Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill in the consideration in detail stage. I was intending to move an amendment in relation to a member of the defence forces who had been caught up in bureaucracy and, through this bureaucracy, was not able to access the paid parental leave that she was entitled to as an Australian citizen. The minister referred to this in his speech. However, I spoke to the Deputy Prime Minister today, and he made assurances that he will write to Defence today or tomorrow in relation to this to ensure that future members of the defence forces and their spouses will be entitled to the paid parental leave that the member of my community, Major Caitlin Pedel, was not allowed to access under the current rules. I thank the DPM for his action in this space. I will be looking for those critical assurances very carefully. I also understand and have had assurances that the government will make the legislative changes required to make this a permanent change in the legislation—not just through the powers he's enacting in the next couple of days. I will be looking very carefully for those changes.

I want to note, however, the point of this—which goes to some of the points that the minister raised, saying that the issue that I raised was not about better regulation and better government services. I really want to take issue with that, because I think it does actually go to having better regulation and not wasting taxpayers' money, so driving productivity. In the case of the individual I was discussing, this person was a major in the Army. She was deployed overseas, and because of her deployment—her status—she was not entitled to paid parental leave. The AAT recognised that that was not the appropriate decision, and that was overturned. Services Australia then took this major to the Federal Court so that they could overturn the ruling of the AAT. In that particular instance, I cannot see how it is in the interests of the taxpayer for Services Australia to spend more money fighting an Australian member of the ADF on paid parental leave which she was entitled to—although, under a technicality, she wasn't entitled to it. So my question is: why would Services Australia take this person to court? It is those sorts of actions that are wasteful in terms of government resources. It makes Australian citizens mistrustful of government when the bureaucracy cannot seem to understand the purpose or the intention of the law. It is exactly these sorts of things that I do think we need to address in this sort of legislation.

I commend the government for the introduction of this legislation. I spoke about it in positive terms in the House. But I also want to acknowledge that the government needs to be much more ambitious about this sort of legislation. I would hope to see this sort of legislation every sitting fortnight—and much more substantially—if we are going to truly redress the balance between regulation as risk management and regulation that is retarding growth. We do need to get that balance right, and the current settings are not quite right.

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