Red Tape Repeal: "Unleashing the Economy" or "Punctuation Led Recovery"

Yesterday (18 March 2015) Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister Mr Christian Porter introduced into the House of Representatives (the HR) the government's 2015 autumn repeal day package. A package which comprises the:

• Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill (the Omnibus Bill); 
• Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2); 
• Amending Acts 1980 to 1989 Repeal Bill 2015; and the
• Spent and Redundant Instruments Repeal Regulation 2015.

All Bills are currently before the House of Representatives (HR) in the Federal Parliament.

This package is said by Mr Porter to ". . . collectively repeal over 890 Commonwealth Acts" and 160 Legislative Instruments.

In his speech to the HR, Mr Porter indicates that the Omnibus Bill alone proposes to amend or repeal 14 Acts across various portfolios. Acts, some of which are already spent and redundant or have remained on the Commonwealth statute books long beyond the date of meeting the purpose for which the were initially enacted. While other acts proposed to be amended or repealed have provisions superseded by subsequent legislation and no longer apply. The Omnibus Bill will also, according to Mr Porter, make a number of amendments to legislation to reduce complexity and reduce compliance costs.

Now, in the third bout of extensive repeal and removal of cluttering of the statute books it seems interesting to consider whether the reported aims are actually being met.

The 2014 Deregulation Report

In his speech, Mr Porter referred to the 2014 Deregulation Report also tabled in the HR on 18 March 2015, saying that:

Mr Porter also claimed further that the report indicated that ". . . total deregulatory savings since the Coalition was elected is $2.45 billion . . ." and points to the report as giving a breakdown by department of the savings realised, with the biggest saving being claimed to be $546.4 million saved by the Department of the Environment.

As to how the savings were calculated in the report it appears that partly they are calculated by working out how much time people or businesses would have spent complying with the rules and then what their time was worth. With this in mind, it is notable that the report though providing a long lists of figures of legislation cleared, repealed and money saved still however manages to conclude that ". . . it's difficult to directly measure the role of red tape on Australia's competitiveness".

Some of the Repeal Highlights and/or Curiosities

• Making identity checks simpler when buying a prepaid mobile phone, requiring identification to be taken only at the point of purchase rather than also at the point of activation.
•  Easing restrictions on using electronic devices on plane flights, allowing travelers to be able to use them during all phases of the flight.
• Streamlining the processes involved in the 457 visa foreign workers program.
• Removing the need for statutory declarations when claiming under some Medicare programs.
• Abolishing the Biological Diversity Advisory Committee, one of several environmental advisory bodies.
• Removal of a rule requiring interstate truck operators to carry spare mud guards after research showed the it made no difference to safety.
• Changing an "if" to an "of" in an intelligence act.
• Correcting a "misdescription" in last year's foreign fighters Act.

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014 Still to be Enacted

When gauging the success of the repeal day process, it is also interesting to bear in mind that the last Omnibus Bill for 2014, the spring one, still languishes between the Senate and the HR, awaiting final enactment, because last December the Senate, lead by the ALP, added an amendment to the Bill to say that ". . . the new submarine fleet should be subject to tender" by way of making a point on an unrelated issue. An action which Mr Porter referred to as ". . . a dumb way to make a political point" in his speech yesterday. However, an action which has still had the effect of delaying the efficacy of the last round of legislation and most likely calling into question whether the results of "repeal day deregulation" are as great as claimed by the government.

The Opposition's View

The Federal opposition through its leader in the HR, Mr Tony Burke, has been reported as saying that ". . . every government got rid of old regulations, but only this one wanted applause for doing so". Questioning whether the government was as genuine as it claimed about cutting red tape when the measures from the last repeal day were still "hanging about" in the HR after being returned from the Senate, and further questioned the savings to the economy likely to result from the removal of a hyphen and whether such could be quantified to give a "punctuation-led recovery".

On Balance

While much is made of the red tape repeal by the government, it does, as a process, seem to be what you would expect government of any colour to be doing all the time - namely, to be cleaning its house, clearing the shelves of old stock and making itself efficient. Thus one perhaps would not question the need nor the result achieved, but perhaps the fanfare is wearing a little thin?

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.

• Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2015) Bill 2015 and associated Bills and supporting papers as reported in the TimeBase LawOne Service.
• Government says cuts to red tape have saved $2.5 billion in compliance costs (ABC News - 17 March 2015)
• New food labelling laws ‘won’t derail red-tape cost reduction’ (The Age - 18 March 2015)
• The man who could be prime minister, Christian Porter, must first cut through red tape (SMH - 18 March 2015)