Red Tape It's Serious Business: Spring Repeal Day 2014

Friday 24 October 2014 @ 11.24 a.m. | IP & Media | Legal Research

The Australian Federal Government has announced that up to 1,000 items of  legislation and regulations have been repealed by the Federal Parliament in what has been named as the "Spring Repeal Day". The day is part of the government's plans to reduce government red tape for businesses, community groups and individuals.

The Government's plan is described at the government's Cutting the Red Tape website as being a plan to cut $1 billion in so called red tape every year. The plan features as its centre-piece two "parliamentary repeal days every year" to cut unnecessary and costly legislation and regulation. Wednesday, 29 October 2014,  has been designated as the Spring Repeal Day in the House of Representatives.

PM Announces Repeal Day

The Prime Minister, Mr Abbott (the PM), announced these measures on Wednesday 22 October, and following the PM's statement, the Government introduced various items of legislation and tabled an instrument to repeal some 1,000 pieces or the equivalent of more than 7,200 pages of legislation and regulations. This was a measure the government claims was in addition to the "2014 Autumn Repeal Day" (see our post, The First Red Tape Repeal Day for Commonwealth), which repealed over 10,000 pieces of legislation and regulation or the equivalent of 50,000 pages. This, the government claims, brings the total net savings to date through this deregulation process to over $2.1 billion.

In his statement, the PM supported the measures by saying:

"In 2014, Australia ranked 124 out of 148 countries for 'burden of government regulation' in the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index, . . . Plainly, this is not good enough."

Further, in his statement, the PM referred to Productivity Commission estimates that regulation compliance costs could amount to as much as 4 percent of Australia's GDP and said:

"Stakeholders from across the economy have been conveying a consistent message to the Government that there needs to be an urgent and significant reduction in regulation to improve Australia's productivity and competitiveness,  . . ."

Key Measures

In his statement, the PM indicated key measures included cutting $88 million each year in compliance costs by providing access to "a centralised, online point of access for Government services" including the Australian Taxation Office, Medicare and Centrelink. Supporting this by saying that: "So far, five million Australians have created their MyGov account."

Further, the PM indicated that the Australian Taxation Office's new online tax return service," MyTax", would save over 1.4 million taxpayers $160 million a year in compliance costs and that the "one-stop shop" for environmental approvals would save the community $426 million each year, and providing an economic gain estimated at $120 billion over the next 12 years.

The repeal process would also remove what the PM called outdated reporting requirements in the communications sector resulting in the repealing 3,400 pages of regulation. Telecommunications and broadcasting are said to be two of the most heavily regulated parts of the economy by the Minister for Communications, Mr Turnbull. A key reform to affect consumers will be a move to a one time sign up system for the "Do Not Call Register" which covers more than nine million telephone numbers, and to which approximately one million numbers are added each year.

Also repealed in the area of broadcasting is legislation that required subscription broadcasters to independently audit their expenditure on Australian and New Zealand drama which the government says will:

". . . remove a significant cost and administrative burden for that sector [broadcasters] without affecting the amount of local content broadcast, . ."

Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014

Another measures with regard to telecommunications and broadcasting that has drawn reaction from the IT industry is the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014 tabled on 23 October 2014, as part of the Spring Repeal Day process, which as website ZDNet reports:

"could see the removal of the Australian communication watchdog's unwarranted data request disclosure and reporting requirements".

The Bill, by removing the various record-keeping and reporting obligations imposed on Telecos in relation to authorised disclosures of information or documents, if passed un-amended, will see the repeal of the Australian Communications and Media Authority's (ACMA) requirement to include the reporting of "statistical information relating to documents disclosed under Division 3 of Part 13 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 in its annual report". The information disclosed in those reports includes, information used in connection with the operations of an enforcement agency, and currently Telcos report to ACMA any time they hand over customer data to Australian government agencies. Repealing of these provisions of the Australian Communications and Media Authority Act 2005 as ZDnet reports, effectively prevents ACMA from publishing the number of warrantless requests for metadata by law enforcement agencies in its annual report.

Reaction and Comment

While some still question the real extent of saving actually produced by the Repeal Day process there is favourable reaction to many of the measures outlined in the PM's announcement.  In particular those measurers said to provide access more quickly to new medical devices by the streamlining of processes relating to the registration of therapeutic goods and there is praise for the measure removing the need for households renew their phone number on the "National Do Not Call register".

But while the PM announced:

"The Government will continue to designate two parliamentary sitting days each year as repeal days to repeal costly and unnecessary legislation and regulation, . . ."

The other or opposite view of the Repeal Day process found its way to Twitter through one MP's phone and read:

"The Govt's red tape changes will unleash a productivity boom as grammar pedants nationwide are relieved from the anxiety of misplaced commas . . ."

TimeBase is an independent, privately owned Australian legal publisher specialising in the online delivery of accurate, comprehensive and innovative legislation research tools including LawOne and unique Point-in-Time Products.

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