Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Corporations Legislation Amendment (Deregulatory and Other Measures) Bill 2014. The government has introduced a package of reforms to the Corporations Law to reduce regulatory burden and improve productivity and competitiveness. What I really want to talk about is why this bill is part of an overall package and why it is of fundamental importance to the future of this nation.

I listened to some comments in another context by one of my colleagues, and I am very worried about the personal future of members of the opposition. I am very worried about whether or not they will be able to continue to play a role in public life in this country if they pursue in their personal affairs the arrangements they want this nation to pursue. They see it as being desirable that we should budget for consumption and spending where we do not have the income available. They want us to essentially go out to dinner every night and simply put the tab on our bank card or on our mortgage. If you conducted your personal affairs in the way in which they want the affairs of the nation to be run, you would not be able to survive. When I make this point about their personal affairs, let me just say I am reasonably satisfied that in their personal affairs they would try to ensure that they live within their means, but when it comes to the nation it is regrettable that we do not see the same approach being taken.

I speak to many people around my electorate and they do appreciate very much that the country has to live within its means. In looking at that issue, it is not just how much you spend that is relevant; it is how you go about the earning of your income that is equally important. They are concerned in their businesses about unnecessary costs which make them less competitive and make their businesses more difficult to sustain. I must say that, in my own electorate, people are gratified that we have been able to make some changes in relation to the carbon tax. They are glad that it has gone, because that has made their businesses more competitive. But, equally, the sorts of measures that are contained in this legislation are absolutely important to them, because they find that a lot of the reporting that they have to make builds costs into their businesses, and that makes it extraordinarily difficult for them to be able to effectively carry out those businesses.

In my 41 years in this House, I have never seen such a determined approach by a government to reduce the regulatory burden. What we have seen with the removal of regulations is the freeing up of businesses to be able to do what they do best. I commend the member for Kooyong, the parliamentary secretary, for the work that he is doing in this regard. He is committed to tackling the volume of regulation, which is already too high. It is essential that we do ensure that our businesses remain competitive. I would simply say that this is not a job that has been finished. In an earlier life I was the Attorney-General of Australia, and I was able to work with the states to put in place a single defamation code. The importance of that was that it stopped forum shopping around Australia. When it was put in place, it meant that the volume of litigation was significantly reduced. I am a lawyer. I do not mind litigation, but sometimes litigation can be very unnecessary and very unhelpful.

I was very much focused on personal property securities. We had something like 80 different pieces of legislation across all the states and territories of Australia that were different for personal property securities. You can think of them: bills of sale, hire purchase, maritime liens and floating charges. When you put the myriad different forms of personal property securities across all the states and territories it meant that businesses trading across state and territory boundaries would often have to get complex legal advice about floating charges that they might have over their stock. I can remember a firm that ran a hotel in Mount Gambier and a hotel in Geelong, and they had to get advice because the floating charge over their stock-in-trade was different under South Australian and Victorian law. We are, I might say, somewhat belatedly now—I do not think I have been the Attorney for seven years—seeing a single scheme of personal property security being implemented.

I would encourage the government to continue looking not only at its own regulatory burdens that it imposes upon people but also at the multiplicity of regulatory burdens that are as a result of our Federation. I do not think our Federation arrangements were intended to inhibit successful businesses operating in Australia or to reduce their economic competitiveness, but I suspect that a lot of the regulatory burden which is so often unnecessary imposes those costs. So I do commend the member for Kooyong for his hard work in addressing these issues.

I think this bill, which I will go to, deals with a number of issues that will help to improve our economic competitiveness. If we improve our economic competitiveness, businesses are more successful. Hopefully, they end up paying more taxes. That is helpful for the Commonwealth. It helps our budgetary position. It enables the government to more effectively live within its means. I think we ought to be talking about how governments can live within their means, and I think we need to be quite lateral in the way in which we do it. We need to look at our expenditures. I encourage members of the opposition to come forward. I listen all the time to hear from them as to ideas they have about the way in which we can structure our budget more constructively. I do listen. I don't hear it.

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