Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If there's one thing that businesses and individuals have complained about regularly over the 15 years I've been involved in politics, and the 20 years before that that I was in small business—and it's something that we all pretty much agree on—it's the need to reduce red tape. It seems like such an obvious thing to do, but many governments have tried and failed to reduce duplication and inefficiency.

Not only does this bill achieve what many have failed to do but it does it in a context of improving productivity. In fact, it does so much more than that. The Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025 is the latest example of tangible reform to come out of the Economic Reform Roundtable, which identified that fit-for-purpose regulation is a key enabler for Australia's economic potential. This bill takes a whole-of-government approach to amending regulation to ensure that it remains fit for purpose in this the 21st century. The government understands that regulation that is not fit for purpose or that duplicates processes frustrates Australians and also drives up the cost of doing business. So the aim of these changes is to improve productivity and support economic resilience, without reducing necessary protections.

The bill contains 60 measures that amend 28 acts, repeal two acts and affect the operation of 13 Commonwealth agencies. It reflects our commitment to connecting government services so that Australians can get the help they need faster. But one of the most important things this bill does is provide a first step towards the implementation of a 'tell us once' approach to government services. It supports this idea of just telling us once within Services Australia, reducing the number of times that Australians will be asked to provide the same information across the agency's programs.

I became a big fan of the 'tell us once' principle a few years ago after a visit to Estonia. Estonia has led the world in ensuring that its citizens have a very smooth interaction with government agencies. Now, it isn't appropriate to replicate everything they do, but one of the key things they did was adopt a principle that you have to give a piece of information to government only once. In fact, they go even further, saying that the piece of information has to be useful to at least two government agencies. They have an extraordinary digital system, based on this idea that they call the once-only principle. In fact, the state is not allowed to ask citizens for the same information twice. In other words, if you give your address or a family member's name to the census bureau, the health insurance provider won't ask you for it again later. And no department of any government agency can make citizens repeat information that is already stored in its database or that of some other agency.

Of course, we're not in a position to go quite as far as Estonia has. We have three tiers of government. We have a very different population. But that principle of 'tell us once' is underpinning some of the changes we are supporting here in this bill today. I want to give some specific examples—and I promise, I'm not going to go through the 28 different acts that are amended and the 60 measures, but I am going to give some tangible examples of what's involved. One example of the measures in this bill is about removing barriers to digital evidence of Australian citizenship. In order to do that, we need to amend the Australian Citizenship Act and the Electronic Transactions Act to remove barriers to digital evidence to show that you're an Australian. This paves the way for Home Affairs to develop a technical solution which is going to allow for the issue of digital evidence of your Australian citizenship, making it easier and a more reliable proof of citizenship, obviously reducing the costs, and giving further security for citizens. So the development of a digital solution will be required before digital citizen certificates can be issued to Australian citizens, and of course privacy impacts will be considered during this process.

But to achieve the outcome we have to fix two acts because of stuff that's in them, one that was made in 1999 and one that was made in 2007. That's an example of just one of the 60 changes this bill deals with. Another example—and I've been through them all; there are a number that relate to healthcare identifiers. They're quite technical, so I’m choosing the ones that are reasonably straightforward. This is one I really like, called 'Simplifying information sharing for connected service delivery'. This one involves changes that address a limitation that means that certain officers in Services Australia can't share protected information for the purposes of a Centrelink program or a Medicare program, and that means it limits their ability to deliver programs that meet the end-to-end needs of their customers. So, the change ensures that legal arrangements for sharing protected information are brought into a more contemporary operational structure. It also ensures that the arrangements for recording, disclosing and using protected information for other Centrelink programs and Medicare programs are aligned with the arrangements already in place for a whole lot of other programs.

I'm going to give you an example of this one, because this one involves amending one of the 1999 tax acts, the Paid Parental Leave Act, the Student Assistance Act 1973, the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989 and the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 as well as the Paid Parental Leave Act 2010, which I think I've mentioned twice there. Let's bring it alive with an example. Let's take Michael. He is a mutual customer of both Medicare and Centrelink. He receives a family tax benefit for his seven-year-old child and has a current bank account recorded with Centrelink. He hasn't updated his bank account details with Medicare. Now, he is one of approximately 980,000 Australians who are owed unpaid Medicare benefits totalling more than $270 million. Legislative changes can allow Medicare to access the payment destination information of the current mutual Centrelink customers for the purposes of delivering that unpaid Medicare benefit to people who may not even know that they are eligible for these funds. With these changes, Medicare staff will confirm with Michael that the bank account is the same as the one he has recorded for Centrelink, and he then receives a refund for previous medical costs and appointments. A tiny part of our system where one bit doesn't talk to the other means that we cannot give this streamlined approach through Services Australia.

I've asked, 'Give me tangible examples of how this will actually affect everyday Australians,' and here's another example of this change. Let's take Jane, who's left her family home to escape family and domestic violence. She is afraid that her ex-partner might find her and her child. She changes both her and her child's surnames, moves to a new house and creates her own new bank account. She needs to tell all the government agencies about her updated name, address, bank account and relationship status. Implementing the changes in this bill will support streamlining that information sharing. Instead of needing to contact Centrelink, child support and others separately, she can update her details once and consent to them being updated for other programs also. This is the practical result of just some of the changes contained in this bill.

I want to give one example of this tell-us-once approach which is an amendment to the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999. This will allow the implementation of initial changes to reduce the need for people to provide the same information to Services Australia multiple times, and it may also improve the speed at which their claims are assessed. Currently, in some cases, when a Services Australia customer wants to transfer from one social security payment to another, more appropriate one, they're required to submit a new claim and provide information that has previously been provided. They need to replicate that. When they're processing transfers, staff must conduct checks relating to many elements of the claim. This is—as it was the first time the customer did it—a very time-consuming process both for the person involved and for the staff. It can, and I know it does, cause frustration for my constituents who've had to do this, to provide information they've already given—people literally say to us, 'But they already have that; they already know that information about me'—even if it's the same agency but they're seeking a different payment. By improving the legal arrangements for transferring customers between payments, we can alleviate these frustrations for both my constituents and also the people who work so hard at Services Australia.

These are just some of the examples in this omnibus bill. Hopefully, I've got time to finish with one other example, which relates to an area that every MP knows is highly sensitive: childcare subsidisation and child wellbeing. This is about changing language in our legislation. It's an amendment to one of the family assistance tax system acts. It relates to a child at serious risk of abuse or neglect, but it changes that phrase to 'a child in need of wellbeing support'. Let me explain what this is. We want to encourage families who may have been deterred by the stigmatising language in the act to apply for the additional childcare subsidy, which would support their child to get greater access to early childhood education and care. It's designed for vulnerable children. Research conducted by the Department of Education highlighted issues with the additional childcare subsidy child wellbeing language, particularly for people from First Nations backgrounds and domestic violence victims. The language in the act literally says you have to say that your child is at serious risk of abuse or neglect. Changing that to the phrase 'a child in need of wellbeing support 'is far less stigmatising language. If something like that can provide better access to families, especially to those children, to get into early childhood education and have the benefits of quality early childhood education—it might sound small to many people, but that is one of the really significant things in this very large bill. It's something that was also highlighted by the Productivity Commission's 2023 review into early childhood education and care.

There are many, many more, but time prevents me from going into the detail. There'll be a whole lot of people who really love the one amending the Marriage Act so that there can be further uptake of digital ID services for people getting married rather than all the paper stuff. There are a whole lot of things that drag these bills into the 21st century, that recognise we have incredible capacity digitally and that will increase productivity, using our data and digital technologies to improve access to government services. I think it is worth remembering that the context of all of this is allowing government, individuals and small businesses to be more efficient and productive—doing more in the same amount of time—so I commend this bill to the House, the first of a series of reforms that will improve productivity across government and the economy.

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

I rise in support of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025 and would like to inform the House that I'll also be moving an amendment to it. I'm supportive of this bill because it contains a number of practical and positive changes, including the implementation of the tell-us-once principle for businesses, which is a long overdue step that will increase efficiency and reduce duplication.

Good regulation is absolutely critical. When it is done well, it improves the lives of both citizens and businesses by making systems more navigable, reducing red tape and allowing more time and resources to be spent on creating value. Reforms like this matter. But I want to be clear: this bill as it currently stands is extremely modest, and the scale of the challenge we as an economy face is extremely large. If the government is truly going to make a difference to productivity through legislative and regulatory reform, it has a very, very long way to go and it needs to up its ambition.

I will talk about three areas where I believe the government needs to address regulation and needs to step up its ambition. The government needs to prioritise the areas which can make the biggest difference to the economy, needs to update its speed in addressing these issues—including by utilising AI—and needs to change incentives fundamentally. It also needs to change the mindset where government is effectively a monopoly provider of services to the economy and acts like that, and abuses its monopoly powers like many other organisations across the economy. It is time the government acted like a service provider to citizens as customers rather than as a monopoly provider, with all the abuses that come from there. I'll use a particular example that goes to an amendment I am moving to this bill, to show how ridiculous—I can't think of a better word—government sometimes behaves in its bureaucratic activities as opposed to trying to address the issues our citizens face and doing that as easily as possible.

Let me start with ambition on regulatory reform. I was extremely heartened when the Treasurer stood up and spoke about the book Abundance. The message was clear—that is, supply-side reform is required to deliver things the community wants, including cheaper energy and housing that is affordable and accessible. These are the things the entire community wants. It doesn't matter what side of politics you are from; we all want families and young people to be able to access housing. I want all Australians to be able to access energy as cheaply as possible while doing the right thing in terms of emissions reduction. It was right for the Treasurer to acknowledge that supply-side reform is critical to this. I think it's positive that we see a government on the progressive side of parliament talking about red tape reduction, because this is normally the area that is left to the conservative side of parliament.

The question now is whether the government is going to act enough on the issues it identified. Let me talk about those three areas where I think it needs to work hard. Firstly, it needs to prioritise areas of the economy that need reform most urgently from a regulatory reform point of view. These include the EPBC Act, housing and industrial relations. I give the government credit that they are trying to address the EPBC Act and regulatory reform there, and they have made modest steps in relation to housing. However, I want to call out that, from a housing point of view, there are further ways they need to go, including incentivising the states effectively to make the regulatory reforms required. The way they are currently incentivising the states is not working because all the states are not going to meet the current incentive structure the government is planning to use. The government has to rethink how it is going to incentivise the states to reduce regulatory burden.

The other area the government should be addressing, honestly, is industrial relations. This is a real blind spot for the government, I believe. In this country we have always had a pendulum approach to industrial relations reform, where one of the major parties comes in and brings in lots of red tape and then the other major party comes in and changes a lot. It's incredibly unproductive and very damaging for businesses and consumers. At the moment we're having a pendulum-swinging approach to legislation rather than sitting down, getting the Productivity Commission to look at our industrial relations settings and saying, 'Okay, what is the impact on productivity in our industrial relations settings, what is the impact on growth and what are the trade-offs we're willing to make?' We will always make trade-offs to protect workers—that is important—but at the moment we can't even have a civilised examination of the evidence to see where we could make a difference and what the trade-offs that we're implicitly making are in an ideological way as opposed to a fact based way.

I want to call out the government's reluctance over the last four years, or coming up to four years, to actually look at award simplification. This is an area where the government could legitimately show to businesses that they're serious about trying to make things better for business as well as for workers. When I talked to my niece and she asked me, 'Am I being paid correctly?' it took me hours to try and work out whether she was being paid correctly, because of the complexity of the awards. That complexity serves nobody except lawyers, and it stops us moving forward as a country. This is an area where the government could take action in a way that continues to protect workers, but it hasn't to date.

If the government is serious about regulatory reform, firstly it needs to get more serious about housing reform, and it needs to look at industrial relations as well. Secondly, it needs to up its ambition on speed. It has been six months since the election; it has been probably five months since the Treasurer spoke on these issues. There have been, as I understand, around 400 areas of regulatory reform identified by the regulators as potential areas of reform, but we need the government to be showing what the plan is to address these areas and how quickly they're going to deal with this, because this is hard.

This really comes to the third point I want to make. I believe we need to change the incentive structure around regulatory reform. There was a lot of discussion at the economic reform roundtable about the idea of balancing risk and growth, and this is quite a fundamental question that we are trying to face as a country, because regulation is there for very good reason. It manages risk. But regulation in various forms can also have a very big impact on growth. We need to acknowledge that difference, and we need to consider how those two interact. But, as regulators, the incentives are all about risk, so it is up to the parliament and the government to indicate that growth and opportunity are also needed in terms of how we think about our regulatory settings. This is where we need some explicit guidance to regulators to do this, and I believe we need some incentives to achieve that as well. To achieve those incentives, what we need to do is to have some hard measures and targets around this. I asked the Treasurer last week about whether he would put in targets, potentially around regulatory reform. He said he's talking to the Productivity Commission about this, and I think that is an appropriate step, but what I want to know is when he is going to come back to the House and report on those measures.

Regulatory reform and red-tape reduction are really hard, because all the incentives across the economy, particularly in this House, are: 'If there's a problem, let's regulate, because it's no cost to anyone.' I often hear this: 'If you just put in a regulation, it doesn't cost the budget anything.' In many cases, it doesn't cost the budget anything, but it costs businesses something, and that is the problem. That is why we do need to change the incentives around regulation. We need to change the guidance to the regulators, but we also need to create some hard targets for the government to be held accountable to, and I support the real push of the BCA and other business groups around this.

The second point I want to make on this is one that was made by the previous speaker, which is that government is a service provider, but it is a monopoly service provider. Across the economy, we are suspicious, as a country, of monopoly service providers because we know that, if you let a monopoly run a service, you often get poor service, and that is what we get too often from government. I have had so many conversations with members of my community who have gone to Services Australia for a particular issue and have literally spent hours on the phone and then have been cut off and couldn't get back on the calls.

All of these issues relate to how government interacts with individuals. The truth is that government is not accountable for this, because how do you hold government to account on this if you're just a citizen? That is what we have to do. I believe that we, as a parliament, need to reorient ourselves towards what the things are that make a difference in people's lives, what their touchpoints with government are and how to make it as easy as possible to deal with government. How can we do that?

That comes to my amendment, because it is about a terrible case of government working completely against the interests of the country and of individuals. I have a constituent, Major Caitlin Pedel. She is a member of our armed forces. She was posted overseas while she was pregnant. Because she was posted overseas rather than deployed—because pregnant women cannot be deployed—she was refused paid parental leave, which is open to all Australians, because she was going to be overseas for more than the requisite amount of time. She was serving the Australian people overseas, but, because of the technicality that she was posted overseas, she was not eligible for paid parental leave.

The services are a really important part of my electorate. I have three enormous bases in my electorate: Watson, Kuttabul and the Victoria Barracks. I deeply respect the contribution that the defence services make to our community, and they are really important parts of our community. But the feedback I get constantly from the defence services is that we don't pay enough attention to families when we look at defence.

So let's see what Caitlin's experience was. She appealed this decision, and she won, which was great. You'd say: 'Okay, this is great. This is positive. She gets her paid parental leave.' Services Australia, in its infinite wisdom, decided to take her to the Federal Court to overturn this. She won the first time, but then Services Australia got her on appeal, and they won. So Caitlin Pedel has been rejected from having $14,000-odd worth of paid parental leave paid to her as a member of our Australian Defence Force. Services Australia has spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting a member of our Defence Force to stop her getting paid parental leave.

Let's be honest: paid parental leave is open to all Australians—any Australian, actually, who fits the criteria. She fits the criteria. The only reason she didn't was that she was deployed overseas for Australia. Because she was out of the country for a certain number of weeks, she was no longer eligible for this, and Services Australia took a completely bureaucratic, narrow interpretation of the law and took her to court. I just sit there and go, 'What a waste of money and what a perfect example of government fighting against what it actually believes.' I can't think of a single person in this House who would argue that a member of our Defence Force, when posted overseas, shouldn't be eligible for paid parental leave, but this is how the law is currently drafted, and Services Australia pursued this rather than accepting the natural justice of it.

I have been trying to get the government to change this law for over a year, and they still haven't made any changes. I still have not had from the government any amendment that would make a change for the future. So I am putting forward an amendment to this piece of legislation that will, as I understand it based on the drafters, ensure that this situation won't happen for other people in the future.

I spoke to Caitlin this morning, and I have to say I have full admiration for her. She said: 'Look, it's not about me. I just want this not to happen for other people. I know that there are other people out there who are also being denied paid parental leave because they have been posted overseas.' She's just trying to fix this wrong, and I am just asking the government to do something about this. I have been asking them to do this for the last year. I've been asking very politely. I think that this is an example of where the government needs to act, and it should be acting today. So I ask the government to support this amendment or to come up with a better answer and a timeframe under which it is going to be delivered.

In closing, the point that I'm trying to make here is that government is a monopoly. It is an imperfect monopoly, and it abuses its power. I think we need strong incentives to make sure that government acts in the interests of the country and its citizens. When it sees bureaucratic knots being tied amongst its citizens, it should act. If it's not willing to act on these little issues, where there's a clear path, I have little confidence that it is going to act on the big issues that are more difficult to fix.

Gabriel Ng (Menzies, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025. I stood for election and became involved in politics because I believe government can be an enormous force for good. Good government encourages the flourishing of society, community and the individual. It is focused on serving members of the community and on being accessible and accountable. Good governments make good regulations, achieving the big picture by paying attention to the details to disincentivise negative behaviour and incentivise good outcomes. That is what this bill is about at its core: making sure that governments are working for individuals and working for business.

My purpose has always been to make sure that people can rely on the systems that have been built to serve them, because trust in government is built through access, accountability and fairness. I was recently at a Halloween celebration at Jackson Court in my electorate, in Doncaster, and somebody came with a pretty clever costume: they had a couple of pieces of cardboard; the front said 'myGov' and the back said, 'You have a message from myGov,' because that was supposed to be a scary costume! We don't want people to have that experience of government. We want government to be a helping hand, not a bureaucratic labyrinth to navigate. In an age when there's declining trust in government, this is more important than ever.

As a former public servant, I know how important it is that Australians can depend on services that are reliable, fair and trusted. People regularly contact my office—just as, I know, they contact the offices of the other members here—asking for assistance to access government services. It's a role that I'm happy to play, and it's an honour to be able to serve my constituents. But government services shouldn't be so hard to navigate or understand that people need an interpreter in order to be able to access them. Every interaction with government should leave people feeling supported, not frustrated. It should be designed with empathy and efficiency to make life easier.

This bill builds on the work that the government began following the economic reform round table, which focused on streamlining services, getting investment flowing and boosting productivity. The bill delivers better regulation, less red tape and higher productivity, while keeping the focus on people. I thank the member for Wentworth for her contribution talking about reduced regulation, and the member for Wentworth would be happy to hear that this bill contains 60 measures across 28 acts, it repeals two acts entirely and it affects 13 agencies. These are reforms that cover a broad range of areas, from health care to citizenship, from digital identity to child care and social security, all to make things easier.

This bill simplifies information-sharing across government, taking an important step towards the implementation of a tell-us-once approach across government. For too long, Australians have had to repeat their details across Centrelink, Medicare, child support and paid parental leave, and this reform ends that duplication. It saves time for the public, like the members in the gallery, and for staff. It means less time and stress standing in line or being on the phone or entering details into government forms. So, for example, when someone updates their bank details with Centrelink, that information will be automatically shared with Medicare.

This will have tangible flow-on effects beyond just efficiency and saved time. Around 980,000 Australians—so almost a million Australians—are owed $270 million in unpaid Medicare benefits; many may not even be aware that they are owed these entitlements. Thanks to these changes, someone owed, say, unpaid Medicare benefits can have those funds deposited into the same verified bank account used for family tax benefit payments. A person escaping family violence will have to update their relationship status, address or bank details only once and authorise these changes to apply securely across programs. It reduces the burden on people during some of the most difficult times in their lives, and it reduces the risk of them having to recount difficult details repeatedly. When a person moves from one payment type to another, verified information can now be reused, instead of requiring a new claim. This means faster processing and less frustration. Older Australians who lose their Commonwealth seniors health card due to temporary overseas travel will have it automatically reinstated upon return, if they're still eligible, sparing them unnecessary paperwork.

Each of these reforms—while, admittedly, pretty technical—builds a government that listens, adapts and respects people's time. Each reduces barriers, simplifies access and restores confidence that government services can be fast, fair and reliable.

I recently visited the Services Australia office in Box Hill with Assistant Minister for the Public Service Patrick Gorman. There I saw dedicated public servants focused on supporting people who came to them for assistance. I saw client-centred innovations, such as recruiting staff with language skills like Mandarin, or Farsi, that were appropriate to the community. I saw the co-location of services such as NDIS. I'm pleased to see the government is matching the dedication of our frontline staff with reforms which will make their lives—and, more importantly, their clients' lives—easier.

We're also amending the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 and the Electronic Transactions Act 1999. Australians currently rely on paper certificates that can be lost or misplaced. This amendment is for anyone who has dived into a desk drawer or ruffled around in a filing cabinet to dig out a birth certificate or a citizenship certificate. We know, too, that these documents, particularly the older ones, do not have the security features that we would expect in modern life. My birth certificate looks like it could have been typed up on any computer, with a font that looks like a typewriter's. This will clear the way for secure digital proof of citizenship. It will make it easier to confirm identity when applying for jobs, passports or government services. It will reduce costs, strengthen privacy protections and increase reliability. Home Affairs will be able to build a secure system that issues digital certificates while safeguarding personal data and preventing fraud. Our government is about making modern reforms to keep up with technology and risk.

We are a government that will always invest in health care. It is always looking for ways to make our system better. This bill modernises healthcare information systems. The Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 will be updated so healthcare providers automatically appear in the national Healthcare Provider Directory unless they choose not to. This opt-out model ensures a complete and accurate directory, making it easier for doctors, pharmacists and allied health professionals to connect, coordinate care and use secure digital tools such as electronic prescribing and referrals. The secretary of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing will be given new authority to set national data standards after consulting with state and territory governments. Health information across Australia is currently fragmented and inconsistent. National standards will enable secure, accurate data-sharing so healthcare professionals can access what they need when they need it. This will lead to faster diagnosis, safer treatment and better health outcomes.

The bill also doubles the timeframe for diagnostic imaging referrals from seven to 14 days. This is an important reform that will reduce the burden on GPs and their patients. We know people have busy lives and it can be difficult to make time to see a doctor—let alone if you need to have multiple scans or appointments. This strikes the balance between ensuring people attend vital diagnostic scans and making sure that there is not too much burden on them. It gives people a bit more breathing room. People won't have to return to their GP for a new referral if a week passes, and, in that way, it will reduce costs, save time and keep the focus on care rather than on paperwork.

It also addresses non-operational pathology collection centres. If a centre is closed, inaccessible or no longer collecting specimens, the minister will have the power to revoke its approval. Pathology centres play an important role in health care for diagnosis, treatment and management of medical conditions. This ensures that new functioning centres can open and patients can access services when and where they are needed.

The legislation authorises secure information-sharing between the department of health, Services Australia and other integrity bodies, implementing the recommendations of the Philip review. This will strengthen Medicare's integrity, allow earlier detection of fraud, protect public funds and maintain confidence in a system that millions of Australians rely on every day.

This legislation improves access to health and child care by making the rules simpler and more practical, but also kinder. The Additional Child Care Subsidy now replaces the phrase 'child at risk of abuse or neglect' with 'child in need of wellbeing support'. This small change removes stigma and encourages families to seek help. It keeps the same eligibility rules but uses strength based language that supports dignity and supports trust.

The reforms confirm that healthcare identifiers can be used in insurance or employment settings only to support ongoing treatment not to make adverse decisions about a person's care or work. This protects patients from discrimination, while ensuring their care is continuous and properly recorded in the My Health Record system, ensuring better sharing of health information.

These are just some of the reforms under this bill. The bill will help increase government efficiency and improve productivity in a range of ways. Taken together, these reforms represent a government that values inefficiency, integrity and fairness. They are about more than a process; they are about putting people at the centre of what we do. They mean a single mother can update her details once instead of five times, they mean a pensioner can get their healthcare card re-issued without having to fill out another form and they mean a doctor can access accurate patient information without delay. This shows that good government is not just about cutting services; it's about improving them. Those opposite often argue that cutting departments, cutting government services, will make them work better. We reject that. You do not improve the Public Service by hollowing it out. You improve it by designing systems that work for the people that use them.

This bill is proof that smart reform can deliver better outcomes without cuts. It demonstrates that regulation, when done properly, can empower rather than constrain. It can make government more human and more efficient at the same time. At its heart this bill is about trust. Australians should be able to trust that, when they deal with their government, they will be treated fairly, their time will be respected and their information will be secure. They should be able to trust that their government will help them, not hinder them.

We are building a government that talks to the Australian people and that listens to the Australian people so that Australians do not have to tell their story twice and that information is shared across services. We are building a government that connect programs and systems so people can move through life's stages without getting lost in bureaucracy and a government that understands that every form filled out, every call made and every appointment delayed is time taken away from what really matters: spending time with friends, working, playing sport, getting involved in the community and spending time with family. These are the sorts of things that we want Australians to be able to focus on, not having to spend time filling out forms and navigating government bureaucracy. This is what a Labor government does. We make a government that works for people.

Those opposite will talk about deregulation as if it were an end in itself. We understand that regulation is about fairness and function. It must protect the vulnerable, it must safeguard public funds, it must safeguard people's privacy, it must safeguard people's identity and medical records and it must enable innovation. This bill does that. It supports faster services, stronger integrity and a fairer economy. It does that by making sure that information is shared across government services, across health services, and that people's digital records—whether in health or if their bank account details are needed for government services—can flow freely between departments, reducing the amount of time that people need to spend online, filling out forms or filling out paper forms or standing in line at Services Australia offices or waiting on the phone to Centrelink. This is why I commend this bill to the House.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you've been in place long enough, what's old is new again. It should not be particularly surprising that from time to time governments of both political colours will determine that there is a point at which we are going to attack red tape. I remember my friend the former member for Kooyong being very energetic, doing his red tape 'bonfire of the vanities' routine in times past. Only Josh Frydenberg could get a lot of media coverage pushing for red tape reduction. He did a very good job on it. We swore that we would cut it back. I liken this process to weeding—you do one cut and then you have to come back again, months or years later, to attend to the growth of red tape. For bringing this on, I hold to account Ezra Klein, the US writer who has written the book Abundance, which I have in my Audible list of books to listen to on my drive to Canberra. I haven't quite got to it yet, but apparently he's made some sort of impact. Now it's the thing for us to reimagine red tape reduction, and that's what we're doing. But it is about getting the balance right on red tape reduction, because one person's cut to red tape is another person's cut to protections and to systems that have been put in place in response to issues that the public have raised.

Do I think it's a bad thing for governments to cut red tape? Of course not. I think it's important that we always find efficiencies in the way that we do things, efficiencies that will improve the way we use the resources required to get things done and the speed at which we provide services to the general public. I think it's always important that the public sector in particular rethink its approach to getting things done, and it doesn't matter which side of politics is in government. If I may put it in rather stark terms, in many respects the Public Service sees the political parties as renters: at a certain point in time they occupy a bit of real estate, but the systems will always go on and will always stay the same. It is incumbent on whichever political party forms government to look at whether or not those systems are fit for purpose, and clearly one aspect of that is looking at red tape. Off the back of people reading Abundance we've had this surge in focus, which is great, but let's see what it actually yields.

'Tell us once' is great. Governments of both sides have been pursuing this for a decade. We have had hand-on-heart commitments by the other side of politics, when in government, that they would get this right, supported by a public service that said in all honesty that said they would get this done. Here we are 10 years later, again committing to do this. Do I think this is wrong? No. I think it's very good. I think it's important that the general public are not left on hold for an extended period of time, waiting for service, when contacting Services Australia. I think it's a good thing, as the population gets more digitally savvy and can work with these systems, that they need only provide information once—that a system captures and records information once, not multiple time, when a member of the public wants to engage with and get action from a federal government department.

This isn't a challenge just for government, by the way. Red tape also exists in major corporations, where people are forced time and again to provide information to organisations in order to obtain a service that they desire. The notion that government is awash with red tape and the trope that it is an inefficiency of federal government—I don't think people need to believe that. Big organisations develop a multilayered approach to getting things done. It's not guaranteed that the private sector always does it better than the public sector. It is a challenge, but if we get 'tell us once' right it does make a difference to the general population.

What is also important is that systems for recording data are modernised. Again, regardless of what side of politics is in power, there is the challenge of the amount of money we dedicate to the turnover of antiquated IT systems. It costs a lot of money to get that done, and sometimes governments decide they won't do that, or they'll defer it—yet again. Again, we've seen both sides of politics doing this. Some of those bodies exist within the remit of Services Australia or like bodies, where the money hasn't been put in place. So, you can cut the red tape as much as you want, but if the system, particularly a legacy system, takes time to accurately and efficiently record that, it is going to be a challenge. Again, I make the point that what is said in theory—cutting red tape, the idea that we'll make it easier for the general public—is all very good, and we all support it. But we also need to make sure we make the investments in the systems to make that happen. That is critically important as well.

The other elements of this bill that are noteworthy relate to some of the changes that have made in schedule 4, part 6, around improving energy performance and that there'll be measures to introduce demand flexibility as a new object of the act. Demand flexibility would be enabled, and consultation would occur. This aligns with the National Energy Performance Strategy and reflects our commitment to the evolving regulatory framework with the emerging energy needs and technologies.

The reason I'm supportive of this is that right now, just as the latest trend is to read Ezra Klein's text on abundance, the other big idea is that we'll improve our technological capabilities by allowing many data centre flowers to bloom in this country. A lot of US tech players are very keen to set up a raft of data centres across this country. The promise is that if we get these data centres built it will be a good thing for our capability in areas such as artificial intelligence and what that might unleash for the nation. That's all great in theory, but it's a basic theory. It doesn't necessarily guarantee that.

If we are going to cut red tape and we are going to bring these data centres online a lot quicker, we also need to know that they use a heck of a lot of energy, particularly if they are platforms supporting the operation of generative AI, and that we will need to stagger the way these centres are built. Right now we are going through an energy transition. Right now it is terrific to see that renewable energy is, more and more, forming the energy generation base of this nation. But a lot of these data centres tend to soak up a lot of energy use, which has become a hot topic in the US, where a lot of these centres are getting built. The concern is that there's a lot of investment in this for the benefit that comes out and the amount of energy that gets chewed up as a result.

Louisa Kinnear, from the Australian Energy Council, makes that same point. She says:

In the US, data centres are a major source of demand growth resulting in shortfalls of energy capacity. The US consequently faces a dilemma -in a time where it can take many years to develop and build new energy assets, how can it service this rapid uptick of energy demand while keeping energy prices affordable?

She goes on to say:

Australia too is grappling with the extent to which data centres might drive future demand, although we are not seeing the levels of demand growth being experienced by our American friends.

Not yet. A number of major US tech firms that are experiencing the types of problems Ms Kinnear has identified have sought other jurisdictions in which to set these data centres up. For instance, Amazon and Google are looking to set up new data centres. Obviously other generative players would be looking to do the same. So, this is something we need to keep tabs on. If we are boosting renewable energy supply and we are seeing that new supply getting taken up by new centres, that's an issue. It is also a challenge in that we have a target of building 1.2 million new homes by 2030. We also have a raft of state governments that are undertaking infrastructure investment and rolling out that investment in different parts of the country. So there's a demand on skills availability between the housing sector and infrastructure.

The building of these new centres is not a small thing. It does require skilled people to be able to undertake that construction work. So it's not just a call on energy; it's a call on skills as well, particularly if that occurs in regional areas, where the ability to call on those skills may not necessarily be available. So I do think, as much as we obviously value the role of data centres supporting local business—and I think there is a case to be made that a lot of these firms could do more to demonstrate the residual benefit to Australian industry of that processing power through their centres—and there is a benefit there, we should also be 'eyes wide open' on the challenges. Letting it rip in terms of data-centre development in this country sounds great on paper. It doesn't necessarily guarantee a smooth energy transition. You've got to ask the question about what it does in terms of skills.

Because data centres use a lot of water as well, you've got to make sure that that resource is available, bearing in mind that it should not be assumed that, just because water systems are available in cities, that is an equal and standard case in our regions. Water supply is obviously, in different parts of the country, just as big a concern. So the fact that there is a demand flexibility incorporated in this omnibus bill is very important, and, if it is a measure that can provide for a sharper, clear-eyed assessment about the way in which we roll out the construction of these new data centres, I think it will be a valuable thing. I say this as someone who very much values the role of technology and, in particular, its uptake by Australian business. But getting it right and getting the balance sorted out is very important. Having measures like this in the bill, if they allow for a much more measured and balanced approach to the rollout of these things, so they don't become an issue like in other countries and so we don't import that issue into our own country, is very important.

I'll leave my remarks at that. I think the bill is an important way in which to send a signal about being able to reduce the number or the range of regulations that are put in place. I suspect, in time, we'll probably also have a fresh look at 'one in, one out' rules when it comes to red tape—that is, if you are bringing in a new set of measures, where are you reducing measures elsewhere so that that is a constant way in which you improve on the growth or counter the growth of red tape? That is something that has been embraced in times passed. In the UK, the Blair government championed this. We did have some of that here in this jurisdiction, particularly at the federal level. Whether or not we reinvigorate that approach is another question altogether and probably a question for another time. But it is worth considering. So I certainly commend the bill to the House, and I am grateful for the chance to make a contribution on it.

Alice Jordan-Baird (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025, brought forward by the Treasurer, and I commend him for doing so. It's great to follow the words of my friend the member for Chifley as well. The Albanese government was re-elected earlier this year on a promise, a promise that we would keep fighting to make government work for Australians, not the other way around. This bill is another important step towards delivering on that promise. In August, the Treasurer chaired the Albanese government's Economic Reform Roundtable, with three days around the cabinet table with representatives and experts from the union movement, businesses and the community sector. This followed more than 40 mini roundtables led by ministers across a range of portfolios. After all these conversations, there was a clear point of agreement. What we heard, time and time again, was that our economy needs better regulation, our government services need streamlining and compliance costs need to go down. This bill is a result of a massive body of work, but the positive change it will create across the country will be so much greater.

In our first term the Albanese government fought inflation and reformed the budget, and in our second term we are focused on making our economy more dynamic, resilient and productive. We've worked together with the Australian people to deliver two surpluses after nine years of deficits. We've got real wages growing again after a decade of deliberate wage suppression and wage stagnation. Living standards are recovering after falling sharply under those opposite. On this side of the House, we take responsibility to work through the challenges that have arisen in our economy, whether those challenges are inflation, business investment or strengthening budget sustainability, and that is exactly what we're doing here today.

The bill before us now would make government work better for Australians in a few different ways. Firstly, the bill supports Services Australia moving towards a 'tell us once' approach for how it delivers services. This will reduce the number of times Australians have to provide the same information to government agencies such as Centrelink to access basic services. Centrelink does incredibly important work for Australians. That's evident every day in my electorate of Gorton, from the young families getting that little bit extra they need from the family tax benefit to workers affected by redundancy who are supported by JobSeeker to find work again, to older Australians accessing all-important health care with their seniors healthcare card.

My electorate is home to some of the most dedicated, responsive and genuinely caring Services Australia staff I've ever come across. The team at our local service centre—the Watergardens Service Centre—are there every day supporting our constituents, and we couldn't be more appreciative of the work they do. I had the pleasure of visiting the Watergardens Service Centre and meeting the staff in person recently. While I was there I heard about all they do to make the system work for the people they support, from having an ATO officer in-house to bridge the gap between Services Australia and the ATO, to arranging in-person language support for members of our CALD community in the Western Suburbs.

But there are serious limitations as well. Constituents who contact my electorate office are often fatigued by interacting with multiple agencies and communicating the same information again and again. Oftentimes it's stressful situations and unexpected life events that create a need people for to communicate new information to government services—financial hardship, housing challenges, family breakdowns. Not long ago, a constituent living in Truganina brought in a document detailing the more than 20 interactions with Centrelink and other government services she'd had while trying to get the support she needed after her redundancy. This shouldn't be happening. In times like these, having to communicate new information multiple times to multiple different agencies compounds the stress that constituents are already feeling, creating frustration and disillusionment. This frustration puts more pressure back onto our government agencies like the team at the Watergardens Service Centre, and makes their work of trying to support constituents and get them the assistance they need all the more challenging. That's why this legislation is so important; it lightens the load on everyone, from staff in our service centres and government departments to everyday Australians navigating these agencies and systems.

This bill amends several acts to expand the situations where information can be shared between government agencies. Ultimately, these reforms will mean that someone applying to receive their Medicare rebates and Centrelink payments won't have to hand over the same personal details repeatedly. They will need to advise Services Australia once—just once—and it will be sorted, improving the experience of government services and agencies for all Australians and lightening the load on everyone. Further to this point, the bill before us will make our medical system work better for Australians.

On this side of the House we've put access to medical care at the top of our agenda. We've given Medicare the biggest boost since it was created, and opened more than 90 urgent care clinics, including two accessible to my constituents in Gorton. Getting in and seeing a doctor is one part of the picture, but sometimes medical care needs to go beyond that. We're making primary medical care more accessible for constituents, but the steps after that first doctor's appointment need to work for Australians as well. We've heard Australians when they told us that under the existing legislation there sometimes just isn't the time to get scans and imaging done—work gets busy, family needs you, life gets in the way. We get that making time for that appointment isn't always that easy. That's why we're doubling the amount of time that patients have access to imaging services when they get a referral. This means families will have additional time to make appointments for scans or medical imaging before they expire, and, when there just isn't time to get that scan or imaging done, they won't have to start the whole process all over again. This makes the system work for Australians and helps to reduce the demand on GPs so everyone can get into a doctor when they need to.

Third, this bill will further reduce the regulatory burden on Australians and on industry by working to make processes simple, intuitive and up to date, as they should be. One type of regulation that will become much easier to navigate under this bill is legislated document requirements. Right now, Australians still need to submit hard-copy documents to prove details about themselves or their identity in a number of different situations—for example, when they get married, as I did last year. That means getting out your passport and texting Mum frantically to ask what happened to the hard copy of your birth certificate. We know that this system is out of date, and we need to keep up with a world that's gone digital. That's why this bill would modernise some of the processes to allow secure digital options to be used where they're suitable.

With this bill, we'll also continue to increase productivity and government efficiency from several different angles. This bill will make sure NBN mapping is publicly available online so that Australians will have better information about their NBN rollout and can have greater visibility of when the NBN will be coming to their community. It will grant fuel companies greater flexibility to respond to fuel supply disruptions, which will allow greater knowledge for communities when they're filling up at the petrol station. It will increase information sharing between healthcare providers, to make sure that Australians receive the highest-quality care. This means that, if you see one doctor in Deer Park and then change to see a different doctor in Caroline Springs, your health data will be shared between clinics, meaning your GP will have better historic healthcare data when you're in the assessment room, providing a more accurate diagnosis and overall better health care. It will improve the regulation of Medicare to clamp down on fraudulent claims so fewer people will be taking advantage of our system through deceptive conduct.

It's a multitude of measures which will benefit a multitude of government processes. It's an all-encompassing bill including 60 measures. It amends 28 acts and repeals two redundant acts. Through all of this, it will deliver real improvement to the operations of 13 federal government agencies. These are all commonsense changes that will make a genuine difference in people's lives, including the lives of people in my community in Melbourne's western suburbs. The changes streamline government processes so people spend less time filling out superfluous paperwork and spend more quality time with their families instead.

While the opposition has been divided and distracted since the opening of the 48th Parliament, we have been getting on with the job, and we know how important our job is. For almost a decade, the now opposition ran a government that was incapable of delivering the services that Australians expected and deserved. Across Centrelink, Medicare and the NDIS, the previous government's time in office was defined by delays and inefficiencies. Across Centrelink, Medicare and the NDIS, for nine long years, backlogs grew and Australians suffered. People in Melbourne's western suburbs suffered.

Government agencies weren't just failing Australians; they were actively harming them too. The appalling robodebt scandal should not be forgotten. It will never be forgotten, and it should never be repeated. Robodebt was designed to raise revenue by clawing back debt from people who never owed that money, preying on some of our most vulnerable Australians. The impacts of this tragic coalition government failure are still being felt in communities across Australia, including my community in the western suburbs.

When the Albanese government came into office in 2022, we took on the job of rebuilding the capability and capacity of our government agencies following nine long years of cuts and neglect. We added 3,000 staff to Services Australia. This reduced backlogs and improved service access for people across Australia, including in my community. We also directed Services Australia to release quarterly performance data to increase transparency. Where the coalition neglected, we built. We established the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme to rebuild public trust and make sure that what happened is never allowed to happen again; we rebuilt the Australian Public Service, which had been hollowed out by an overreliance on consultants and contractors; and we're reforming the NDIS, a scheme that the coalition didn't want to see succeed and made cuts to every step of the way. We made integrity and delivery the central priorities of government agencies, and the Australians who rely on these services are now better off under Labor's reforms. But we didn't just reform the way these agencies deliver support; we also increased the level of support they provide.

Last week, I attended a citizenship ceremony in the city of Melton, where we welcomed 400 constituents from my home in Melbourne's west into our broader Australian community as new Australian citizens. At the ceremony, I read out a statement on behalf of the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke. In this statement, the minister reminded our community that, when you make a citizenship pledge, you take on the privilege that it is to be an Australian citizen. I want to echo that sentiment right now because it is truly a privilege to live a life in Australia. The privilege is in the safety nets we have access to when life doesn't go according to plan: access to health services like Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; access to cheaper child care and the parenting payment for families juggling it all; access to the indexation of pensions to inflation to make things fair; access to the carers payment, because caring for loved ones takes a toll; and access to the JobSeeker payment to keep Australians afloat during life's most unpredictable periods.

While I repeated the minister's words to our new Australians—that, as citizens, we take on these immense privileges—I knew it was us, the government representing our communities, who take on a responsibility in return, because it is our government agencies who are responsible for delivering the social safety net that we as Australians hold so dear. Let me be clear. These safety nets are the product of the Australian Labor Party. It's no secret that the coalition has opposed the creation of social safety nets at every turn. Robodebt happened under their watch. Meanwhile, Australia's healthcare system exists because of the Labor Party. Our social safety nets exist because of the Labor Party. We built Medicare from the ground up, and, today, we're delivering the biggest ever investment in Medicare in its history to bring back bulk-billing.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, cheaper child care, the carers payment, the parenting payment, the indexation of pensions to inflation, the JobSeeker payment—these are all services that were introduced by Labor, and they exist in their current forms today because we are here to protect them. That's the difference between our side of the chamber and theirs. Labor builds social safety nets. Liberals oppose them and cut them. This bill is just one part of that. As long as there's a Labor government, Australians can trust that those valuable safety nets will be not only protected but strengthened. We as Labor know what it means to advocate for Australians, to maintain the privileges we experience as Australians for the next generation and to build a stronger, fairer Australia for all. I commend this bill to the House.

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

I rise today to speak in support of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025, which was borne out of the economic reform roundtable. Held in August this year, the economic reform roundtable generated consensus on ways to improve productivity, enhance economic resilience and strengthen budget sustainability by bringing together a mix of leaders from business, unions, civil society, government and other experts. It had three main themes under the umbrella of 'Lifting living standards for all Australians'. These themes were: 'Making our economy more productive', 'Building resilience in the face of global uncertainty', and 'Strengthening the budget and making it more sustainable'.

Australia has one of the strongest fiscal positions amongst peer economies. This includes lower general government debt to GDP than the G20 average and all major advanced economies, with smaller deficits expected in 2025 than most. Australia is also one of only nine countries to maintain a AAA sovereign credit rating from all three major ratings agencies. As recently as 27 October 2025, Australia's AAA credit rating was reaffirmed, which is an endorsement of this government's approach to responsible economic management.The government is realistic about the challenges facing our economy, including growing global uncertainty, but this reaffirmed AAA rating is further proof that our approach to the challenges we face is one of genuine economic strength.

We also know that there is more work to do to improve productivity. The Economic Reform Roundtable and the Productivity Commission have clearly identified that fit-for-purpose regulation is a key enabler for Australia's economic potential. This government understands that regulation that is not fit for purpose or is duplicative of processes can frustrate Australians and unnecessarily drive up the costs of doing business. It also creates backlogs, and things that could be done quickly just take too long, sometimes preventing Australians from getting the help that they need when they need it.

The government has committed to boosting productivity, reducing duplicative processes and improving the quality of regulation by modernising outdated rules and improving regulator performance. Regulation that is fit for purpose and effectively administrated is vital to support a safe and prosperous community. However, regulation that is excessive or obsolete can become burdensome and needlessly cause frustration or suppress economic growth without a clear benefit. Connecting government services in order to promote a more efficient and effective way of providing help to Australians is therefore critical, and the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025 reflects the government's commitment to connecting government services so Australians can get the help that they need faster. Providing services more quickly does not mean a cut to the quality of those services. This cannot be the consequence because Australians expect and deserve high-quality, reliable services, and that is what the government wants to deliver to Australians. The government's intention, therefore, is that this bill will boost productivity and support economic resilience without reducing necessary protections.

The reach of this bill is extensive in that it contains 60 measures which amend 28 acts, repeal two acts and affect the operations of 13 Commonwealth agencies. The bill strikes the right balance to make regulation fit for purpose and enable growth and productivity across the Australian economy. The bill will deliver regulatory reform within four themes: firstly, amendments to support a tell-us-once approach to government service delivery; secondly, amendments to improve or maintain access to government services; thirdly, amendments to reduce regulatory burden; and, fourthly, amendments to increase government efficiency and improve productivity.

The first theme is found in schedule 1, and this bill is a first step towards implementation of the tell-us-once approach to government services. 'Tell us once' means just that, eliminating the need for Australians to repeatedly provide the same information to different government agencies. Privacy considerations are, of course, important in this because it's vital to protect the privacy of Australians. But, again, regulation that is not frequently measured and tested for effectiveness impacts the efficiency and quality of the services being provided.

This bill will provide Services Australia with a more broad set of circumstances where Services Australia, like the branch at Norwood on The Parade in my electorate of Sturt, are able to share information within the agency for the purposes of administering the Centrelink, Medicare and child support programs. This information could include name, address, bank account details, relationship status, childcare details or information about a person's circumstances or vulnerabilities. The information-sharing regime between the child support, Medicare and Centrelink programs will be simplified in such a way that it may mean the individual is no longer required to contact Services Australia multiple times to make really quite simple updates to their personal information, such as a change of address. A further example is bank details. Many Australians are customers of both Medicare and Centrelink, and, when they update their bank account details, they may notify Centrelink but not Medicare. Under current arrangements, Services Australia is unable to routinely share this information between the two programs. The proposed changes would support overcoming this limitation, allowing Services Australia to deliver better connected services and avoiding the need for the customer to contact multiple agencies.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member will be granted leave to speak in continuation when the debate is resumed.