Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) | Hansard source

The Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026 contains four schedules, but it's interesting to note that the cost of complying with federal regulation has increased from $65 billion in 2013 to $160 billion today. We have four schedules before us—amendments to simplify business regulation, amendments to streamline regulation, amendments to support a 'tell us once' approach, and technical and other amendments. There is so much to unpack in this legislation. It's a shame we don't have more speakers on this particular bill, because while it might sound fairly mundane and perfunctory—some might even cruelly suggest 'boring'—it's important. It's interesting that the government is bringing this forward when the cost of just doing business is so much more these days than it was when the coalition was in government, than it ever was before.

To the recent federal budget, if you were a businessperson and you were trying to comply and do the right thing amongst myriad regulations, amongst the mountain of paperwork, could you possibly imagine this: you hear the budget; you see the member for Rankin, the Treasurer, produce his economic blueprint for the nation; he talks about capital gains, about trust—trusts, sorry; I won't say 'trust' because there's no trust in this budget—and the changes; and then, just a few short weeks later, there's this whole raft of amendments and changes. If you're a businessperson, you're about to approach the end of the financial year and you're worrying about how to make sure you're doing everything right by your business activity statement, by the Australian Taxation Office and all the rest, and then you hear the budget and that it's changed—it's enough to send people spare.

The amount of compliance—consider, for example, the National Construction Code. The primary regulatory framework which governs building compliance in Australia spans roughly—wait for this—2,000 pages across three volumes, including the building and plumbing codes. Imagine you're a chippie, a builder, a sparky or a plumber. I know they're not all supposed to read the 2,000 pages. I tell you what; if they're working for someone, that someone has to comply and they have to meet the codes. They have to do the right thing according to the National Construction Code.

These three volumes cover commercial and multi-residential building standards, residential housing and BCA provisions, and the Plumbing Code. That sort of reading would be enough to send somebody to sleep. But, I tell you what, if you're a construction company—and it's no wonder the construction companies are going backwards, by the way—and you are running that company, you've got to comply. It's no wonder that much of the employment in this country in small businesses, medium-sized firms and particularly large businesses is taken up by people who do nothing more than compliance. That's all their jobs are—just making sure that they tick every box. Is it productive? Probably not, I would argue.

The member for Sturt, in her contribution—I've got a bit of time for the member for Sturt. She speaks on just about every piece of legislation, and that's commendable; like I said, it's a shame we haven't got more people on both sides speaking on this particular omnibus bill before us. She referred to the productivity summit—the roundtable, the big productivity roundtable. I don't know whether people remember this: it was a productivity roundtable, but, all of a sudden, the name was changed to the 'Economic Reform Roundtable'. You can't call it 'productivity', because it was just a gabfest. It was just a talkfest. It was just an excuse for the unions to come to Canberra to tell the Labor Party what it needs to be doing.

Anyway, supposedly, it 'built consensus on ways to improve productivity, enhance economic resilience and strengthen budget sustainability'. Yeah, right! It says:

It brought together a mix of leaders from business unions—

do you remember those unions? They are the ones that all you people opposite have to agree with and pay suitable tribute to—

civil society, government and other experts.

Experts—my father used to tell me an expert was a drip under pressure, but, anyway, we digress.

It was held from 19 to 21 August in Parliament House, 'led by the Treasurer and supported by other key ministers':

It focused on lifting living standards for Australians by looking at 3 main themes:

yeah, right—

yes, we do have that; we do have a lot of global uncertainty—

strengthening the budget? Let's not even go there. That budget—what a joke that was, just a few short weeks ago—

and making it more sustainable.

That was the Economic Reform Roundtable, once called 'the productivity boosting gathering'.

I'll tell you what, here are a few tips for the Treasurer and anybody who cares to listen about making sure that we get productivity—maybe block your ears for a while, Deputy Speaker Sharkie, because you're from South Australia, and you might not agree with what I'm about to say next. How you're going to boost productivity is not by buying $430 million of water out of mostly the southern connected system of the Murray-Darling Basin and then expecting to boost productivity. That water is going to flow out of the mouth of the Murray. Deputy Speaker Sharkie, I'm not verballing you. You're a good person. I know you're a rational and balanced person, a practical person, who wants the best for this country. I acknowledge that. But, sometimes, South Australians and I have different views on what we need to do in the Murray-Darling Basin. I'll tell you what we do need: we need a better, more balanced and fairer approach. When we talk productivity, when we talk compliance and when we talk regulatory reform, regulatory reform and compliance and balance and fairness do not equate to buying 86 additional gigalitres out of mainly the southern connected system and flushing it down the river system under the guise of better environmental outcomes. They do not. That equates to 34,400 Olympic-sized swimming pool equivalents. When you take 34,400 Olympic-sized swimming pools out of productive farming and agricultural use and you're still expected to grow as much food, what is that going to lead to? What do you reckon it's going to lead to? I'll tell you what it's going to lead to: it's going to lead to less food, and, when you've got less food, that equates to higher grocery prices.

None of us want to pay more for our groceries. We do not. But this is the Labor way. And yet this is just a portent of what is to come, because the Labor Party says it's going to deliver the basin plan in full and on time. That just equates to taking more and more and more water out of the river system and flushing it down the mouth of the Murray. Already, some of those river gum forests have had so much water through them that the river gums, I'm told, are dying because they've had too much water. The Australian landscape was not designed that way. It was not. The early explorers, quite often, when they were doing their explorations, carried their river craft more often than they paddled it down the streams because, at the time, many of them were experiencing a drought. We are not Europe. We cannot design our Murray-Darling system on what is in Europe.

I was just talking to Michael Murray, the general manager of Cotton Australia, before I came in here to speak, and he reminded me of the fact that many soldier settlers got in trouble in some cases and had to forfeit the blocks that they were allocated because they hadn't cleared them in time. Yet, if you're a farmer now and you're trying to clear a property, trying to get rid of a tree, good luck! You'll get in trouble through the EPBC Act. You'll get in trouble from every single angle. We've got drones overhead monitoring what you're doing on your own property. You can't do anything in this country unless you fill out a form, unless you tick all these boxes. There's a myriad of paperwork that you've got to fill out. It is just ridiculous. It is just nonsensical.

We are faced, here, with these four schedules to the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill. What we should be doing is making it easier for businesses to do business. What we should be doing is making it easier for farmers to farm. What we should be doing is making it easier for everyday, ordinary Australians to just get about their business with less government, not more. I'm not quite convinced that this omnibus bill achieves that.

This book, written by Ernestine Hill—

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