Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The tell-us-once improvements to regulatory settings proposed by schedule 1 of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025 will do a number of things. They will improve the payment of Medicare benefits, because the Medicare program will be able to access payment details from Centrelink for customers who receive services under both programs. They will also make it easier for Australians to use digital solutions to reliably prove their citizenship status, thereby making it easier to access the services. They will improve the use of healthcare identifiers to support better healthcare service delivery, and improve the legislative arrangements for sharing protective information internally within Services Australia to deliver a more seamless experience for customers. They will also clarify the ability of Services Australia to more easily transfer recipients to a new social security payment or concession card when they have been already assessed against identical qualification or payability criteria for their existing payment or card, and they will simplify processes for reissuing non-income-tested seniors health cards to Australians who have lost and subsequently regained eligibility due to the portability requirements or being in receipt of a means tested social security payment. The tell-us-once approach will improve efficiency, reduce frustration for Australians and result in a more seamless provision of assistance to Australians by Services Australia.

Then we have schedule 2 of the bill, which is directed at improving access to government services, subsequently maintaining that access in connection with healthcare services. For example, if patients need multiple diagnostic imaging services, their primary health provider can use one form to make multiple requests. However, if the services are not accessed within seven days, the patient must return to their health provider for a new request. This is a very short timeframe that does not take into account the reality of balancing family, work, life with medical appointments. This bill doubles the access period from seven to 14 days, which will immediately provide easier access to health services for Australians, and will mean that they don't need to return to their primary health provider to have the same referral completed again.

Schedule 3 of the bill is all about reduced regulation for businesses and individual Australians. Regulation is, of course, important in that it establishes rules and standards that set a minimum level of quality and prevent a race to the bottom in critical industries. Regulation is also necessary to manage risks and to embrace opportunities by driving social and environmental change. Protecting the public interest is another key motivator of official regulation, again in critical areas like health care and workplace safety, because safety, fairness and accountability for workers are key drivers of regulation. Equally, regulation provides certainty to businesses, allowing them to plan for what is next and understand what is expected of them in how they pursue their economic agenda.

Staying with business, regulation also plays a role in ensuring fair competition by creating a level playing field and by establishing rules and safeguards for market behaviour, which not only benefits business but also benefits consumers. The setting of rules, incentives and penalties and then the monitoring of performance and compliance against the rules is important for fairness, quality and transparency, and is successful when balanced with the benefits that come with allowing businesses to operate freely. In this sense, overregulation or inefficient regulation causes business paralysis and can act as a disincentive.

Schedule 3 of this bill is a first step in the government's agenda to reform regulation to ensure that it enhances productivity and does not paralyse business. The small but significant improvements introduced by schedule 3 include: amending private health insurance legislation to remove the possibility of insurers breaching the law on a rounding technicality; allowing petroleum and environmental regulators to share information to avoid needing to collect information from industry more than once and supporting better coordination across those petroleum regulators.

Finally, schedule 4 is directed at amendments to increase government efficiency and improve productivity by eliminating bureaucratic tasks that do not achieve outcomes that are proportionate to the time and resource investment.

As well as repealing redundant legislation that is no longer fit for purpose, the amendments in Schedule 4 include: allowing the Australian Communications and Media Authority to more efficiently delegate ordinary administrative functions; allowing the Department of Defence to more efficiently delegate powers and decisions relating to the Woomera Prohibited Area; and updating outdated legislation, which will ensure that NBN mapping data remains publicly available.

They include updating legislation to facilitate information-gathering to enable the Commonwealth to monitor and regulate fuel security. Information about fuel-related products, critical to Australia's trucking industry, fuel markets and fuel stocks, will be able to be collected by the Commonwealth where there is a risk of potential shortage of critical fuels.

The amendments also include updating legislation to recognise the needs of Australia's renewable energy transition by making it easier to buy smarter appliances that use electricity when it is cheapest, like hot water systems that heat water for the evening shower while the sun is still shining, and, finally, providing more consistency across social security legislation to streamline government processes.

So, following on from the economic roundtable, this bill is intended to be the first of a series of regulatory reform bills that will improve productivity across government and across the economy. Better regulation is at the heart of this bill. More efficient regulation is at the heart of this bill, because we know we need regulation that meets the opportunities and challenges of a global economy, which is constantly moving and changing. I commend the bill to the House.

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