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

The people in my electorate described it as something like a 1,200 kilometre screwdriver from Canberra tinkering and adjusting but, in essence, interfering with their daily lives. Businesses and community groups felt that pressure, that pressure of 21,000 pieces of regulation, every day. Where the proponents for projects were confronted with an environmental issue, they felt the full wrath of all three levels of government, including the government in Canberra when it came to OH&S and environmental problems and a whole range of other issues. Unions and green groups, not surprisingly, had all this disproportionate influence in Canberra. Regrettably, in Tasmania we had the double whammy of Labor-Greens government in Hobart as well.

I know people often talk about business power, and I know the member for Rankin and those opposite engage in the politics of envy and division. But the greatest power of business is the power to invest or disinvest. What stops them from investing are those obstacles and those roadblocks. What we are doing as a government is eliminating some of those obstacles and roadblocks. I am the Tasmanian representative on the parliamentary secretary's deregulation committee, which has done some extraordinarily good work, and I was a proud member of the first repeal day. I hope there are many more to roll back some of the injudicious regulation that came out of those opposite. We sent a powerful message about our government's commitment when it comes to easing that burden of legislation and regulation. Those were the obstacles to investment I was referring to earlier. In that context, I ask the parliamentary secretary: what more does this budget foreshadow when it comes to deregulation and getting rid of the proliferation of the many hundreds of government bodies and rent seekers out there that grew during the last six years? Are there even more savings to be made in this regard in the future?

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