Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—I would like to thank very much those honourable members who have taken part in this debate on the Corporations Legislation Amendment (Simpler Regulatory System) Bill 2007 and the supporting bills. This government is serious about ensuring that unnecessary regulatory requirements do not hold Australia’s businesses back. The creation of the Office of Best Practice Regulation and the changes to the processes for making new regulations such as regulatory impact assessment are helping to refine future regulatory proposals and better inform regulatory decision making.

In the field of corporate and financial services regulation, maintaining market confidence and integrity is a critical priority. In cutting red tape in this area, the interests of investors remain a central focus. The simpler regulatory system bills bring together in one package a number of diverse initiatives in the corporate and financial services fields that will reduce red tape for business, while retaining—and I stress this—important protections for investors.

The bill is the result of a process that involved engaging stakeholders at an early stage. In April 2006 a consultation paper was prepared, raising a number of issues, which led to a proposals paper in November 2006. Over 100 submissions on the proposals paper helped in refining the detailed proposals to the point of converting them into this legislative package. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission also made a significant contribution to finetuning a number of the proposals.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all stakeholders for their contributions and for helping to ensure that the initiatives in the bill achieve the important balance—that ever-important balance—between, on the one hand, maintaining investor protection and, on the other hand, enhancing business productivity. The current inquiry by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services into the package presents an opportunity for stakeholders to comment on the details of the bill. I look forward to the committee presenting its report in a timely manner.

We have heard from the member for Reid and the member for Prospect. Whilst I did find the member for Prospect’s contribution to be very disappointing, cynical, supercilious and negative—as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am an optimist and I am a positive person, so I would like to respond in a positive sense—I would like to mention some of the key areas that he touched on. He talked about the financial services industry apparently not thinking that this bill was very serious or very important. I find that surprising, because since I introduced this package into the parliament I have received overwhelming positive feedback from stakeholders. For example, the Business Council of Australia welcomed the introduction of the bills and the review process, which involved extensive consultation. Let me quote just a little of what the BCA said. They said:

This is a good example of a review of existing legislation to determine whether it remains effective and efficient, with amendments to ensure that unnecessary costs are not imposed on business ...

I was also surprised that the member for Prospect was so ferocious in his comments, because the Investment and Financial Services Association has issued a press release welcoming the reforms, the Financial Planning Association of Australia has issued a media release welcoming the reforms, the Australian Bankers Association has issued a media release welcoming the reforms, and the Securities and Derivatives Industry Association of Australia has issued a release welcoming the reforms. Unfortunately, I think what the member for Prospect has demonstrated through his diatribe is actually his lack of understanding about the industry. I am not sure who it is he has been chatting with, but he is clearly out of touch.

The member for Prospect also talked about the Leader of the Opposition’s plan for reducing red tape. With the greatest of respect and, again, without wanting to be negative, all we have heard from the Leader of the Opposition is a bunch of words—empty words—no detail whatsoever: no detail as to how, when, where or who would be involved in these so-called wonderful reforms that they put forward. Fundamentally, the difference between the Liberal-National coalition government and the ALP is that we are actually doing something. We are actually getting on with the business of protecting Australian consumers and ensuring that Australian businesses can continue to grow and prosper.

This package offers a combination of measures that simplify and streamline processes. They will produce reduced compliance costs and, therefore, greater business efficiency. It is important to stress again that they will do this while at the same time improving access to financial advice and enhancing investor participation. The key initiatives involved in reducing costs are associated with distributing annual reports—they do this by better enabling companies to distribute them through the internet—and reducing the costs associated with providing financial advice, particularly for relatively small-scale investments. Other measures target removing unnecessary burdens in the areas of fund raising, takeovers, financial reporting and overall corporate governance.

Again I want to thank all of the stakeholders who have helped form this particular bill. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the departmental officials, many of whom are in the chamber today. I thank them very much for all of their hard and dedicated work, as I thank my own personal staff in my office. They have all worked well together to come up with this package of reforms that are major and substantial. In conclusion, the initiatives in this package will allow Australia’s companies to spend more time on productive activities that contribute to our nation’s economic growth and prosperity. The government would like the package to pass the parliament swiftly. We want this to happen so that the benefits of the streamlined, simpler framework can be realised as soon as possible. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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