excised. Unless there is a mechanism for revising and republishing amended statutes, users of those statutes are faced with considerable difficulty in finding out what legislative provisions are relevant to them. Moreover, having found what may appear to be the provisions that concern them, they cannot rest on their laurels; they still have to check to see whether, and to what extent, those provisions have been affected by subsequent legislation.

If legislation is not kept up-to-date, the task of researching it is unnecessarily difficult and demanding, and requires much time, resources and enthusiasm. The problem is alleviated in those jurisdictions where indexes and annotations of statutes are maintained. And, in recent years, the publication in most common-law jurisdictions of electronic versions of statutes and statutory rules also make it easier to access legislation.

There are so many advantages to reducing the burden of red tape. I am proud to stand on this side of the chamber where the coalition government has held true to its deregulatory policy agenda, unlike those opposite who imposed more than 21,000 new regulations in the six years they were in government.

Members of my constituency constantly approach me with ideas for reducing regulation in their sector, whether it be reducing the duplication of regulation between the three levels of government or simplifying the compliance costs of simply doing business. The Abbott government understands that small government is good government. It cannot go unnoticed that, in just six months in government, the coalition has managed to find more than $700 million of red tape to repeal—well over halfway to our pledge of $1 billion a year.

One of the shocking statistics that has become evident is that, according to a survey by Queensland researchers, Australia's scientists spend more than 500 years worth of time each year preparing research funding applications for grants. What a waste of talent and knowledge that could be much better utilised. I look forward to the coalition government increasing efficiency around research grant applications so that scientists can spend more time on crucial research and development, rather than on filling out paperwork.

I look forward, as a Queensland representative on the coalition's deregulation committee, to seeing further repeals in red tape—saving businesses and individuals time, money and effort and contributing towards a stronger, more efficient economy and more jobs for Australians. I commend these bills to the House.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on these bills, and I welcome the member for Ryan's new-found interest in statute stocktake and other legislation. I say that because, as I look back through the 43rd Parliament and see legislation such as the Statute Stocktake Bill (No. 1) 2011, the Statute Law Revision Bill 2012, the Legislative Instruments Amendment (Sunsetting) Bill 2011 and the Statute Law Revision Bill 2012, I realise she was not here to be seen—not a word. But I am always delighted when members take a new-found interest in what I call the very sound practice of eliminating regulation that has become outdated or unnecessary by amending and/or repealing certain legislation. What groundbreaking words—since the member for Wentworth quoted himself, I will quote myself—on 23 June 2011.

Even more importantly, I think, as part of these debates over the 43rd Parliament when we had virtually no-one on the other side participating on the importance of eliminating spent or out-of-date legislation and thousands and thousands of pages were removed from the statute books, there was not a whimper, or barely a whimper. I thought an interesting whimper came from the now trade minister who, in the debate on the Statute Stocktake Bill (No. 1) 2011 on 23 June that year, did make some comments:

The government—

That is, Labor, when we were in government—

is drawing an extremely long bow in its promotion of this bill as part of its commitment to reducing red tape, at least within the government's own administration.

It must be Irony Week—because the longest bow being drawn here is by this government claiming that this bill is somehow going to result in the elimination of red tape or result in cost savings of such magnitude that are beyond imagination. So, as I said, I am very happy to welcome new-found interest from members on that side of the House—who all of a sudden think that repealing redundant legislation from the 1960s and 1970s is what everyone in the community has apparently been crying out for. I am very happy to welcome that.

Turning to some of the substantive aspects of this legislation, I did think it was a bit rich to get a lecture from the Minister for Communications and his parliamentary secretary. It is funny how, in going through his regulatory principles a bit earlier, the parliamentary secretary never addressed these when he was an adviser to the Howard government during this period. He talked about convergence. The convergence debate in Australia came and went, and Australia did absolutely nothing. He did not mention other important factors that go towards explaining the way in which the communications sector is regulated, such as vertical integration and the importance of regulating to deal with that. He did not mention facilities-based competition in the ladder of investment, the notion that service retail enables new entrants into the market, and from there we can have facilities-based competition, or how we saw the failure of facilities-based competition under the Howard regime in Australia—resulting in no competition in broadband and no accessibility. He never included mention of some of his beauties when he was an adviser to the Howard government. But I will do that for him. His piece de resistance—this is my favourite—was the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999.

If you want to talk about regulating just for the sake of having red tape, people often ask me: 'Member for Greenway, in the Telecommunications Act there is an enormous gap between part 8 and part 13, and there are a couple of gaps in between that have not been filled over the years. Why is that?' The answer I give them is: 'Well, you see, in November 1998, when the Howard government was flogging off Telstra and needed to pull the wool over the National Party's eyes so they could allow the sale to go through, the Howard government took a couple of sections from the Telecommunications Act and put them into a new act and gave it a new name.' Such inventiveness should be rewarded, and I am happy to mention that today and to pay tribute to the parliamentary secretary for doing this. It is indeed all a show, and you do not have to take it from me. You can take it from then Minister Minchin, who said, 'The government is bringing together in this bill the consumer and service safeguards so that Australians can readily know what protections are available to them.' That is fine, but all this time they have been going on about how there has been unnecessary regulation. We had a whole act invented just so they could get through the sale of Telstra and assuage the Nationals on this point.

But there is another good point here, because we are talking in some aspects about repealing regulation related to the universal service obligations. There are some changes here. There are some savings here. They are not to be sneezed at. And they, of course, bring on the point of USO contestability—contestability and the universal service obligation. Again, these were reforms dreamt up under the Howard government, and what a success they were! Actually, they were one of the biggest flops ever seen. Let us see what the International Telecommunications Union ICT tool kit says about Australia and contestable USO provision:

The goal of the Australian Universal Service Obligation Fund was to encourage competition in under-served areas by licensing other operators to become universal service providers …

The pilot areas were divided into a total of 213 US—

universal service—

areas that encompassed 52 local government areas.

So a lot of work, a lot of regulation and a lot of legislative instruments went into that. The conclusion was:

… in 2005 the Ministry for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts declared that Telstra was the only USP and that there was no competition in the provision of US—

that is, universal service.

The government overregulated when they were in government before. They got it wrong. They repeal it, and then they want a pat on the back. There is so much more that they could have done here, and I will help them out, because some of the other speakers said there was more fun to come. I will help them out.

Datacasting was a fantastic notion dreamt up by former Senator Alston. He declared, basically, that a heap of spectrum could not be used for a commercial interest, so who would like to bid for it? So they had all these auction rules created, all these legislative instruments around it and all these people working on it, and, amazingly, no-one wanted to bid for this spectrum. I was very interested to see what is happening with datacasting today. Why is it still in various pieces of legislation—all the auction rules and all the licensing processes? So I went to the Department of Communications website and looked up datacasting. It says at the bottom:

Further information on datacasting can be found on the ACMA's datacasting page

So I went to that datacasting page:

The page you are looking for could not be found.

It is so relevant that the regulator does not even have it updated on its own website.

I will go to a couple of other examples. Early last year, in February, I presented a speech to the Australian Broadcasting Summit talking about a lot of the challenges facing regulation. I mentioned the issue of regional radio and made these comments:

When the Howard Government amended the cross media ownership laws in 2006 a particular concern was the impact on local content on regional radio.

This is a very important point. When I was making these comments, people in the audience were nodding their heads. I continued:

As a consequence, they—

the Howard government—

introduced specific local content and local presence regulatory requirements for those licencees.

This resulted in quite onerous regulatory compliance obligations on those licencees.

As a lawyer at Gilbert and Tobin, one of my colleagues had the task of spending many hours, even days, on fulfilling this compliance task for one licencee.

Thankfully this Government—

the Labor government—

in 2011 … revised those rules to reduce that burden, including in some cases exemptions.

… the point I wish to make is the need for policy makers to understand the full impact of regulations.

So it is very clear to see that, while those opposite bemoan the amount of regulation in some areas, they in fact have been the prime culprits, and it is time to reduce those regulatory burdens where Labor in government did the same.

I would point out some of the big savings in the communications space in this bill. We are talking a total of about $30.445 million, not to be sneezed at, and $22.14 million of that is actually attributable to bills enacted or at least drafted under Labor. Labor's bills that came to this parliament and that lapsed as a result of the election then came back in virtually the same form. They are actually Labor reforms. They include reforms relating to removing requirements for multiple permits for submarine cables and the prepaid-mobile identity requirements reforms, where paper based requests were done away with. Of course, it took time to do this because you need to consult with law enforcement agencies. These are the kinds of devices that are used for things like drug dealing and other heinous offences. This resulted in Labor savings of $22.14 million.

I will have a look at the remainder of the reforms in the communications space here. There is $6.58 million to do with consumer information under the SFOA regime. This was only possible because the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code was brought about under part 6 of the Telecommunications Act under Labor in government. We let part 6 of the telco act operate effectively. While the minister may talk about getting all the CEOs together, all those blokes in suits, Labor actually got consumer groups as well as the industry into the room to make this happen. So this is only able to come about because we have part 6 of the Telecommunications Act working as it should because Labor facilitated it.

I want to end my comments on a couple of points related to what is supposed to be the genesis for this day of cutting red tape. I was very interested. I have had a look at The Australian Government Guide to Regulation, which is on the Cutting Red Tape website. It basically says that everyone needs to read this, 'from the most junior member of the policy team to the departmental secretary'. As I was reading through, I thought: 'This actually sounds very familiar. I think I have read this kind of stuff before.' And, sure enough, as I go through existing best practice guides about regulation, I find those of the Australian National Audit Office, which sets in place its principles for regulation, including its best practice checklists, including a best practice checklist on resourcing issues, which goes directly to issues of cost. Then I go to the Legislative Instruments Handbook, for which there is an exposure draft that was put out in January 2014. It includes requirements such as, in chapter 4, the requirement for rule makers to 'assess the regulatory impact of a proposal under the Best Practice Regulation Handbook'2013.

I wanted to see what this Best Practice Regulation Handbook 2013 said, so I went to the Office of Best Practice Regulation website to find this 2013 document. When you click on it, it now just goes to the Cutting Red Tape website. There is not even a mention of the Best Practice Regulation Handbook, when you go to this site, to say it has been replaced. This is all simply redoing a number of documents that already existed to guide best practice regulation. I know a bit about best-practice regulation, because, in my former life, I was responsible for formulating best-practice regulation not only for government departments and agencies in Australia but also overseas and for regulators themselves. So I can tell when something is simply being held up as a new document. These are simply best-regulation principles. For the parliamentary secretary, and anyone else, to claim that this is somehow a new and inventive model that they have developed is absolutely wrong. I encourage everyone to go and try to find the 2013 edition of the Best Practice Regulation Handbook, because I think you will find that those provisions have been duplicated in this document that they claim is something new, when in fact it is not.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. Today is the very first repeal day of the new coalition government, and there will be many more to come after it. This repeal day was something that we committed to before the last election. We are showing that we are a government of 'what we say is what we do', unlike the government of the previous six years. This government will remove $1 billion worth of red tape, each and every year. I take this opportunity to congratulate the parliamentary secretary and the Prime Minister for the cracking start they have made on this important commitment.

Life often imitates art; sometimes art imitates life. Since we have our repeal day here in the federal parliament, it is very fitting that next week is the release of the Lego Movie, which has so much innovation and creativity. That movie was done here in Australia. That movie could very well have a subtitle. That movie could be about repeal day itself. The theme in that movie is very similar to the theme that we face in Australia today. The Lego Movie starts off set in Bricksburg, whose residents mindlessly follow government regulations, instructions and orders, over and over. In the movie there is a big billboard that says, 'Conform: It's the norm'. One of the quotes I always remember from that movie was from the hero of the movie, Emmet, who says, 'How do I know what to do if there is no instruction manual?' That is the point of the repeal day.

The theme of the movie is that the ruler of Bricksburg tries to 'Kragilise' its residents—that is, spray them with a superglue that sticks them in their place so that there is no creativity and there is no innovation. The good guys in the movie are called the Master Builders—they are the free thinkers—and they engage in a fight against the evil government's robots, coincidentally, called the micromanagers. We saw this movie a few weeks ago in Parliament House. In the final scene, where the micromanagers are fighting against the free thinkers, the micromanagers fire red tape and try and control the free thinkers. I am sure when I was sitting there—there were staffers and parliamentarians—that I could hear some members of the opposition cheering for those micromanagers.

Why do we need this repeal bill? Firstly, we need to have a look our productivity, at the unmitigated mess that the previous Labor government left and that we have inherited. In the five years from mid-2007, Australia's multifactor productivity declined nearly three per cent. In 2012, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the productivity growth of 51 countries. Where did Australia come among those 51 countries? We came second-last. The only one of those 51 countries that we beat for productivity growth was Botswana. In 2013, we were a lowly 21st in the World Economic Forum Global Competitive Index. We had slipped six places in four years. Under the previous Labor government, business—and especially small business—drowned in regulation.

I know there are some on the other side who believe in concentrations of power and control of government, that they know best and that they can create regulations that can make the economy work better—but our history has shown this has failed time after time. We have the real, live experiments. We have the examples of Taiwan and Hong Kong versus communist China. We have examples of East Germany versus West Germany. We have the examples of North Korea versus South Korea. Why did those western countries succeed while the others did not? It was simply because they had less government regulation. Those economies were not strangled by red tape. The economies that failed did not have the levels of innovation, they did not have the levels of creativity, they did not have those risks-for-reward factors. That is why those economies stagnated. That is the danger that we are slipping into. We have seen it in the past six years of the previous government, with our productivity going backwards, our innovation going backwards, our small businesses going backwards. That is why this bill is important. It is the first start in winding back that regulation to let our entrepreneurs have a free hand to grow the economy and to create freedom so that we can all live prosperously.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hughes for his contribution. It is wonderful to hear how countries that have very little regulation flourish while those that are regulated do not. I travelled recently to a Pacific island which I will not name. Because I am a bit of a cyclist I took some things that most people would not take—a pair of pedals, a pedal spanner and cycling shoes, as well as my helmet, so that I could hire a bike and still clip in. Imagine my horror when I got there and I realised that not only were the screws that hold the pedals on the bikes not uniform on this Pacific island, where of course they would be in most of world, but their threads were not uniform either. You could buy a bolt and a nut and they would not fit. This is a country with so little regulation that you could not even use last year's nut out of your toolbox with this year's bolt.

To assume that all regulation is bad and all regulation ties us up and makes life unpleasant is quite ridiculous. In Australia, we live in a society where our balconies do not fall down, when you put the brakes on the car stops in a straight line, toys for sale do not have lead in them and their parts do not fall off creating a choking risk for a child, and you can get on a roller-coaster without fearing that it will fall down. We have a level of convenience and trust in what we buy that comes from regulation. Regulation can do really good things. I would appreciate it if the government did not attempt, in this debate, to demonise all regulation. You need to be able to pick the good from the bad, but we are not hearing that from the other side. Red tape repeal day is supposed to be about red tape, which is the paperwork that you need to fill in to prove that you did something or to get permission to do something. Having been a small business owner, I know that it is annoying. Sometimes it is valuable as you can use what you put into the form for your business purposes; at other times it is just annoying and you wonder why it is necessary.

With the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills we are talking about all spin and no substance. I have been looking forward to this day, to see what the government would come up with that would result in the great unshackling of small businesses who are drowning under red tape. What would they take out for small business on this repeal day? Having read all the bills and all the explanatory memoranda, which took me some time because there were a lot of pages produced, the answer is that very little has been taken out. The small things that have been taken out are the kinds of housekeeping matters that would normally have passed through this House uncontroversially, in the Federation Chamber, on any day of any parliament that has sat in living memory. I often talk about the amount of spin that is in politics and I liken it to sugar. Governments of all persuasions like to put a bit of sugar on their policies, to make them look a bit shiny when they are presented. That is part of the job. It is like putting the cinnamon sugar on a doughnut. But there is supposed to be a doughnut. Under all that sugar there is supposed to be a doughnut. Before someone says that there are holes in doughnuts I will say they are right, because even if you get a policy right there will always be someone who is unsatisfied with something. Someone will always find a hole in it. However, there is supposed to actually be a doughnut under all the sugar. This legislation is just sugar. When you peel away the rhetoric we have heard from the government since the election, the bills are just sugar.

We have heard Prime Minister Tony Abbott in the lead-up to this debate, in the media reports and in his own speech, saying the childcare centres were subject to so many pages of law restricting their capacity to operate. The impression was given, and the reasonable expectation was created, that in these pages of repeals there would be something on child care. There is not. Despite all the hype, all the spin, all the promises and all the raising of expectations, these bills effectively repeal legislation that was automatically going to be repealed anyway. When we were in government we repealed 16,000 bills, but we also found ways to automatically repeal bills which became redundant so that we did not have to pull a stunt like repeal day. It happened automatically. In order to get the numbers up in the childcare area, the government has gone through and found bills that were scheduled to automatically repeal under their sunset provisions and brought their repeal dates forward, so that they could count them. There were public servants working that out at a time when the government was saying we had budget emergency. In September, when the government stated that there was work to do and they were going to hit the ground running, they had departmental staff going through legislation, finding provisions that were scheduled to be repealed automatically, and adding them to a list so they could count them. It is truly extraordinary and it must be extremely disappointing for those in the childcare sector who may have thought there might have been some real work done, rather than the rhetoric and spin.

We heard about local cafes that serve alcohol and have to negotiate 75 sets of local, state and national regulations. It is well worth dealing with that, but it is hard to repeal that type of legislation as you have to negotiate with the states and do some work. Is there anything in all of these thousands of pages that actually delivers on the government's promises? No.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is just the first tranche.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear from the other side that it is coming, they are making a commitment. They do that. The Cutting Red Tape website is truly amazing. They are aiming to cut $1 billion of red tape for business each year. That is a great aim. However, our COAG reforms alone cut $4 billion every year for business. But $1 billion is a nice target. On the government's Cutting Red Tape website they have a wonderful graph which shows them approaching that $1 billion. It is not a graph of what they have actually done; it is a graph of their announcements. They have announced that if they do something at some point, and clearly not today, then these achievements will be reached. They are graphing their announcements, not their deliveries. It is all spin and no substance.

We know that there is no substance to these bills, because there are no regulatory impact statements. This is a government that, in opposition in the lead-up to the election, made an enormous song and dance about how everything would have a regulatory impact statement because it was really important to look at the reduction of red tape impacting on small business. True, it is important. In fact, we used regulatory impact statements when we were in government and we were 97 per cent compliant, according to the Office of Best Practice Regulation. The current government already has some default notices for regulatory impact statements which they have not produced, even though, in January this year, they strengthened the requirement by stating that every proposal that went to cabinet for consideration would have to have a regulatory impact statement. These bills, which are the centrepiece of this great repeal day—which was their great announcement—do not even warrant regulatory impact statements. In fact, their explanatory memoranda say they are not required. It is clear why they are not required—because these bills do not actually repeal anything causing red tape burden. They repeal things that actually do nothing.

In the last few months, the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, has been saying that every time he opened a cupboard he found a spider. Now we know why: it is because he has been running around in the archives opening cupboards that have not been opened since 1905. That is what he has been spending his time doing. It is truly astonishing! No wonder he is finding spiders if he and the department is actually spending time on this. This is the sort of stuff that you do when you have nothing else to do. Cleaning out your inbox, going back over your files and throwing out the files that are 50 years old or 75 years old, is something you do when you are trying to be busy, you have nothing else to do and you want to make yourself feel good by ticking off a few numbers. There is nothing in this.

The Prime Minister said that 9,000 regulations and 1,000 acts will be repealed, but in order to reach 1,000 acts he had to go back to acts which repealed acts before 1969. There are over 1,000 acts being repealed in these bills, which repealed bills between 1901 and 1969. How astonishing! Of course, it is great that it is happening, but you want to put out a press release about this? This is the normal business of government. This is the usual business of government. We repealed 16,000 when we were in government—unlike the Howard years, by the way. The net increase in regulation under the Howard years was higher than it was under Labor. We added 21,000; we repealed 16,000. The Howard years saw a net increase in regulation that was higher by far than it was the Labor years. To walk in here and somehow try to take credit for this great repeal day, which actually only repeals bills that have not done anything for a very long time, is quite problematic.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why didn’t you do it when you were in government?

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member asks why we did not do it when we were in government. Because we were actually governing. We were getting on with the job of governing. We still found time to do this stuff—

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, under standing order 66A, I was asked a question. I seek to intervene under the same standing order.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, she didn't ask you a question.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Parramatta?

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not accepting the intervention.

There are also some wonderful things in these bills which caused me to chuckle! Bearing in mind that we are seven weeks out from the budget, I wonder whether this is the best use of departmental staff time. I suspect that there are probably a few advisers that were shaking their heads and getting quite worried about the fact that there is real work to do. There are 11 different pieces of legislation that from now on will contain the word 'email' without a hyphen. Who in the department took time out from the important work of preparing the budget and preparing things for expenditure review to do that? Who in the department took time out from dealing with the budget emergency and from the extraordinary things this government had to do because things were so terrible, to do that?

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And 'facsimile' to 'fax'!

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hang on, yes: where 'facsimile transmission' appeared in 16 pieces of legislation, the legislation now says 'fax'. Small business all around the country is delighting in the fact that now, stylistically, they can type less. They can just put 'fax' now. They will not have to type two words; they can just type one. A member of staff—someone who works in the department—and then drafters actually took time—

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One in; one out.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One in; one out. So that is it? So you change 'facsimile' to 'fax' and that is one out? Goodness me, that is just astonishing!

In part 4, paragraphs 92 to 99 amend six pieces of legislation to add a space in the middle of the word 'trademark' so that it reads 'trade mark'. Again, that is of incredible benefit to small business—not! All spin and no substance. Never mind red tape, what about waste of time? There are 10 instances that a staff member managed to find where the legislative assembly of the Northern Territory was referred to as 'for the Northern Territory', and they changed it to 'of the Northern Territory', and then someone had to draft it so that it could go into this Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 1) 2014. The amount of time that has been spent on this when there is, I assume, real work to do is quite astonishing.

It is not surprising that those opposite are only speaking for five minutes, because there is not any more than that to talk about in this debate. If they thought that there was something to speak about in this debate, the other way to reduce their speaking time was to have a small number of speakers speaking fully and fulsomely on the wonderful changes that they have made in these repeal bills—1,000 bills that repeal bills which were obsolete in 1969. You had a target of 1,000 and that is how you have met it. There is not a single small business, a single person at home, a single school or preschool pupil, a single university student, a single pensioner or a single person living in an aged-care facility that will benefit at all from the repeal of 1,000 bills that repeal bills between 1902 and 1969. The hide of the government, to actually get up and brag about this, is amazing. They actually bragged about using the time of departments and the time of drafters to draft something that, quite frankly, you would only do when you did not have anything else to do. This hype about this repeal day, this hype about this removal of red tape today, is proving to be nothing more than a farce.

One of the previous speakers spoke about the horrors of duplication. They have actually found a horror of duplication in this: they found that in one of the bills there were two commas in a row, so they took one out. I have to be fair here; there is another area where they have reduced duplication—

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

What about aged care? What about telecommunications?

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was just going to aged care. They have actually removed the duplication where aged-care businesses had to register building approvals with both the Commonwealth and the states. The interesting thing about this is that 60 per cent of aged-care providers are from the not-for-profit sector. The ACNC, the charities commission which those opposite are abolishing, was tasked with removing duplication in aged-care regulations. However, it was tasked with fixing the hard-to-remove duplication—not the simple stuff that you can do in a paragraph, but the stuff that requires negotiation with the states, and you are removing it. You have managed to do one easy bit, but you are removing the body which would have worked on repealing the hard stuff. So you are actually making it harder to repeal red tape, not easier. This is all spin, all sugar and no doughnut.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. I will give full marks to the member for Parramatta. We have had our differences in the past, but the detail and the work that she has gone to is a great reflection on and an insight into what small business goes through every day of their lives. She has gone through that in so much detail to highlight exactly the whole point of repeal day today.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the member for Lyons accept?

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, we have got to get through a lot. If I could take you back to 2007, those opposite were going to be the one-in one-out administration. Twenty-one thousand new regulations later, that was a broken promise. It was not the most notable of the broken promises of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, but it was nevertheless a broken promise. They adhere to a thinking that Ronald Reagan put best: 'If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.' This approach was clearly rejected by the Australian people in September last year.

The first ever federal government repeal day will greatly benefit the smoother flow of business in my home state of Tasmania and my electorate of Lyons. Bad and redundant legislation will get government out of the lives of families and reduce the cost of living. What is it about those opposite? Both Labor and the Greens demand to have more and more control over people's lives. What sort of ideology rejects the notion of personal responsibility and seeks to stifle innovation and enterprise? The Australian Greens party, the member for Melbourne's party, was born in my home state. As I have said before, it was born of honourable and noble intent, but to listen to the member for Melbourne today advocating an ideology of control, of having a hand in every corner of people's lives, of controlling the conversation, in the belief that we know what is best for you and family—that government knows best—was truly something to behold.

The Liberal Party believes that government does not know best and that families and individuals make the best choices. We believe in personal responsibility. The more that government gets out of people's lives, the better. Regulations and boundaries are important, but not regulations that stifle entrepreneurship, that make Australia less competitive and are a burden on our nation and businesses and a cost to family budgets. This first repeal day is a worthwhile and overdue commitment to get rid of redundant and inefficient legislation. Ten thousand unnecessary and counterproductive pieces of legislation and 50,000 pages of unnecessary and costly legislation and regulations will go, removing a burden of compliance on business, community groups and households of $700 million this year, next year and every year.

Cliff Partridge runs aged-care facilities across my electorate of Lyons in Tasmania at Deloraine, at the May Shaw facility at Swansea on the east coast and South Eastern Community Care in Sorell. He will tell you how much easier life will become for his business with the government's streamlining of the pricing process for residential aged care. There has been a simplification of the proposed accommodation pricing process, and the government has increased the threshold for accommodation prices requiring approval to $550,000 from $455,000.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's real change.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is real change. This will lead to annual savings of three-quarters of a million dollars in compliance costs for aged-care providers. Cliff says that the previous regulation on accommodation pricing created a huge workload for aged-care facilities. He said that it was more demanding than being in the hotel industry, where operators had to justify why they were charging every particular room rate. Building assessment procedures remain an ongoing issue of concern for aged-care operators. It is an overregulated system that demands reassessment of an entire facility every time a minor alteration is made to the premises.

Charities will benefit. Even today, Jan Davis, the CEO of the Tasmanian Farmers & Graziers Association, welcomed the repeal bill. She has highlighted the disproportionate burden of regulations that primary producers face every day. To give a practical example of how they will be better off, importers of agricultural chemicals—and last time I looked they are used by primary producers—and of veterinary medicines such as pet worm tablets, and of household weedkiller and agricultural fertilisers will no longer need to re-register established products that have not changed. This is a practical way of reducing costs to farmers and farm businesses.

Any rational and sensible person that has had anything to do with business or has been part of a family would agree that getting rid of unwanted and redundant legislation is a good deal. Repeal day is symbolic of the difference between ideologies. On one side are political parties who want to control us and tell us how to think and act and who want to regulate every nook and cranny of every family's life. The alternative is a party that offers a pathway to personal responsibility and is trying to move closer with this bill today.

We are doing what we said we would do. We are well on the way to reducing the red-tape burden on small business by $1 billion annually, as we committed to during the election. I commend the parliamentary secretary for his diligence and work in putting together this bill today. I commend this repeal bill to the House.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 and related bills. I had no idea I was speaking on a bill of such importance. You can tell its importance from the quality of the debate and the way that the galleries are packed full of people desperate to see the repeal of legislation! The parliament is packed! And we have heard these great philosophical statements by those opposite. I got to hear a great history lesson about North and South Korea and East Germany and West Germany, and I got to hear St Ronald Reagan's great voice being invoked in this parliament—what a wonder! And it is all for the member for Kooyong's wonderful repeal day. I am so hopeful! I must admit I sometimes rail about the complexities of the modern world. I am as concerned and as aggravated as anybody else when I have to fill in a bit of paperwork or when I take the dog for a walk in the morning and some council makes me pick up the dog's business in a plastic bag. What an imposition on my liberty—another bit of red tape getting in the way of me as an individual making my own decisions! What an imposition! We see this everywhere.

And you can understand small business getting their hopes up, because we all know they have to deal with the Australian Taxation Office, WorkCover, ASIC, consumer protection and the environment. We know there is a section of business out there that is positively nostalgic for the good old days before regulation, before we had these problems and regulations. And the economy just grew—it just grew year on year on year. Without regulation, there was never even the slightest hiccup with the economy—1929 aside, not the slightest hiccup in the modern economy. So we can understand this nostalgia, and we can understand the grandiose application of rhetoric by those opposite—in particular, the member for Kooyong, who, extraordinarily on a repeal day, launches both a website and a handbook so that people can find their way through the regulations. But there is just one problem: it does not actually happen. Despite its title, despite the grandiose rhetoric, despite the website and the handbook and all the appealing to the Reaganite philosophy, it does not actually happen. It is a collection of grammatical corrections like the abolition of mules or donkeys in the military or changing a word from 'facsimile' to 'fax'—great, great regulatory reforms.

We all know that from time to time you do have to repeal some regulations that are no longer relevant. Labor got rid of about 16,000 odds and sods of regulations that did not mean much to anybody. But we did not accompany it with some sort of huge rhetorical flourish. We did not name a national day, we did not invoke North Korea, we did not talk about free thinkers and micromanagers and knights and dames, and we did not encourage bigotry masquerading as free speech. While we should be about creating jobs in places like the northern suburbs of Adelaide, this government has just sort of disappeared into its own rhetorical world where repeal day somehow means something to people. I think simply having a repeal day is not quite enough. The parliamentary secretary, the member for Kooyong, should declare it a public holiday! We should have a public holiday on this day, and then we could have a big parade; we could call it the 'repeal day parade'!

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could call it Frydenberg Day!

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, we would not want to name it after him, even though he is destined for greatness—we know he is the colt from Kooyong. But the repeal day parade could be led by a knight of the realm riding a big horse with a jousting stick, followed by the full range of the bunyip aristocracy, all tramping along—all these people who fancy themselves as born to rule. And we could have those espousing free speech—those brave journalists—behind them, espousing free speech and insulting the crowds randomly for whatever they really want to insult them for, with free speech reigning. Then we could have the people who want to poison the planet with carbon and to spray chemicals about with careless abandon. Behind them would be those who want to get rid of the penalty rates of workers and to underpay their workers. And behind them would be the people who want to sell tobacco to kids, and behind them the people who want to sell grog to problem gamblers—

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, a point of order: relevance, under standing order 104. I shudder to think what this has to do with the bill under consideration today, and I would ask you to bring him back to the bill before the House.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for his help. Whilst this has been a robust debate entered into on both sides, I think the member for Wakefield may have been straying, but he has responded only to that which he has been offered.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am just talking about the repeal day parade—it is going to be a great parade. I am even going to get into it. I am going to follow up the parade that the member for Kooyong is going to have. I will be driving my 1967 Cadillac El Dorado—hot pink, whale skin hubcaps, nice all-cow leather interior, getting about one mile to the gallon. I will cruise down there eating McDonalds out of those old styrofoam containers, railing against the modern world, chucking them out of the window—littering. That is what the repeal day parade should look like. It will be a great day, and it is all going to be because of the member for Kooyong and this great bill! We should all give thanks. And I know that small businessmen in places like Elizabeth and Gawler and those country towns like Kapunda and Balaklava will be holding their own parades today, knowing that the heavy hand of government has been lifted from them by this wonderful bill and this tremendous parliamentary secretary.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Tasmania's representative on the coalition's deregulation committee, which is capably led by the member for Kooyong, I have great pleasure in speaking on this legislation. It is legislation that repeals more than 10,000 unnecessary and counterproductive pieces of legislation that constitute a dead weight on Australian businesses, families and community groups.

The savings in this first tranche of red and green tape reductions exceed $700 million, and we are committed to saving a billion dollars every year—and year on year, that is an enormous figure. When you consider that a billion dollars will build you a brand new teaching hospital in Australia, or that it costs $150 million to build a school, saving a billion dollars year on year is something that all Australians should welcome. I am struggling to understand why those opposite do not. These repeal days will become a regular feature of this government's program, and it must continue to be in the future. The Productivity Commission has shown us what is possible by identifying $12 billion of potential savings in red and green tape reductions. It will be a feature of this government's legislative agenda to mine as many of those savings as we can.

We are also determined to embed the cultural changes necessary to make red and green tape reductions the new normal. Ministers have to meet targets in this area, which are considered one measure of their success. Public servants must give due regard to the regulatory impact of policy proposals and draft legislation. As a former senior public servant I can say that when you put that cabinet submission up, and you give due considerations to what savings can be accrued, then good evidence-based decision making results.

We are absolutely committed to turning the tide on regulation, which those opposite never did. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised a one-off policy that came to nothing. In fact, contrary to what he promised, there were 21,000 new or amended regulations under Labor. That was not only an abrogation of Labor's promise to the Australian people, because former Prime Minister Rudd promised that policy to them, but it was also an abrogation of their responsibility as a government. As a consequence we have plummeted down the international rankings, and we have heard many speakers on this debate who have told us how far we have dropped—from 68th in the world, about the middle of the pack, to 128th.

What that means is that regulation is clogging up the business landscape, enmeshing those who seek to invest. I know that people often talk about business power. The greatest power of business is its power to invest or disinvest. Every time we remove a regulatory obstacle to that investment we are helping our economy and helping our nation's future prosperity. Our efforts in this regard have met with approval.

I have been watching those opposite throughout the day, and I have heard their comments that these are empty actions. Perhaps they should explain those actions to some of the people in my home state of Tasmania. I have spent much time in recent months talking to them—the businesses, the peak bodies, and the community organisations—about this issue. The examples they have provided to me about excessive or redundant green and red tape have been fed into our committee process, and ably incorporated by the member for Kooyong, wherever appropriate. As The Examiner newspaper reported on 19 March:

The immediate, direct benefit from removal of regulatory obstacles will be considerable, in the region of $10 million for Tasmania.

I believe that as we strip away ever more obstacles from the system, the longer term benefit will be much higher in terms of new investment. Put simply, fewer forms and more reforms means less costs and more jobs. It is a very simple proposition and I for one an staggered that during six years of Labor government they could not understand that simple proposition.

Earlier today the member for Blaxland dismissed the measures in this bill as 'a clean-up exercise'. He should reflect on what businesses, industry representatives and not-for-profit organisations in my electorate of Bass are telling me. Their view is diametrically opposed to the member for Blaxland.

The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry put out a media release yesterday that welcomed the red tape repeal bill. In that media release they called it:

…a breath of fresh air for businesses big and small

So, far and away from the sort of commentary we have been hearing from those opposite, the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry thinks it is a great thing for business in Northern Tasmania. In his contribution to this debate we heard the member for Lyons talk about the head of the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association, who in a newsletter this morning also welcomed this repeal bill. I thank the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for referring to my, 'inclusive approach' in engaging northern Tasmanian businesses to identify red and green tape issues that were causing them problems.

Unlike the member for Blaxland and those opposite, we believe in smaller government. Over the last six years Labor pointed to the number of new regulations they had brought in as somehow being a measure of success. Let me say to the member for Blaxland, and his Labor and Greens mates, that this is not a quantitative but a qualitative matter. It is not the amount of regulation you bring in that is a measure of your success in government; it is the quality of it. Australia's judgment of Labor's efforts in this regard, on 7 September last year, was damning.

We will act to remove duplication and unnecessary red and green tape. These are actions that are welcomed in Northern Tasmania, throughout the rest of Tasmania, and throughout the rest of this country, and I commend the bill to the House.

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

The opposition looked forward to this debate with great anticipation. When in government we repealed over 16,000 acts and regulations. We thought this was the business of government each and every day and not just something you consign to one particular day of the year, preceded my mountains of press releases and lots of hyperbole.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why didn't you do it?

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

I hear the member for Bass. He sat down short when he had time to speak on this matter. He did not use all of the time allocated to him, so the dignified thing for him to do would be to be quiet now that someone else is at the dispatch box.

We had great expectations when we were told that repeal day was coming up—19 March was going to be one of the most anticipated days in the parliamentary calendar. They banged on about it for weeks. They were going to be stripping billions of dollars of regulatory burdens from small businesses. It was going to remove the weight of legislation holding the country back. Understandably, we came to this debate in parliament, on 19 March, with great expectations. They were promising fireworks.

An honourable member: A bonfire.

A bonfire.

Ms Rishworth interjecting—

You can imagine our disappointment when they promised us fireworks, but, when we got here on 19 March, instead of fireworks we were all handed a few sparklers. There was nothing in the legislation. It was a great fizzer.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not exactly sure what the member for Perth said, but she referred to Hitler in the context of the bonfires. I do not know exactly what she said, so I will give her the opportunity to either explain what she said or withdraw what she said.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Perth would assist the chamber if she would withdraw the comment. I did not hear it, as the member did not.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was just—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I just ask you to withdraw to assist the procedure of the House.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.