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

I have a response for the Minister for Agriculture's interjection, but I am holding back. The final thing I will say is that the government makes much of regulatory impact statements, claiming that due process will be followed in cabinet. We have seen in this parliament how quickly all of that falls away the moment there is a deal with the crossbench—for example, look at the future of financial advice reforms. Are we to believe that—in the space of 24 hours, when the new deal was cut—there was a cabinet submission, with a regulatory impact statement attached, to work out what the new cost to the public was, on a change of policy that was being negotiated outside the Senate door? Is that what we are meant to believe? The answer here is quite simple. The government has been willing to ditch any of these processes the moment there is a political deal on the table with the crossbench. We have seen it time and again and we will see it into the future.

Getting rid of old regulations is a sensible thing to do. If the government does that, we will continue to support that, as we did last time. But, please, do not trumpet the ordinary work of government as though it is something new and exciting. And, please, do not come into this House—to the members opposite—claiming that they are somehow adding up these global figures, when what they are doing is attaching a dollar figure to hyphens and commas.

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