Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026 but also to urge the government to go further on it. I welcome the fact that this government recognises that regulatory burden, including unnecessary regulatory burden, hampers the dynamism of our economy. From a productivity point of view, we know that we need to make change here. We also know that, if we don't improve productivity, we do not improve real wages and we do not improve the lives and prosperity of Australians. So I welcome the government's work in this space, I welcome the government's bill in this space, and I welcome other actions the government has taken, including the EPBC reform and moves such as to pause the housing construction code.

However, I do think the government needs to go further, and, on this basis, I'm going to be moving an amendment to the motion for the second reading of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill, because I think that we need to go significantly further. Let me tell you why. The cost of complying with Commonwealth regulation is growing. It was estimated at $65 billion in 2013. It is estimated at $160 billion today. The time that boards spend on risk and compliance has gone from 24 per cent in 2015 to 55 per cent in 2025. In Brisbane, it takes 31 separate approvals to open a cafe. Medical researchers who I speak to are spending up to a quarter of their time writing grant applications rather than engaging in medical research.

I've seen firsthand how drone technology is at the forefront of some of these problems because government is slow to make decisions. There's no accountability from many government departments in terms of the speed of their decision-making. When I have spoken to innovative drone companies, drone companies that we should be trying to support and grow in this country, they're telling me they cannot compete with things like helicopter companies, because they have no certainty about how long it will take for the government or the regulator—CASA, in this case—to actually make an approval of their applications. They have no certainty, and this is something I hear time and time again. I speak to businesses looking for foreign investment. They're saying they're waiting up to 18 months for the ATO to make a decision on how an investment would be treated, so the foreign capital just goes away.

We need to change the culture here, and this is why—while I support this government's actions in this space—I urge the government to go further. This isn't about bad people. There are many good people, both in this House and across Australian government departments and regulators—people who want the best for the Australian people. The problem is structural. The system rewards visible new action—more rules, more money, more strategy—and almost never rewards the quiet, harder work of removing what is unnecessary, which doesn't create value and which is not making the difference that it is intended to. The Chair of the Productivity Commission recently wrote an article making the same point: that every new problem gets a patch rather than a rewrite, and the patches on patches, on top of each other, are making Australia's regulatory burden extremely high and making Australia a less attractive place to start and grow and invest in, which is a problem for all Australians.

The truth is that governments and regulators are monopolies. In market terms, markets discipline firms through exit, but you cannot exit. We have no choices. We have no choice to exit regulators. We have no choice to exit governments. What we end up with is the costs of the government's monopoly being borne by people.

So I support this bill, as I said. The bill is useful, it is technical, it's incremental, it has useful schedules, it has 'tell us once', it has streamlining and it has technical fixes. These are all good things, and I do not underestimate the effort that goes into getting useful changes like this. But it is the second bill in a year, and the cost curve is still climbing regardless. Nothing in this bill or in any of the bills we've had to date fundamentally changes the incentives around regulatory burden, either in this place, amongst the politicians, or among the regulators or the departments. That is where I think the government needs to go.

So my second reading amendment is trying to put forward ideas that would actually move the dial. We need to introduce crude but measurable regulatory reduction targets and strategies. Every new regulatory burden should be matched by removal elsewhere, with the same discipline already applied to budget spending proposals. We need to change the culture and incentives by making senior public servants and responsible ministers directly accountable for rightsizing regulation. Rightsizing regulation should be an explicit KPI. Dynamism should be a measured, accountable consideration for major regulators, not just risk avoidance. New regulatory instruments should include sunset clauses. And the Office of Impact Assessment should have greater independence, such that regulatory impact is actually evaluated, not just box ticking.

Finally, I urge the government to expand the National Productivity Fund. I support the government's work on the fund, but I think it's currently around one tenth the size of the original 1990s National Competition Fund. If we expect that to move the dial, as it did back in the 1990s, we are going to have to put more firepower behind it.

That is why I'm moving this second reading amendment standing my name—not to block this bill but to put on record that admiring the problem for the third or fourth year running is not a strategy. We need these changes. We need senior accountability. We need the government to further embrace what it has identified as real problems but start to change the incentives as well as build on the significant and I think useful work that the government has already done. I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Government has signalled that it prioritises right-sizing regulation and this is welcome;

(b) but successive governments have repeatedly announced regulatory reform agendas, yet the burden of regulation continues to grow;

(c) the number of restrictive terms in legislative instruments has more than doubled since 2006, according to the Productivity Commission;

(d) the cost of complying with Commonwealth regulation has grown from $65 billion in 2013 to $160 billion today; and

(e) the incentive structures facing regulators and legislators reward visible new action over the harder, less visible work of removing existing regulation, and that this dynamic will persist unless directly addressed; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) implement crude but measurable regulatory reduction targets and strategies including offset requirements;

(b) introduce senior accountability within regulators and departments for deregulation including measurable KPIs;

(c) require government departments to prioritise faster decision-making and make ministers accountable for achieving these targets;

(d) strengthen the role of Office of Impact Analysis, including greater independence, such that this process is more than simply a box-ticking exercise; and

(e) consider expanding the impact of the National Competition Policy through greater funding for the National Productivity Fund".

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