Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do have more hair, but he has a much larger brain than I do, and he finds it a much more enjoyable process, which is why he is charged with overseeing the committee that deals with public accounts and audit. He does a very good job of it, I might say, as well. But unless you work within this space, unless you're spending every day operating in it—whether it's insurance or other financial services products—it can be very challenging to understand the particulars of this. The role of regulation in this space is to ensure that the communication about both the products themselves and the detail that sits behind them can be understood to the best quality possible by the purchaser.

Schedule 5 is about the rationalisation of particular ASIC instruments, and it amends the Corporations Act, as well as the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, to incorporate longstanding matters that are currently contained within the ASIC legislation. There's been a long-term reliance on ASIC's exemption and modification powers that address the changing circumstances that make it difficult for regulated entities to understand the full state of the law as it applies to them. Again, this just comes back to sensibility. If it is difficult for actors to understand the laws to which they are supposed to adhere, then we cannot truly have a reasonable expectation that they will be able to. Creating or maintaining laws in this place that are impractical to adhere to is a folly business. We have a sensible approach to trying to rationalise those powers, make them clearer, make them better understood and ensure that the regulator's role is clearly defined and the industries that they are regulating can adhere to the laws accordingly. Clarity, certainty, simplification—these are simple concepts that this particularly well-thought-through TLAB seeks to address.

Finally, in schedule 6 there are minor and technical amendments, perhaps less dynamic than some of those other matters that I've just addressed. The reality is that, at the end of the day, there are some drier matters that need to be dealt with through these processes. Schedule 6 reflects the government's commitment to the ongoing care and maintenance of the Treasury laws. It rectifies some of the minor problems with the law that prevent it from operating as intended, and, importantly, as I've already discussed, it makes it easier for Australians to comply with the laws that apply to them. Again, that comes back to the issue of practicability. Our laws must be practicable for those that need to comply with them, because, if we create and maintain laws that are difficult to comply with, we can't have a reasonable expectation that people will.

I will conclude where I started. It is a good opportunity for us to examine, on a bipartisan basis, these important TLAB bills that we don't always have the time—we can't always get the time—to prioritise. I would like to particularly note the hard work of Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones in regard to this. A lot of his work and the work of his team goes through this parliament on a bipartisan basis. It is the core of our Treasury and taxation system, and he deserves commendation, as does his team, for the hard work that they do in this space.

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