Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Amendment (Scheme Enhancements) Bill 2012. In talking to this bill, I would like to propose a number of enhancements beyond what is in this bill that I think would support the reliable and cost-effective implementation of what is a good idea—an initiative instigated under the previous coalition government. The bill before the parliament today allows the minister to determine changes to the WELS scheme without those changes requiring endorsement at state and territory level through their own legislation. As I mentioned, the WELS scheme is a proud achievement of the previous, coalition government. In 2005, the coalition government created the world's first national scheme of its kind, providing for water efficiency labels on shower heads, washing machines, toilets, dishwashers, urinals and taps. These labels give consumers an easy-to-understand star rating and water consumption information on the water efficiency of different products. This was all about empowering consumers so they can make better decisions in terms of their purchase of water and water-related articles and fittings.

This bill amend the WELS Act to allow the Commonwealth minister to determine more of the scheme's details, particularly those relating to the registration of products and cost recovery. This differs from the current position in that some aspects of the scheme, such as the five-year period of product registration, cannot be changed without changing nine sets of legislation. The minister will make changes by disallowable legislative instrument, the terms of which must be agreed by the majority of states and territories—and, as we know, there is an opportunity for the parliament to dissent from those instruments if they are unbecoming. If the bill is passed it is expected that the minister will make a number of changes to the WELS scheme including revising registration fees to meet the cost recovery target of 80 per cent, which the industry finances through fees set against users of the WELS system to pay for its administration.

Further amendments are proposed in the bill to the enforcement provisions of the WELS Act. I will talk more about that in a few moments. Civil penalty provisions have been added to provide a more cost-effective enforcement response. The bill will also apply strict liability to more provisions because it is currently difficult to prove intent in relation to breaches of the act—for example, not labelling a product properly.

Some other changes of an administrative nature have been made, and some of them reflect on the practical experience of implementing the scheme, such as the need to remove the requirement for gazettal of registration decisions and instead requiring decisions to be published on the WELS website, and providing for further reviews of the operation of the WELS scheme at five-year intervals. The coalition supports this bill as it builds on and improves a successful scheme that was first introduced by the coalition.

I turn to aspects of the regulatory and enforcement overreach that I think is happening under the current arrangements. In my travels with my coalition colleagues I have met with those directly at the coalface in the use of the WELS scheme—I am talking primarily about retailers and wholesalers of water technology that is covered by the WELS legislation. I thank a very impressive business owner, Glenn Powell of Who Bathroom Warehouse at Varsity Lakes in Queensland, for walking me through what the practical implementation measures look like from the point of view of a small business seeking to work within the WELS framework. As a business owner, he and his team are very keen to meet the needs of their customers, so they are very oriented towards providing relevant information that helps inform consumer decisions.

Glenn has a display facility in one of the main areas, and Ms Andrews, the local member, took me there and we sat down and had a chat. In that facility there are probably at least 100 items on display. Some of them are displayed in homelike environments so people can get a sense of the look and feel of the different articles available through Glenn's business. The majority of the items are presented in what would be a more familiar retail arrangement—not a display arrangement but more of a retail arrangement where customers can identify the item they wish to purchase and take it to the cash register. Where you actually get the item from the stock, from the shelving areas, there is no question about the labelling—every item is labelled; every individual product that is covered by the WELS scheme complies with the requirements. The display area, where you get the look and feel and the feng shui of what your bathroom or your kitchen might look like, is beautifully done, overwhelmingly so, and the products also carry WELS information on swing tags and the like.

A WELS inspector attended this business and observed that six of the items did not have a swing tag on them. There was no malicious intent, no ambition to deceive the customer—as I mentioned, Glenn Powell and his dedicated team are very keen to provide all the consumer information that customers might want. But in this case some swing tags were missing. It did not matter that if you saw an item you were attracted to you would walk over to the shelved area and lift it out. Before any purchase was made the consumer would have been fully informed of the information that the WELS scheme seeks to communicate. But taking the item off the shelf and seeing the information before buying the article was not enough—there were six articles that did not have a swing tag on them.

When this scheme was conceived under the former Howard government I believed that that kind of strict non-compliance could easily have been addressed by some encouragement to put a swing tag on the items, so that the display item and the stocked item, within reach of the customer—the article which a customer would grab and see the WELS information on before making a transaction or decision to purchase had been made—carried the same information. There was not a swing tag on six of the articles, but would it not have been better to say, 'We notice you have done a terrific job with all the point-of-sale information at the point where you reach for the packaged article to take it over to the cash register; good job to you, Glenn, and your team—but on six items there are no tags.' Who knows what might have happened. Someone might have lifted the swing tag off to actually write down the article. Or, heaven forbid, they might have gone through a Swedish furniture manufacturer and marketer that you are all very aware of where you are encouraged to take the tag off the display item to go and connect it up with the stock item that you get when you buy it. For those people who are familiar with that kind of experience, they may well have just lifted the tag off and gone over to the area where the WELS material is on the packaging and thought, 'This is the article I want because I've got the tag.' Or there might have been a lag time and it not going back, or they might have pocketed it or they might have written down a phone number on it. They might have done anything to it. The bottom line is that there was not a swing tag on that article but there was on the box that you actually buy.

What happened? What happened was that Glenn—and I thank my colleague—got smashed. He was told that he was now subject to a fine of potentially $6,000 per breach—$36,000 for the six swing tags not on the display item. But all of the WELS materials that you would hope would be available, and which the law says should be available to the consumer, they are staring at them on the package they would pick up to go and purchase it. So there is no lack of information—but no swing tag. There is a $6,000 fine for each breach. The staff member was very courteous. I do not have their name, and it would not add anything to the debate if I did. They pointed out that that is what the law said and they had very little wiggle room—to deviate from the strict prescribed requirements put them at risk of a $6,000 fine for each breach.

But there was an option. There was a $36,000 fine hanging over the head of a small business. We all know things are pretty tough in small business and there are no sloppy margins around anywhere. You can pay the fine or you can enter into a voluntary undertaking which was an enforceable undertaking. Once you had entered into, if you deviated from it, guess what? Here come the fines again. So here is a small business person doing all that the parliament could ask of them in giving effect to a scheme designed to inform consumers, entirely in keeping with his business mode and meeting all the requirements on the shelved items that people would purchase—but on the funky presentation in the showroom area someone might have pinched the six tags and done the IKEA trick: 'I want one of those.' 'Okay, we've got one of those.' They go for the shelf. 'See this? There are all the WELS labels. Great.' But that was on the tag you have got, too. Because it did not go back, or whatever happened to the tag, there was a $36,000 fine.

And then the enforceable undertakings come in. Glenn did what was required of him. They said, 'You need to produce a compliance training program.' He said, 'Who am I training? Am I training my customers not to pinch the tags like they are taught to do at IKEA? Or am I training me, when I fully know of these obligations? That is why I spend so much time meeting them.' This is a guy who had flagged to the department that he had imported an article for display that he did not think had been registered. He was proactively working collaboratively with the department. This is not someone trying to flinch on his responsibilities, yet he gets told to do an enforceable undertaking. Well, that enforceable undertaking has cost him absolutely thousands. He was instructed to produce a compliance training manual—and I have the handsome beast here. Do you think there would be a template on the website? Do you think every plumber, retailer or wholesaler within the country has the wherewithal to produce one of these manuals? There is actually useful feedback coming back to him about a range of things that were included in the manual, all the way down to the form, the text and the style—many of the lifts from the legislation—that he is fully aware of. But how do you train the customers not to pinch the tags? That must be in the next edition!

Let us work collaboratively with Australian small businesses to achieve the public policy objectives of this scheme—that is, to communicate to consumers information relating to water products in terms of their water efficiency and performance. Let us work collaboratively. Here is a guy who I respect and admire for his courage in being involved in small business at a time when this government has no inclination whatsoever to assist him. There are cost pressures—he has got to be top-class in his customer service. He aims to achieve that. He has got his business set up in such a way that you cannot help but have the WELS information hit you in the face, because that is what is on the packaging of the article you wish to purchase. But, in the funky display areas—where there are those people who like to watch home renovation programs or want to get a feel for the size, shape and the feng shui of their purchase—six of these swing tags swung off. I do not know why and neither does he. He is alert to the need for them to be there, yet a $6,000 fine is just completely over the top.

There is the suggestion that you can voluntarily go into an enforceable undertaking. I think this publication might have cost him $12,000 to produce. He now has to get himself audited every three months, because of the swing tag. He proactively contacts the department to identify plumbing items which he does not believe have been registered to assist the department with its work. He can look forward to routine raids to make sure he is doing okay. He has got a higher infringement notice risk available to him that could add up to over $100,000.

I would have thought the best thing to do was say to Glenn: 'You've clearly embraced the spirit of the scheme. You share our motive to have customers aware of what is going on. Do you know a couple of those swing tags are missing? We know that a customer can't help but see the WELS information before any purchase because it is on the packet. Once they see something they like, they can reach for it and there it is. We'd like it to be on the articles themselves.' He would say, 'Me too'.

We systematically have people run through the store to make sure customers are aware that the IKEA training of pinching the tag—so that you go and buy the article that is the one that is on display—might set him up each time for a $6,000 fine for each breach—and, if he does not pay that fine, he has got a voluntary enforceable undertaking that is about as voluntary as a gun to the head.

I think we can do better with this scheme. This bill talks about a review. Let's have a look at a more collaborative, engaging and shared purpose approach to the implementation of this arrangement—not this arrangement, which I think is a regulatory and enforcement overreach that serves no good purpose, that sets up some tension between agencies that should have a shared purpose. It is just way too much for small business to have to cop when they are trying to do the right thing.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that it is the wish of the Federation Chamber to debate this order of the day concurrently with the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Amendment (Registration Fees) Bill 2013. If there is no objection to that I will allow that course to be followed.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards (Registration Fees) Bill 2013 and the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Amendment (Registration Fees) Bill 2013.

Just listening to the member for Dunkley, I have a great deal of empathy and sympathy for the businessperson that he was referring to. It would seem to me that, in administering this kind of legislation, there ought to be a degree of common sense, and I think the member for Dunkley quite appropriately outlined the compliance regime that is currently being practised as opposed to perhaps the way it ought to be. I certainly share his concerns if that is what is happening within the industry, because it is my view that that was never the intention.

This legislation, which was brought in in 2005 by the Howard government, is all about setting up a water efficiency labelling system which will do several things. It was done in conjunction with the states—in fact, there is complementary legislation in each of the state and territory jurisdictions. I believe that the intent to comply with the legislation started on 1 July 2006. There was a six-month period which gave businesses the opportunity to adjust to and dispose of stock that had previously come in that was unlabelled but, after that, all businesses were expected to comply with the legislation.

The legislation is all about putting labels on products to determine their water efficiency rating. If they have a higher rating, more stars are attached to the product. The intent of that is very important. It enables consumers to make choices about what products they buy and I believe they make those choices on two very important grounds. Firstly, they make the choices on the ground that they will save water. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I believe consumers are making those choices because they want to do the right thing by society and consume less water if that is at all possible. Also, in the consumption of less water we also consume less energy.

I speak to people on a regular basis who are concerned about the environmental impacts of the way we live today, and anything that they can do to reduce those impacts they do because they care about the future of the planet. It has been estimated that, through this system alone, in the years ahead—by the year 2025 or thereabouts—we will save about 100,000 megalitres of domestic water use each year, 800,000 megalitres of total water use across the country and about 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year as a result of using water much more efficiently than we are.

We will do that by enabling products to be marketed so that people can make those choices. Currently, there are about 18,000 products that have been labelled and are on the market for the very purpose of enabling consumers to choose which they use, and consumers are certainly taking advantage of that. It is not only domestic products, like washing machines, dishwashers, shower heads and the like. These efficiency products go right through to industry in a commercial sense as well. Some of the most impressive changes that I have seen over the years in respect to water efficiency measures come from the industrial sector.

Industries also use a lot of water and many of them, from both an economic point of view and an environmental point of view, have made decisions that enable them to use water more efficiently. Those decisions come at a cost initially upfront, but I have no doubt that in the long term those costs are recovered as a result of using less water. The classic case that perhaps all of us see on a daily basis is of the operators of the car-washing facilities around the country who today, instead of discharging that water once it is used into the system and allowing it to drain away, have systems in place where they reuse that water and then it gets used for the washing of other vehicles.

The same applies with respect to many other facilities that use washing down procedures in their daily business operations. Many of them are also now in a position as a result of investments that they have made to reuse that water rather than seeing it go to waste and ultimately polluting our waterways when that water reaches the oceans, into which most of it is discharged. I commend those businesses and those industries that have done exactly that because that is the way we should be going.

The other area that I commend for the work that has been undertaken over recent decades in water efficiency is the irrigators on our farms. I believe that the irrigators on our farms—and I notice the member for Riverina is here right now—have been at the forefront of making efficiency gains in the way they use water on their farms. They have done that twofold: by looking at the agricultural methods that they use in the products they grow and also by investing in new irrigation systems and monitoring systems which enable them to use the amount of water that they need without wasting any and to get the most effective results from it. I certainly do commend them because, as we looked at the Murray-Darling Plan and how we could save water, water efficiency investment was the priority in terms of how we should be making those gains. I believe that we can learn a lot from the irrigators who have already made those investments and also carried out the research.

In a world where the population is growing and there is a need to grow more food, and combining that with climate change, there is likely to be even less water available in some parts of the world. So we know that we have to be much smarter in the way that we use water. In fact, it has been suggested that most of the conflicts in the future will arise as a result of water shortages. Therefore, if we are going to be smarter in the way that we use water, we have to look at systems that empower consumers to use more efficient systems, and that is why systems like the WELS system are so important: it rates a product on its water efficiency. In order to rate a product it clearly has to be assessed, and in order for the system to work it also has to be monitored. Whilst I appreciate the comments of the member for Dunkley, it does have to be monitored.

Monitoring the system comes at a cost. To date, my understanding is that the recovery of those costs is at about 20 per cent. The intent is and always was, from the day this legislation went into the House in 2005, to recover about 80 per cent of those monitoring and compliance costs. The intent of this legislation will enable us to move from 20 per cent to around 80 per cent cost recovery. My understanding is that the last 20 per cent will come from a combination of state, territory and federal government revenues. In order to get to that 80 per cent, this legislation of course will mean that additional costs will be imposed due to be compliance process that will be implemented. The process itself should be, as the member for Dunkley quite rightly outlined, one where common sense is applied. This is a responsibility not only on the federal government but also on the state and territory governments. I appreciate the fact that they will meet 10 per cent of the remaining 20 per cent of the costs to administer the program. Water efficiency labelling is something that has been embraced by the community at large. But it is fair to say that all people around the world have a responsibility when it comes to this.

Finally, for the manufacturers of the products, the rating system will undoubtedly be a very strong and powerful marketing tool. I said earlier how consumers today are looking for more efficiencies in terms of both cost savings and responsibility for the environment. Because the rating system will be used by consumers to choose products, it will be an important marketing tool for them. The last thing we want to see is the rating system abused by unscrupulous manufacturers—or unscrupulous retailers for that matter—who simply want to rate a product at a higher rate than it is entitled to because they know full well that the rating will enable them to sell the products.

So it is important that if we are going to have a rating system in place, the rating is true to the labelling. For that reason, the compliance system has to be put into effect. If we did not have a system in place, it would be unfair on those manufacturers of products who have complied with the rating system, carried out the research and ensured that their product is true to the claims made about it and who have to compete with an alternative product where the claims do not stand up to scrutiny. From both points of view, it is important that the rating system can be relied upon and has integrity, and therefore the compliance mechanisms that are in place need to be carried through. I end where I began: I agree that we need a compliance system that we can have confidence and faith in, but I also believe that it ought to be applied with a degree of common sense. I commend the legislation to the House.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find myself in furious agreement with the member for Makin once again—as far as a piece of legislation is concerned—and certainly with his comments on the water efficiencies of irrigators. I know how much work he did to save water when he was the Mayor of the City of Salisbury in South Australia. Much of the water savings measures conducted throughout this great land of ours in recent times have been with the objective of providing water to South Australia.

We heard the minister for water only yesterday talking in the parliament about the final day for any disallowance to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Last year, in the last week of parliament, I moved a disallowance to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and I stand by what I did then. But water is, as the member for Makin pointed out, so important to us all, and I certainly concede that water is as important to South Australia as it is to any other state. We need to make Commonwealth decisions in the national interest when it comes to water.

I know that one of the great pioneers of water and irrigation, Sir Samuel McCaughey, is going to be honoured soon with the unveiling of a marvellous statue in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, where he did so much work to enhance irrigation and thereby give that particular region the ability to grow food, because you cannot grow food without water. Water is life; life is water—we all know that. One of Sir Samuel's famous sayings was 'Water is more precious than gold'. I concur with the member for Makin when he says that future conflicts will be fought over water. That is the reality.

We talk a lot in this place about mining, but I do not think we give enough credit and priority to that most precious resource, which is of course water. I heard the member for Makin loud and clear when he said that the priority of this parliament should have been water-saving measures and water-saving infrastructure. I am sad to say that, for every dollar the federal Labor government has spent on water-saving infrastructure, it has spent $5 on water buybacks, which do nothing but rip out the lifeblood, the economics, and the ability of regional communities to make money and grow food to feed our nation and other nations.

We are talking about the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards (Registration Fees) Bill 2013 and the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Amendment (Registration Fees) Bill 2013, and it is important legislation. In 2005, the coalition government created the world's first national Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards scheme, or WELS scheme, providing for water efficiency labels on dishwashers, urinals, taps, toilets, shower heads and washing machines. These labels give consumers easy-to-understand star ratings and water consumption information on the water efficiency of various products. The scheme has been generally accepted and supported by industry, although some believe that the scheme has not been stringent enough in dealing with non-compliant products. Yet others complain about the high cost of administering the scheme.

We heard the member for Dunkley, just a little earlier, talk about a Queensland retailer, Glenn Powell, who was in some difficulty because the swing tags were removed from six of the products in his store and he faced a $6,000 fine for each and every one of those six swing tags removed. We all know that consumers go into stores and sometimes take things, like taking swing tags to the shelf to see that they match up with a product or to another store, thinking that it has a price on it and they can perhaps get a better deal.

Sometimes they just take them so that they have the information—maybe a phone number that they can call to get some more information. For whatever reason, we find ourselves in a situation where sometimes stores are hit with high fines for not being compliant, when really a little bit of common sense by the compliance officer would make so much sense. We do live in a nanny state and hopefully after 14 September 2013, when hopefully the coalition will be elected to government, that nanny state that we are currently living in will be lessened. We have an amendment bill before the parliament at the moment to stop undercover operatives having to wear hi vis vests in Afghanistan. In my own electorate I heard the other day that people who are pallbearers and are carrying caskets from funerals have to do a three-day course to carry the coffins on their shoulders, otherwise it must be at waist level. I hear you laugh, but this is the ridiculous state which we have become—

An honourable member: It just doesn't have a lot to do with the water bill—waist level!

Some of the occupational health and safety nonsense that businesses and people are being forced to endure is just ridiculous.

The Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards (Registration Fees) Bill 2013 will enable the minister to set registration fees under the WELS Scheme based on the whole cost of the scheme. The Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Scheme Amendment (Registration Fees) Bill 2013 makes consequential amendments to allow the fees to be recovered in the form of a tax or levy. All scheme costs may be taken into account in setting the fee, including, but not restricted to, costs to do with processing registration applications, compliance monitoring and enforcement, policy, standard development and communications. In the absence of these changes, the registration fees could cover only the costs of service provision, instead of the entire costs of the scheme.

Combined, these bills implement the decision of the Standing Council on Environment and Water in November 2011 that the scheme should recover 80 per cent of its costs from registrants. This will represent around $1.7 million per annum. The quantum of the fee will be set by the federal minister in a legislative instrument after consultation with the states and territories. The coalition established the WELS Scheme and continues to back it. Despite that, these changes envisage a rise in government fees, or in effect represent a levy or a tax on the industry to recover the costs of administration. Indeed, many are concerned that the government setting of the fees is unaccountable to the industry or consumers. There is nothing surprising in that sentence—'government' and 'unaccountable'—because those two words go hand-in-hand. For example, this bill allows the government to recover all of the costs of the scheme even though the Council of Australian Governments agreement was for only 80 per cent to be recovered. The government says it intends to recover only 80 per cent of the costs, but sometimes what this government says and what this government actually does are generally, Member for Flinders, two entirely different things, as you would well know.

Some believe that the proposed fees are too high and could be lowered if the government administered the scheme in a more efficient way. For these reasons—and they are important reasons—the coalition has referred these bills to a Senate inquiry. The coalition supports the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Scheme and the government should recover the appropriate costs it incurs to administer the scheme. However—and this is important—this must be done in an efficient and effective way.

I see the minister for water has arrived, and he knows how important water efficiency is. He, of all people, knows how important it is so that we save as much water as possible. He would be very interested too, because he was not in the chamber when the member for Makin was praising irrigators and made reference to Riverina irrigators for the water efficiency that they have been doing for many years. They are using such things as laser levelling and drip measures to ensure that the water they use is going to where it is needed. It is not generally going in evaporation, and they are spending a lot of money. I would urge him while he is here to once again see where the taxation implications for irrigation corporations are up to, because in a press release on 18 February 2011 he promised that it would be fixed up in association with the regional development minister, Simon Crean—as men of their word, I take it that they will be doing something about it and they have given me an assurance that they will. I again urge him to look into that. I see him urging his advisers to do that. I am appreciative of that because I know that he knows how important it is that we get those implications sorted, so we can put in place that water savings infrastructure and make sure that South Australia gets its fair share of water, which I know the member for Makin wholeheartedly agrees with.

As I say, it was a Liberal and Nationals government that introduced the first water efficiency labelling standards scheme in 2005. We did it because we know how important it is to save as much water as we can. I know Minister Burke knows how important it is to save as much water as we can, because there is nothing more precious in this country than water. We all know that and we need to make sure that we can save as much as possible. It is true to say that water efficiency comes at a cost, but it is imperative that we safeguard this cost from massive price rises, which makes efficient use of water unaffordable for farmers and householders.

This bill will enable the minister to set registration fees based on the entire cost of the scheme. That is a bit of a concern. As I say, the government always needs to be accountable—no matter when it sets taxes, levies, it has to be accountable. Compliance needs to have common sense with it for all those businesses which sell products with the star ratings under the WELS scheme. They cannot be smashed as the member for Dunkley pointed out a little earlier on. We need to have common sense, because businesses are the engine room, particularly small businesses, of our economy. They employ so many, many people. They pay enough taxes as it is. They do not need to be continually hurt by stupid, nonsensical compliance regimes. This is good legislation but it needs a little more thought. That is why we have recommended that it go to a Senate committee and, on those points, I will sit so that the water minister can make his valid remarks.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2005, I had the honour and the privilege to introduce the water efficiency labelling and standards bill into the parliament. It involved a process which had been worked through with industry, with conservation and environment groups, with the bureaucracy and, in particular, with the plumbing and water efficiency sector. I think the bill transformed into legislation which has transformed into a system and a practice that has generally been very positive. It was designed and intended to provide a water efficiency and star rating system for washing machines, urinals, toilets, showerheads, taps—all of the basic water dispensing and water use devices in the household. It was a sensible, common-sense practical approach to efficiency and conservation.

It was always designed and intended to be a low-touch scheme. It began that way, and we support the scheme. There are, however, two operative concerns, which I wish to raise in the presence of minister and those relate to what I would call an increasing use of this legislation for first-strike activities against small operators. I have met with small operators who in good faith have sought to comply with the legislation. They gave me examples of where they had one product with the WELS sticker on it, but the same product elsewhere in the store where it was not, and they had been either threatened or in some cases fined. This legislation is meant to provide a guide to consumers and its implementation has to be done in a way which is sensible and not threatening.

I would request the minister to ask his department for a review on the implementation at the ground level. There ought to be a simple approach where if somebody is inadvertently in breach, they are requested to rectify. Fines should not be a part of that process. It is only when somebody has repeatedly and wilfully breached the notice and notification requirements that you would then turn to enforcement. It should not be a first-strike process. It should not be abused. The member for Dunkley, myself and others have encountered small-business people who felt that this legislation has been misused. It is good legislation, with a good intent, a good purpose and a good design. It is at the coalface where we need to review it to see whether or not there has been a practice of inadvertent over-regulation and inadvertent first-strike misuse.

The second element that I want to raise, and again this has come from directly meeting with small-business participants in the water efficiency industry, is duplication. I think there is a legitimate question at this time to look at the interrelationship between the WaterMark system and the WELS system. Many plumbing and water goods suppliers have said that they feel there is a duplication. I do not come to this with a pre-emptive view as to the outcome. I think that both issues of the first-strike misuse and the potential for simplifying arrangements between the WELS and WaterMark system and any overlap and duplication ought to be considered by the Senate process. Both are genuine and legitimate concerns which have come from the implementation and the practice of the legislation. These are the real world examples provided firsthand to myself which need to be considered.

Against that background we then have the reforms within this legislation. It is a cost-recovery measure. I am cautious about any cost-recovery measures. We will not stand in the way of it through the House. We will look at it with a cautious and sceptical eye. If it appears to be gouging then of course we would reject it. If it is a legitimate, modest cost recovery, and we will let the Senate inquiry take those examples, then we will accept it. We support the legislation. We support the principle. We were the architects and we think that it is a sensible approach to water efficiency.

But there are two genuine legitimate concerns in practice: one being in relation to the first-strike misuse of this legislation—and it may be some rogue inspectors or it might be a more widespread practice that has become overly oppressive. The second area is the potential for simplification and reducing the duplication, or eradicating duplication, in the relationship between the WELS legislation and the WaterMark systems. Against those areas for legitimate inquiry, I thank the minister for his attention. My impression is that he has noted that there are some genuine concerns at the grassroots level from small-business players who feel that what is reasonable legislation could be improved in its practical application.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will follow up the points that were just raised and I get back to the member directly. There was discussion in my office yesterday that I have never actually used the summing up points that they prepare for me. I find it difficult because they write them prior to the debate ensuing. Nonetheless, today I will. I thank members of the House for their useful contributions and support of the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards (Registration Fees) Bill 2013 and the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Amendment (Registration Fees) Bill 2013. These bills provide for the long-term viability of the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards scheme, which makes a valuable contribution to water efficiency in Australia. I commend these bills to the House.