Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

But you had the potential! You had the potential!

It is shameful that those opposite continue to stand in this place and try to diminish the work this government is doing to remove burdensome regulation and to support every Australian through our red tape reduction program when 21,000 additional regulations is their economy-crushing legacy, hindering business, weakening our economy and putting this country on the fast track to debt and deficit. That, colleagues, is the Labor way—more bureaucracy, more regulation and cash splashing because those opposite believe more in politicking than in being a good, economically responsible government. Now, as with the debt and deficit mess those opposite left the coalition with, this government is also cleaning up their regulatory mess.

We are scrapping the 1,100 pages worth of additional regulation and legislation that the carbon tax alone created, and we have set a target to remove $1 billion worth of red tape every year. We did this because, as members on this side of the House know, it was hurting Australians in all sorts of unassuming ways. One example of this, in my electorate of Swan, is the additional costs from things such as electricity prices, which were already hurting families in their personal energy bills and were also being passed onto consumers by a range of service providers, including local governments. I highlight that this is not because local governments or any other service providers wanted to; they simply had no choice so that they too could stay afloat in the harsh economic climate that those opposite threw at them.

Thankfully, by scrapping the carbon tax, these additional costs have now been removed. In fact, in a letter I received from the City of Gosnells in my electorate of Swan, the city states that the two largest areas of direct impact from the carbon tax for the city were on their waste disposal fees and the cost of street lighting. Now, thanks to the removal of the carbon tax, each of the city's more than 106,000 ratepayers, according to the 2011 national census, will save from a $9 per tonne reduction in waste disposal costs and a reduction of $110,800 for street lighting per annum. I also joined with the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, now Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, the Hon. Bob Baldwin, in my electorate of Swan soon after the carbon tax was scrapped to welcome a free day of public transport. I am sure the parliamentary secretary would have enjoyed the free transport on that day as well. I am sure members opposite are straightaway thinking, 'Well, nothing in this world is free,' but, in this case, the Western Australian Liberal state government, who recognised just how much of a burden the carbon tax had been on Western Australian taxpayers, created this free public transportation day to compensate passengers for the increase in fares that they had already paid when the carbon tax was introduced. I see the Deputy Speaker, Mr Ewen Jones, smiling. I am sure it is something that he would have liked to implement in Townsville as well, in his great electorate of Herbert.

According to the WA state government, thanks to this coalition government's scrapping of the carbon tax, Perth's public transport users will also now be enjoying fare reductions of between 10c and 30c, depending on the journey they travel. So, as members can see, this government's policy initiatives are achieving their objectives: to remove excessive regulation, to remove duplication and to remove policies that those opposite implemented, which do nothing but strangle productivity and take every Australian's hard-earned money out of their pockets.

We have not just implemented this red tape reduction agenda blind, either. To ensure every piece of regulation which constitutes this $65 billion in compliance costs is appropriately reviewed, this government has been working with the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, which I take this opportunity to commend for its work to date. We have also established deregulation units, which, as the parliamentary secretary stated, are specifically 'tasked with identifying and driving red tape reduction across the Commonwealth', and these units now exist in every portfolio. Not only do these deregulation units exist; this economically responsible government has also implemented a system where every cabinet submission must be accompanied by a regulation impact statement to ensure that the concept of balancing the need for regulation with its impact is at the forefront of every minister's mind when developing policy initiatives.

On 18 March, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister tabled this government's inaugural Annual deregulation report, which highlighted how this government's red tape reduction program is supporting our economy and, by extension, every business, every family and every individual in many different ways. It highlighted that, as a result of last year's two repeal days, this government implemented $2.1 billion worth of regulatory compliance savings, which is more than double that of our original $1 billion target. On the same day, the parliamentary secretary also introduced the cognate bills before the House, which, I am pleased to say, have once again put this government on track to meet this $1 billion annual target. As a result of these cognate bills, 890 acts and 160 legislative instruments will be scrapped, reducing this red tape burden by an additional $305 million. Within 18 months, the government have scrapped the burdensome carbon tax and the hit on industry under the poorly designed mining tax, and we will have systematically reduced this $65 billion regulatory burden by $2.45 billion once all the measures are fully implemented.

To put this in a different perspective, this is 10,300 legislative instruments and 2,700 pieces of unnecessary or duplicative acts of parliament which will no longer be wasting Australians' time. We are achieving this through a variety of provisions in the cognate bills which will see legislation amended or repealed across seven government portfolios. This will assist in further reducing the regulatory burden currently faced by business, families, individuals and the community as a whole. The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill alone will amend or repeal 14 acts across portfolios, including the repeal of the Meat Export Charge Act 1984 and the Meat Inspection Arrangements Act 1964. The government is repealing these acts because, like other provisions outlined in these cognate repeal days bills, they are now redundant. In the case of these meat export bills, this is because the inspection of meat and meat products for export was overhauled in 2011, yet its legislative instruments have remained on the government's statute books for the last four years. A similar example of a redundant act which will be repealed by this bill is the Primary Industry Councils Act 1991, which has had no industry councils established under it for over a decade.

One key deregulatory saving in this bill that I would particularly like to highlight for members is the introduction of additional functionality for myGov users. As members would remember, in the first year of the government's cutting red tape agenda, we created a net red tape saving of $156 million through the myTax initiative, which significantly reduced the amount of information users need to supply to the Australian Taxation Office, or ATO, when using this online system. Now, through the provisions in the cognate bills before the House, an additional $5.4 million in annual compliance savings has been created by allowing customers to update their details in one place using the myGov Tell Us Once service. Similarly, $48.5 million in annual compliance savings will also be created, if the cognate bills before the House are passed, through improvements to the ATO website.

All members in this place would have noticed a difference on the many flights they regularly take to arrive in this place, which has also ensured further savings are found as part of the government's deregulation agenda. This is through the lifting of restrictions on the use of personal electronic devices during flight take-off and landing. So as much as I can attest to this being a benefit to passengers, it will also contribute $17.7 million toward this $305-million net red tape saving for 2015 so far.

In the education portfolio, significant savings have also been found by creating greater efficiencies in the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy, NAPLAN, which was first introduced in 2008. As members would know, under the NAPLAN program, in May of every year students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 take part in a written assessment. From 2017 the delivery of this testing will, however, be changing under this government's efficiency program through the development of an online national assessment platform. This will allow students to complete NAPLAN tests using a computer or another electronic device such as a tablet and will create annual compliance saving of $9.7 million.

It is clear that the systematic process of removing burdensome red tape and green tape, and changing the mindset of both the public and the private sectors is only in its infancy but I am proud to be part of a government that took the first step towards achieving this aim. The removal of $1 billion in red tape each year is this government's target and is a target, which, under the guidance of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, I am sure will be reached again this year. To achieve this though, we must first pass the cognate bills before the House and the others. I commend the bills before the House and I commend this government for having the foresight to deliver this deregulatory program for the benefit of every Australian.

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