Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) (09:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014 is the first bill in the government's 2014 repeal day package. In April 1946, Sir Robert Menzies's Liberal Party took out an advertisement in the Bulletin magazine. 'We want fewer forms and more reforms,' the headline screamed. Alongside a picture of a husband and wife drowning in paperwork, the advertisement went on to say: 'I'm fenced in with permits, licences, returns, regulations from every board, division and department under the sun. What I want is to control my own industry.'

It was a message that strongly resonated then, as it still does today. In every facet of life, from aged care to agriculture, schools to small business, visas to veterans, we are facing an avalanche of regulation that is impeding investment and innovation and the creation of new jobs.

In under six years, the previous, Labor government introduced an additional 21,000 regulations, including the carbon tax, with its 18 separate acts and 1,100 pages of legislation, and the mining tax, with 11 separate acts and 525 pages of legislation. This is despite Kevin Rudd's 2007 claim:

The truth is business regulation is now right out of control.

The quantity and complexity of business regulation today is eating away at the entrepreneurial spirit of Australian business.

And Kevin Rudd's small business minister, Craig Emerson, said:

We are promising to take a giant pair of scissors to the red tape that is strangling small businesses.

Unfortunately, Labor did anything but.

It is little wonder then, that given this poor performance by the Rudd and Gillard governments, the World Economic Forum ranked Australia a pitiful 128th out of 148 countries surveyed for 'burden of government regulation'.

Or that the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry surveyed its members in 2013 and found that 73 per cent of businesses felt the compliance burden had increased in the past two years.

The Business Council of Australia too has documented the overwhelming compliance burden, highlighting that one environmental process took more than two years, cost millions of dollars, involved 4,000 meetings, required a 12,000-page report and, when the approval came back, it had 1,500 conditions attached, 300 at the federal level, 1,200 at the state level, and 8,000 subconditions. How can we expect any company to go through that process.

Unfortunately, today too many of our business leaders share the sentiments of Jos de Bruin, CEO of the Master Grocers Association, who said 'many of our members feel they are in the business of compliance, and do a little bit of retailing on the side'.

Comments such as these from an industry group representing firms employing more than 115,000 staff and contributing more than $14 billion each year to the economy are a call to action. And we need to respond.

It is against this backdrop that the Abbott government is determined to turn back the tide of red and green tape and adopt a new approach.

Questions must be asked first before any new regulations are passed. What is their purpose? Their cost? Their impact on new entrants? And their effectiveness in managing risk? Only then, when it is absolutely necessary, with no sensible alternatives available, should we proceed to regulate.

We need a new concept of acceptable risk and we need to better understand the cumulative impact of regulation on business decision making. After all, business is not sentimental and capital is mobile.

Politicians who support new regulation are, in the words of the former Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks, 'often rewarded with public acclaim as tangible evidence that the government is "doing something"'. Just look at the previous government's boast that it passed hundreds of pieces of legislation, as if that was an achievement in itself.

As Banks describes, these 'uneven political pressures' are the 'antithesis of good regulatory process'. The incentives are simply all wrong. Their cumulative impact is to deter investment and innovation and stifle productivity.

As part of the Abbott government's new approach, we are implementing a series of reforms which will hold both ministers and the bureaucracy to greater account.

Cabinet submissions proposing legislative changes with a significant regulatory impact will no longer be exempted from the regulatory impact assessment processes.

Ministers have been tasked to establish designated units within their own departments to advise on deregulation priorities, while each minister is appointing an advisory committee with outside representation to provide advice on where regulation can be cut.

Senior members of the Public Service are having their remuneration directly linked to their performance in reducing red and green tape.

Two parliamentary sitting days have been set for repealing legislation each year, with the first repeal day occurring next Wednesday.

And we have committed to an annual target of reducing red tape by $1 billion.

All this is being overseen by the Prime Minister and his department, which has subsumed the Office of Deregulation and the Office of Best Practice Regulation into the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet from its previous location in the Department of Finance.

Regulators too are the subject of the new approach. The government is releasing today a Productivity Commission report which provides a framework for auditing the performance of regulatory agencies.

The Commonwealth has 75 external and 65 internal regulators, each of which vary in size. When they do their job well, they effectively manage risk and advance the interests of stakeholders and the community at large. However, when their performance is subpar, it can lead to substantial delays, increased costs and complexity, and what can be politely described as a 'mission creep'.

The perception today is that too many of our regulators are dominated by a culture of compliance and enforcement that stifles productivity. There is also a view that where regulators have the ability to cost recover their fees from industry it is industry that bears the impost of regulators' risk aversion.

The Abbott government is implementing a series of measures to audit and to ultimately strengthen the performance of regulators in addition to the Productivity Commission's report, which covers four key indicators: advice and guidance, licensing and approvals, monitoring and compliance, and enforcement. Senior ministers in the Abbott government with portfolio responsibility for one or more Commonwealth regulators are now sending letters of expectation to the relevant regulatory head.

These letters make clear that the strategic direction of the government is to deregulate and lift the compliance burden on stakeholders. Where appropriate, ministers call upon regulators to reduce any overlap between their functions and those of other regulators and to undertake an audit of the cost of regulatory compliance to their stakeholders. Where it can be done, the ministers are also requesting that regulators substitute mandatory reporting requirements with independent audits. The goal of these changes is to create a more practical, risk based approach to enforcement.

Ahead of Repeal Day next Wednesday, today is also a historic moment for the Australian parliament. Today the government introduces legislation and tables documents to repeal more than 10,000 acts and regulations, the largest ever single bulk repeal in the history of the Commonwealth.

Red and green tape is being cut across nearly every portfolio, slashing the compliance bill for business and the not-for-profit sectors by more than $700 million.

Significantly, the broader economic impact will be larger than this—exponentially larger—as jobs will be created and investments that may otherwise have been delayed or cancelled will now go ahead.

In just over six months in government, this is a good start, but there is a long way to go. We are determined to see a cultural shift in Australia's approach to regulation.

Regulation must never be the default option for government but only a means of last resort following genuine consultation with stakeholders.

The Abbott government's deregulation initiatives, many of which are being introduced today, align with three key themes.

The first is removing duplication between different levels of government and between different agencies of government.

The government has already announced one-stop shops for environmental approvals to avoid overlap between state and federal regimes. Now one-stop shops will be extended to offshore petroleum activities in Commonwealth waters, with NOPSEMA—the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority—now empowered to make determinations required under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act without the need to get approval from a second, separate, Commonwealth regulator.

David Byers, CEO of the Australian Petroleum Production Exploration Association, says that this move is essential should Australia be able to 'win extra market share' beyond the $200 billion already invested in local projects.

We are also removing the requirement for aged-care building certification at the federal level, as this merely duplicates requirements at the state level. With an additional 74,000 aged-care places needed over the next 10 years, we need less regulation, not more, if we are going to provide the incentive for the required investment.

In another significant change we are opening up the Comcare scheme to companies who operate in multiple states and want to self-insure. Instead of having to enter into separate workers’ compensation schemes in every state in which they operate, they can enter into a single scheme which is estimated to save industry over $30 million a year in compliance costs.

Second is the need to streamline onerous and costly reporting requirements.

Labor’s Future of Financial Advice laws imposed a whopping $700 million implementation cost on the financial services sector and needs to be pared back.

The Personal Property Securities Act which mandates that small and large hire firms register serial numbered goods with a Commonwealth authority is more onerous than regimes in place in comparable jurisdictions such as New Zealand and Canada.

Commonwealth grant and procurement guidelines also need to be amended to ensure greater use of template contracts and to increase the threshold for the Commonwealth to make payments with credit cards to assist the cash flow of small business.

The education sector also needs relief, with universities no longer having to submit capital asset management surveys, which provide unnecessary levels of detailed information on the use of their lecture theatres, laboratories and academic offices.

And the not-for-profit sector will also see savings, with the Brotherhood of St Laurence no longer having to report monthly, but instead quarterly, as it oversees the implementation of the Commonwealth’s Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters (HIPPY) program, an important educational service assisting disadvantaged young families.

Third, the Abbott government will take a common-sense approach to regulation.

There is no need for companies to seek separate classifications, for 2D, 3D, DVD or Blu-ray versions of a film like Kung Fu Panda when one classification should suffice.

Job service providers should not be required to keep 336 file cabinets to hold paper copies of job applications when they could be otherwise stored electronically.

It does not make sense for more than 30,000 retailers selling prepaid sim cards to take a photocopy of the purchaser’s ID when similar details are again taken when the phone is activated.

So too for a potato farmer exporting to Korea; they should have the option to self-certify the origin of their produce and not go through the costly and time-consuming process of paying for a certificate of origin.

These are just some of the many examples of over-regulation which we are seeking to correct with our initiatives announced in conjunction with repeal day—as the Prime Minister said, a bonfire of superfluous regulation.

The Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill 2014, which is before the House, is part of a package of repeal measures, together with a series of other important bills including the Statute Law Revision Bill No. 1 2014 and the Amending Acts 1901-1969 Repeal Bill 2014.

The Omnibus Bill makes a number of changes to:

streamline reporting and information provision requirements for telecommunications providers under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010

remove Telstra’s standard marketing plan and policy statement requirements, now redundant under the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999

streamline the Australian Communication and Media Authority’s (ACMA) discretion to investigate complaints under the Media Authority Act 2005, Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Broadcasting Act) and Interactive Gambling Act 2001

remove superseded standard form agreement provisions outlined in the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code requiring carriers to maintain duplicate summaries for each product and service

grant the Australian Communication and Media Authority the power to exempt classes of licenses that do not have significant revenue from the requirement to provide audited accounts under the Broadcasting Act

remove redundant permit provisions regarding the operation of sea installations under the Sea Installations Act 1987

remove requirements to undertake water studies in the Murray-Darling Basin for mining activities which have been superseded by provisions in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conversation Act 1999

repeal the Coordinator-General for Remote Indigenous Services Act 2009 following the decision announced in MYEFO and its function ceasing on 31 January 2014

remove the certification requirement under the Aged Care Act 1997 that replicates state, territory and local government building regulations for residential aged care facilities

exempt low volume importers from the licensing requirements of the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act 1989.

This Omnibus Repeal Day Bill also proposes the repeal of 43 spent and redundant acts, some of which have remained on the Commonwealth statute books despite fulfilling their purpose or being superseded, decades ago.

For example, the Approved Defence Projects Protection Act 1947 was enacted to provide for the protection of approved defence projects by making it an offence to prevent, hinder or obstruct an approved defence project. This act applies to the Woomera Prohibited Area and the Nurrungar Joint Defence Facility. Woomera has been protected under the Defence Force Regulation 1952 since 1976 and the Nurrungar facility was decommissioned in 1999.

Further, the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement (Service Personnel) Act 1990 was established to transfer property between the Commonwealth and individual states following the creation of the Defence Housing Authority in 1988. The act was fully spent after five years but remains on the Commonwealth statute book.

Four acts from the Treasury portfolio remain on the statute book to implement increases to Australia’s quota at the International Monetary Fund in 1965, 1970, 1983 and 1991. These payments have long been made and the arrangements are no longer required. Furthermore, the International Monetary Agreements Act 1947 was amended in 1991 to include standing arrangements to support any payment we are required to make to the IMF when quotas are changed.

By allowing these spent and redundant acts to continue in force on the Commonwealth statute book, we are making it harder for businesses, individuals and community organisations to find out about the regulations that matter to them. Instead of being able to quickly and easily find and access the regulations they need to comply with, they have to sift through outdated, unnecessary regulations, to determine whether they still apply.

Through our commitment to dedicated parliamentary repeal days and bills like the Omnibus Repeal Day Bill, and the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014 and Statute Law Review Bill (No. 1) 2014, this government is taking decisive action to reduce this burden.

In conclusion, if Australia does not act now to tackle this avalanche of red and green tape, we will be unnecessarily raising the risk on Australia’s $400-plus billion investment pipeline, and, in the process, endangering tens of thousands of potential new jobs.

We must never forget in a competitive world, capital is mobile, and in the Asian century, where the opportunities are so large, we not only need to seize every advantage but we need to eliminate every disadvantage.

This is why the deregulation agenda is so urgent and so important. We must act now, as the choice is ours.

Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest serving and greatest Prime Minister, was right when he said, more than 60 years ago, that what was needed was 'less forms and more reforms'. The Abbott government has heeded these words and is now taking the lead.

Australian families, businesses and community organisations all stand to be the great beneficiaries.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) (09:54): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014 is the second bill in the government's 2014 Autumn Repeal Day package.

The main purpose of the bill is to clean-up the statute books by removing over 1,000 amending and repeal acts.

The bill repeals each act mentioned in its schedule.

These acts are no longer required as the amendments and repeals that they provide for have already happened.

If any application, saving or transitional provision is included in one of those acts, any ongoing operation of the provision will be preserved. The acts do not contain any other substantive provisions that are not already spent.

Repealing these acts is important because it will make the statute book simpler and quicker to use by reducing the time it takes to locate current regulations.

At present, the acts proposed to be repealed in the amending acts bill form part of the current law and it is not clear to everyone whether the acts have force in and of themselves.

Repealing these acts will remove any confusion about the status of these laws.

It will be easier for individuals, businesses and community organisations to find laws that impact them without needing to sift through redundant material, while people with a specific interest in the legislation can continue to access these acts as they will remain publically available on ComLaw as historical records.

The earliest act being repealed in this bill is the Defence Act 1904. It made amendments that were themselves amended and overtaken multiple times since 1904. This is recorded in the legislative amendment history of the current Defence Act 1903. Indeed, so historic is the Defence Act 1904 that it references a State Division of the Naval Forces and not the Royal Australian Navy, which was formed in 1911.

There are numerous other items contained in schedule 1 of the bill which were made in the decades shortly after the start of Federation but which are no longer necessary.

The Dried Fruits Export Charges Act 1927 is an example of an act that is clearly outdated but has remained on the statute book for a significant period of time. It set the charge on export of dried fruits in the now repealed principal act of 1924 to one-eighth of a penny for each pound of dried fruits exported. It is now fully spent and redundant.

Other acts being repealed amend principal acts which have already been repealed. For instance, the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric power acts from 1951, 1952, 1956 and 1958 amend parts of the principal act from 1949. The 1949 act was repealed over a decade ago by the Snowy Hydro Corporatisation Act 1997 when the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority was corporatised.

Amending acts made after 1969 will be repealed on future repeal days.

I commend this bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.

Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) (09:58): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 1) 2014 is the third bill in the government's 2014 Autumn Repeal Day package.

The bill cleans up the statute books by repairing minor errors in Commonwealth consolidated acts, and repeals spent or redundant provisions and acts.

While the bill does not make substantive changes to the law, it serves two important functions. First, it clarifies the status of laws by repealing obsolete legislation and, secondly, it removes confusion by amending incorrect or out of date provisions.

The bill reduces the regulatory burden by improving the accuracy and useability of Commonwealth legislation. As a result, the bill will help to save individuals, businesses and community organisations time and money.

Schedules 1 and 2 of the bill achieve two main ends:

correcting minor technical errors in principal acts, such as grammatical errors and errors in numbering, and

correcting amending acts which contain errors.

For example, sometimes legislation refers to other acts incorrectly, or contains references to other parts of the same act which are not accurate. By correcting these unclear legislative provisions, this bill helps make the law easier to use.

Schedules 3, 4 and 5 of the bill update language used in a range of legislation. These schedules make three sorts of changes:

Firstly, they amend acts to ensure that Commonwealth ministers are consistently mentioned by reference to the administration of particular legislation, rather than by title. This ensures that the provisions can still be understood and operate properly when the titles of ministers change.

Secondly, they amend terminology to consistently reflect terms now used in the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 and in current drafting practice. The Acts Interpretation Act is a dictionary and manual that provides rules for reading and interpreting Commonwealth legislation.

Thirdly, they correct various Commonwealth acts to reflect the correct title of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory under the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978.

By removing out-dated or unnecessary provisions and acts, this bill also makes Commonwealth legislation more efficient to use.

Schedules 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of the bill repeal spent or redundant provisions and acts.

For example, the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2005 regulated the use of indicia and images associated with the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. The Act provided that it ceased to have effect on 30 June 2006, so it can now be repealed.

Other minor errors in Commonwealth consolidated acts will be corrected on future repeal days.

I commend this bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.

Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (10:02): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I ntroduction

This bill makes a number of amendments to address the significant regulatory overreach imposed by the former government's Future of Financial Advice legislation, or FOFA as it is commonly known.

Unlike the opposition, the coalition government recognises the significant costs imposed on business and the broader community by poorly targeted, unnecessary and costly regulation.

That is why we have committed to reducing the compliance cost of red and green tape by $1 billion per year.

This bill fulfils the government's election commitment to reduce the regulatory burden on the financial services industry.

The package of amendments contained in the bill will significantly reduce regulatory costs and provide greater certainty to industry in relation to their legal obligations.

This bill is aimed at clarifying the operation of FOFA to more effectively align the legislation with what was envisaged by the original parliamentary joint committee inquiry into financial products and services in Australia which was the genesis of the original FOFA legislation.

Research tells us that only 20 to 40 per cent of Australians seek financial advice. Australia's ageing population means it is vital that all Australians have access to affordable advice.

The amendments in this bill will place downward pressure on costs and ensure that consumers can better access affordable financial advice.

There has been a lot of scaremongering by the opposition, and others, that the government's amendments will weaken the consumer protections currently afforded under FOFA. This is not the case.

All of the essential protections of FOFA will stay, ensuring that consumers are protected from receiving poor financial advice.

The requirement that advisers must act in the best interests of their client will remain. Advisers will also need to provide appropriate advice, warn the client if advice is based on incomplete or inaccurate information, and prioritise the client's interest ahead of their own.

A ban on conflicted remuneration for benefits received in relation to personal advice will remain whilst allowing those advisers not providing personal advice to a client to more efficiently provide general advice.

Clients will also continue to receive information about the fees they are paying, including fee disclosure statements for clients who entered into arrangements post 1 July 2013.

The government has consulted extensively on the package of amendments. There is widespread support from industry stakeholders for these changes.

The package of amendments to FOFA will result in a significant reduction in the regulatory burden across industry and will assist both small businesses as well as larger institutional stakeholders.

The Department of the Treasury, in its regulation impact statement, estimated that the amendments would result in ongoing cost savings of approximately $190 million per year with one-off implementation cost savings of around $90 million.

The government believes that high quality, affordable financial advice should be within reach of all Australians and that a strong financial services industry, unburdened by excessive regulation, is essential to ensuring that Australians have access to affordable advice.

This package of amendments delivers these outcomes.

R epeals Day

The amendments to FOFA form part of the government's deregulation agenda.

The unnecessary and heavy regulatory burden imposed on industry has caused business costs to rapidly increase.

However, the government is taking action to make sure Australia's economy can make the most of opportunities and flourish in the years ahead.

We have a broad-ranging deregulation agenda, aimed at boosting productivity by reducing the regulatory burden on business.

Our goal is to restore certainty, predictability and effective and meaningful collaboration and consultation so that government policy serves to boost confidence, promote investment and encourage employment.

As part of the deregulation agenda, the government is overhauling the process for creating, implementing and reviewing new regulations.

An important part of the government's agenda is the setting aside of two parliamentary sitting days for repealing legislation each year.

This step will ensure that the parliament takes time each year to expressly consider the repeal of excessive, unnecessary or redundant legislation and any associated regulations.

Consistent with the government's view that the FOFA amendments will address the significant, and unnecessarily costly, regulatory overreach imposed by the former government, it is appropriate that they be considered as part of this first formal repeals day.

FOFA time line

Not only have opponents of these changes argued that the government has significantly weakened consumer protections; but there have also been calls that the amendments have been developed with undue haste.

It might therefore be interesting to note that these amendments were first identified by the coalition more than two years ago.

In February 2012, coalition members recommended 16 changes to FOFA in their dissenting report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services' inquiry into the original FOFA bills.

The coalition then re-affirmed its commitment to make these changes in its July 2013 pre-election Policy to Boost Productivity and Reduce Regulation.

Since coming to power, the government has publicly canvassed these reforms on numerous occasions culminating in the announcement of the package by the Assistant Treasurer on 20 December 2013.

Draft regulations and legislation were then released for consultation in January 2014 for a three-week period, supplemented by a series of meetings with stakeholders.

Over 50 submissions to this latest consultation process were received from a range of stakeholders,including financial advisers, industry associations, consumer advocacy groups, training and consultant businesses, academics, law firms and individuals.

Key amendments

As I noted earlier, the government's changes to FOFA will reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on business and make advice more affordable without weakening consumer protections.

I wanted to briefly discuss several of the key changes being made by the government.

Best interests duty

One change which has attracted substantial attention is the amendment to the best interests duty.

Under the current law, advisers must satisfy seven steps in order to meet the best interests duty. The seventh step requires advisers to take any other step which would reasonably be regarded as being in the client's best interests. This step is also known as the 'catch-all' provision.

Industry has told us that the catch-all provision is unworkable as it creates uncertainty for advisers on how they can satisfy their best interests duty.

This bill seeks to remove this uncertainty from the law.

Let me be clear: this bill does not remove the requirement for advisers to act in the best interests of their clients.

Without the catch-all provision, the best interests duty will continue to ensure that an adviser is taking the necessary steps to properly consider the client's circumstances, to conduct reasonable investigations into products that would meet the client's objectives and needs, and to exercise judgment in formulating the advice for their client.

In addition, there are a number of other duties that an adviser must adhere to including that the advice is appropriate for the client and that the adviser must place their client's interests ahead of their own.

Scaled advice

Another important change to FOFA to support the delivery of affordable financial advice relates to better facilitating scaled advice.

Scaled advice refers to the provision of advice which is limited in scope to some extent; for example, advice on superannuation products rather than on a holistic financial plan.

We are told that the current legislation has resulted in increased costs and significant legal uncertainty for advisers, who do not feel that it truly allows them to provide scaled advice to their clients.

At the moment, an adviser may still need to investigate all of the client's relevant financial circumstances, even when advice is sought on a specific issue.

This bill will explicitly permit scaled advice. Advisers will be able to limit the scope of the advice to a particular area, as agreed with the client.

This reform will facilitate the ability for advisers to provide low-cost advice services and enable more consumers to access advice.

Importantly, the scaled advice provided on the specific topic must still have regard to the client's best interests and be appropriate for the client.

Removal of the opt -in requirement

FOFA currently requires all clients to renew their ongoing fee arrangement with their adviser every two years. This is known as the 'opt-in' requirement.

The requirement to obtain a client's agreement at least every two years to continue an ongoing fee arrangement adds an unnecessary layer of red tape.

This requirement offers very little consumer protection beyond that already afforded to clients and in any event, clients will still continue to have the ability to opt-out of their fee arrangements at any time.

Removing the opt-in requirement is an important step in winding back some of the unnecessary regulatory burden imposed on industry by the former government.

Fee Disclosure Statements

Fee disclosure is another area where FOFA went too far.

The government will remove the requirement to provide a yearly fee disclosure statement to clients who entered into their ongoing arrangement prior to 1 July 2013.

The requirement to prepare a fee disclosure statement for pre‑1 July 2013 clients is expensive given that the age of many legacy systems often requires advisers to manually collate and review data.

Indeed, industry has estimated that it costs around twice as much to provide a fee disclosure statement to a pre-1 July 2013 client as it costs to provide one for a new client.

In removing this costly obligation, the government notes that these clients will continue to receive disclosure statements directly from superannuation trustees and product manufacturers that identify the fees paid to an adviser.

Of course, today's computer systems are specifically developed to prepare fee disclosure statements and can do so cost-effectively. As such, industry will continue to be required to provide post-1 July 2013 clients with a fee disclosure statement.

Over time, an increasing portion of clients will receive a fee disclosure statement.

General adv ice

The current ban on conflicted remuneration captures a far wider range of circumstances than was originally intended, and has resulted in significant compliance costs for industry.

For example, the ban captures employees involved in preparing and providing general advice (such as website designers or general information seminar providers) who are not in a product sales related area.

The government initially proposed to exempt all general advice from the ban on conflicted remuneration.

During the consultation process on the draft legislation, stakeholders raised concerns that consumers may not appreciate the difference between general and personal advice and that a broad exemption may create opportunities for regulatory arbitrage.

The government has listened to these concerns.

The bill limits the general advice exemption to employees only and under circumstances in which they have not provided personal advice to the client in the preceding 12-month period.

In addition ASIC has indicated that it will monitor the use of these provisions as they relate to general advice on complex products and will provide a report to the government in the next 12 to 18 months.

Life risk insurance

The last change I wanted to canvass today relates to life risk insurance arrangements.

This is another area in which the coalition government has responded to stakeholder feedback.

Through consultation on the proposed amendments and broader industry engagement, the government became aware that, while the industry as a whole is well capitalised and profitable, certain business lines within the industry are currently facing a number of challenges, which is raising concerns about the sustainability of some existing industry practices.

In light of these concerns, the government will undertake a separate process to engage with the life insurance industry on a broad range of issues affecting the sector.

In order to ensure that the industry's regulatory environment is not subject to further change while this process is underway, the government does not propose to progress any legislative amendments in this space at this time.

Associated Regulations

The government has signalled that it will implement the time sensitive measures contained in this bill through regulations to the extent legally possible.

The interim regulations (those made redundant by the legislative amendments) will be repealed following passage of the legislative amendments.

By adopting this approach, the government will provide certainty for all stakeholders on the timing of these amendments, thereby reducing regulatory costs and encouraging more affordable financial advice.

Consultation

I talked earlier about the extensive consultation undertaken by the coalition in the development of these amendments.

Whether it was through the initial deliberations of the parliamentary joint committee inquiry in 2009, the debate on the original FOFA bills in 2012, the release of the coalition's policy to boost productivity and reduce regulation in July 2013 prior to the election or the more recent consultation on the draft amendments, the government appreciates the input of all stakeholders.

The views received by all stakeholders have informed and shaped the final form of this bill.

I would like to thank all stakeholders for their valuable contribution into this process.

Conclusion

The bill fulfils the government's election commitment to unwind the regulatory overreach created by the FOFA legislation and provides certainty to the financial services industry.

This is just one of many steps the government is taking to repeal and amend costly and excessive regulations which are crippling Australian business.

In addition to listening to industry criticisms about regulatory costs and uncertainty with the current FOFA legislation, the government has also heard and addressed concerns raised by consumer advocates.

Advice will continue to be in the best interests of the client, conflicted remuneration structures that have the ability to influence advice will continue to be banned and consumers will continue to have access to high quality financial advice.

At the same time, unnecessary red tape which only serves to increase the costs faced by consumers will be removed.

I commend this bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (10:19): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Australia currently has around 11,700 separate agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines (agvet chemicals) registered with the Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicines Authority, also known as the APVMA. Each of these products contains one or more of only 782 active constituents.

Agvet chemicals protect crops and animals from pests and diseases and so help improve the productivity and competitiveness of Australia's rural industries. Agvet chemicals help to ensure the quality and safety of food production while protecting human and animal health and the environment. They are essential tools for managing weeds, vital to keep our pets healthy, and a necessary part of our indoor and outdoor lifestyle and looking after stock.

Australia's gross value of farm production is worth an estimated $47.9 billion a year with an export value of farm commodities of around $38 billion. The agvet chemicals industry is vital to quality food and fibre production and makes essential tools for primary producers. The crop protection industry body CropLife Australia estimates in a recent report that:

$17.6 billion of Australian agriculture output is attributable to the use of [crop protection products], or 68 per cent of the total value of crop production.

This bill aims to reduce the unnecessary regulatory burden on this industry resulting in reduced costs to that industry that will eventually flow on to benefit primary producers. This may also lead to greater investment in newer, safer innovative products for the future.

An efficient regulator is important to ensure timely and cost-effective registration of new chemistries and review of emerging risks in registered chemicals and to provide the best possible environment for companies to register products in Australia.

The Australian government has committed to:

easing the burden imposed on the Australian economy and agricultural sector by reducing red and green tape on business by at least $1 billion per year.

The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Removing Re-approval and Re-registration) Bill 2014 contributes to this commitment by implementing the government's election commitment to remove the requirement for agvet chemicals to be reregistered.

The bill builds on earlier progress that has already been made through the National Registration Scheme, a partnership between the Commonwealth and all the states and territories, and on elements of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment Act 2013(Amendment Act). These changes will improve the effectiveness of the regulatory system and reduce inefficiency at the APVMA while continuing to protect human and animal health and safety and protect the environment.

This bill proposes amendments principally to the Agvet code—the schedule to theAgricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994. The bill also proposes amendments to the previous government's amendment act.

This bill is divided into two schedules, both commencing immediately after schedule 1 to the amendment act —effective on 1 July 2014.

Removing re-approval and re-registration

Schedule 1 implements the election commitment to remove re-registration.

That schedule prevents the expiry of active constituent approvals and prevents the application of dates after which a registration cannot be renewed. Active constituent approvals are to continue in force so long as they are not cancelled. In the same way a person obtains a car drivers licence that then is subject to periodic renewal, under the new legislation agvet chemical registrations continue in force subject to periodic renewal. Schedule 1 also removes provision for applications to be made to re-approve active constituents or re-register chemical products.

Schedule 1 further reduces red tape by allowing for less frequent renewal of registrations. The current process is for the renewal of registrations to occur annually. Again like your car licence, instead of an annual renewal, these amendments will allow longer time frames for renewal. The regulations will set the period, which could be up to seven years. Less frequent renewals will mean less red tape and less cost to business.

Addressing concerns with chemical product quality

To give the opportunity for the APVMA to confirm that chemical products supplied to the market are the same as the product evaluated and registered by the APVMA this bill includes amendments that improve the ability of the APVMA to require a person who supplies an agvet chemical product in Australia to provide information (for example, a chemical analysis) about the product they are supplying.

The bill would provide that the APVMA may, by written notice, require a person to provide information about substances supplied or intended for supply as a chemical product (or an active constituent for a chemical product) if they have, will have, or have had possession of the substance. The information that may be required includes details of the composition of the substance, manufacturing details, packaging, labelling and advertising information and about conformance of the substance with any relevant standard.

The APVMA is to be able to require a chemical analysis of the product and for the results of the analysis to be provided to the APVMA. The power is to apply only if the APVMA considers the information is necessary to protect human, animal and environmental health and safety or protect trade. Used appropriately, the power will improve community confidence that the APVMA is effectively managing risks to human, animal and environmental safety and to trade.

Reducing red-tape by allowing for simpler variations to approvals and registrations

The bill proposes to streamline simple variations to an approval, registration or label.

For the simplest variations, schedule 2 of the bill provides that the APVMA will have to make the variation at the time the holder of registration or approval notifies the APVMA of the change. For some less simple variations, the APVMA will have to make the variation after a fixed period if it is a prescribed variation.

Without these amendments to the code, the APVMA would have to complete a more onerous technical assessment of these variations with no benefit to improved chemical safety. This is another sensible reduction in red tape that makes the regulator more user-friendly without impacting health or safety.

Obliging access to information about chemicals that the APVMA holds

Currently, the APVMA is often asked to provide information to the company that is responsible for a chemical product about its registrations. This information is then provided under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act).

Payments for information sought under the FOI Act are not covering the costs of providing the information. As a result, companies that do keep good records are subsidising the records costs of those that do not.

The bill amendments will allow persons to apply to the APVMA for copies of documents it holds about a chemical for a fee. This provision will not allow release of confidential commercial information unless the recipient was entitled to the information. For example, because they were the person that provided the information.

Schedule 2 of the bill proposes to 'turn off' access under the FOI Act for these documents but will not prevent access to the information. The FOI Act anticipates this by allowing an exemption for access to documents (at paragraph 12(1) (b) of the FOI Act) that is open to public access in accordance with another enactment, where that access is subject to a fee or other charge.

Other amendments consequential to existing reforms

In preparing for implementation of the amendment act, the Department of Agriculture and the APVMA found further minor improvements that could be made.

Several small technical amendments are added to the agvet code to improve the readability of the legislation and reduce the possibility of difficulties in implementing it.

The bill also includes appropriate transitional measures to allow processing to continue for those products currently registered in the APVMA system.

Conclusion

The Australian government is implementing reforms to the regulation of agvet chemicals for the benefit of the community, manufacturers, importers, wholesalers, retailers and users of agvet chemicals. These reforms aim to reduce red tape for farmers and other businesses and encourage the development of new chemistry with a range of benefits for farmers and other users, the environment and the community.

Overall, the bill will increase the efficiency of the regulator and provide greater clarity to stakeholders on the intent of the legislation. The measures in the bill are a good start towards easing the burden imposed on the Australian economy and agricultural sector by reducing red and green tape on business.

The government will continue to work with industry to implement further improvements through legislation and administrative change.

It is with great pleasure that I introduce this bill to make this important reform a reality.

Debate adjourned.

Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (10:29): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Employers operating in multiple states deal with different workers' compensation schemes and work health and safety regulations in each jurisdiction around Australia. This increases red tape for employers and is confusing for workers who are subject to different regulation and benefits depending on which state or territory they are employed in.

While in the past, certain private sector corporations have been able to self-insure for workers' compensation coverage through the Commonwealth's Comcare scheme, a moratorium on new corporations entering the Comcare scheme was imposed in 2007 by the former Labor government. This was despite evidence from the 2004 Productivity Commission inquiry into the National workers' compensation and occupational health and safety frameworks which found that the cost for multistate employers of complying with multiple state workers' compensation arrangements was considerable. Those costs could have been used more effectively to create new jobs and improve the safety standards within the enterprise. The Howard government responded to the Productivity Commission inquiry recommendations by allowing eligible private corporations that operated in multiple states to apply for a self-insurance license with the Comcare scheme.

There are currently 30 licenced corporations who are benefiting from the reduced red tape and cost by having one set of workers' compensation arrangements for their national workforce. Ten of these are current or former Commonwealth authorities such as Australia Post and Telstra. The remaining 20 are private corporations such as Optus, TNT, the National Australia Bank and John Holland Corporation. The work health and safety performance of these companies since joining the Comcare scheme has been strong and in most cases has been better than it was under multiple state schemes. These companies have the benefit of significantly reduced red tape, cost and bureaucracy that frees them up to work more effectively with their employees to improve work health and safety in their organisations.

Following a campaign from the union bosses, the previous Labor government banned multistate companies from joining the Comcare scheme. Labor refused to lift the ban despite a 2012 review of the Comcare scheme commissioned by Labor and led by Dr Allan Hawke AC, which recommended lifting the moratorium preventing multistate employers from joining the Comcare scheme, finding the requirement to insure in multiple states and territories to be inefficient and costly. The Leader of the Opposition sat on his hands and did not enact any recommendations of the report as workplace relations minister.

On 2 December 2013, the coalition government lifted the moratorium so that multistate employers, which meet rigorous financial and governance criteria and demonstrate suitable work health and safety performance, can apply for a license to self-insure in the Comcare scheme, rather than through multiple schemes. It is the government's intention to also allow the multistate employers, who choose to apply to self-insure for workers' compensation arrangements with Comcare, to also have one set of work, health and safety regulation rather than be subject to multiple state requirements and regulators.

This bill seeks to amend the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (the SRC Act) and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 to expand the eligibility of corporations to self-insure through the Commonwealth's Comcare scheme.

The amendments:

remove the need for the minister to declare eligibility to apply for a self-insurance licence while maintaining the ability for the minister to issue directions to the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission. This will streamline the current two-stage approval process;

remove the out-dated requirement that a corporation must be in competition with a Commonwealth authority, or former Commonwealth authority, to enter the Comcare scheme; and

broaden the range of corporations that are eligible for a licence to self-insure under the Comcare scheme to 'national employers' defined as an employer that is required to meet workers' compensation obligations under the laws of two or more states or territories.

This approach will reduce red tape while ensuring a strong and robust approval process by the independent Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission.

These important productivity reforms are critical for multistate employers. They will give these employers the option of continuing to operate under multilayered worker's compensation and work health and safety regimes, or to apply to have one set of national arrangements.

It is anticipated that the reduction in red tape and significant savings that could be realised for business could be spent on creating jobs and reinvesting in the economy.

Group licences

Currently, corporations applying to be covered under the Comcare scheme must be assessed individually for eligibility. A feature that business has been seeking for some time is the introduction of group licences to the SRC Act.

The bill provides for the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission to grant a licence to an eligible group of corporations that are owned by the same holding company, in line with the state schemes and the commercial reality of modern multicompany corporate structures.

Introduction of group licences will reduce red tape and costs for corporations as it recognises that groups of interrelated corporations often share return-to-work and work health and safety systems within the group. It will also recognise that each entity that forms part of a group does not individually need to meet the definition of a national employer.

This reform will be better for businesses, better for workers and better for the economy.

Serious and wilful misconduct

Currently under the SRC Act, workers' compensation can be claimed by a worker who is injured while involved in payable employment where an injury caused by the serious and wilful misconduct of the employee results in death or serious and permanent impairment.

The bill removes access to compensation where any injury sustained by an employee is caused by their own serious and wilful misconduct.

While claims in this category are rare, the Australian public rightly expects that employees should take personal responsibility for their actions. The government believes that the workers' compensation scheme should be geared towards people acting in a proper and safe manner and not include a safety net for people who break the rules and put at risk not just themselves but other employees as well.

Offsite recess breaks

Currently workers' compensation is payable for injuries that occur during recess breaks, even if the employee is not at the place of work when the injury occurs, contrary to the position in South Australia and Tasmania.

The SRC Act as originally drafted provided compensation coverage for employees who were injured while absent from their place of work during an ordinary recess. This provision was removed by the coalition government in 2007, and then reintroduced by the Labor government in 2011.

The effect of the previous government's change to the act is that workers' compensation could be payable, for example, where an employee sustains an injury while shopping, at a restaurant or playing sport away from the employee's place of employment during a lunch break. This is despite the employer having no control over the activities of the employee or the environment in which the employee engages in such activities. The proper avenue for people to seek recompense for injuries under such circumstances is through the owner of the premises where an injury occurred, not through their employer who has no control over the matter.

This bill addresses this unfair arrangement. Workers who are injured at work, even while having a recess or lunch break, will remain fully covered. Injuries that occur while the worker is away from the workplace undertaking activities associated with the employee's employment or at the request or direction of the employer will also still be covered.

Conclusion

This bill will reduce red tape and help to build a stronger and more prosperous economy. The real savings to business that will be realised under this bill can be reinvested in jobs and in the economy. I recommend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr KEENAN (Stirling—Minister for Justice) (10:38): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The classification regime in Australia is complex. The current National Classification Scheme has been in place since 1996 and technology and the sheer volume of content have evolved considerably since then. The current scheme is difficult for the community to understand and even more difficult for industry to comply with. This bill introduces changes which will provide consumers with more classification information and simplify the scheme by removing complexity and reducing costs for business.

The National Classification Scheme (NCS) is a cooperative scheme under which the Classification Board classifies films, computer games and certain publications. The scheme is designed to provide consumers with information about publications, films and computer games to allow them to make informed decisions about appropriate entertainment material. It is based on the principle that adults should be able to read, hear, see and play what they want while recognising that minors should be protected from material likely to harm them and that everyone should be protected from unsolicited offensive material.

Procedures for the classification of publications, films and computer games are set out in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995. States and territories are responsible for the enforcement of classification decisions and provisions regulating the sale, demonstration and advertising of this material are contained in state and territory legislation.

Apart from the introduction of an R18+ classification for computer games, the National Classification Scheme has not had any significant changes made to it since it was established in 1996. Yet, since its introduction, classifiable content and the way in which it is delivered to consumers has changed dramatically. For example, consumers now have ready access to classifiable content on a variety of platforms, such as the delivery of computer games on mobile and other online devices.

Given these developments in technology, media convergence and the global availability of media content, the National Classification Scheme was reviewed by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in 2011.

The commission handed down its report in March 2012 and made 57 recommendations for fundamental changes to the regulatory framework and structure of the scheme.

Reform of the scheme is being approached in stages, commencing with a 'first tranche' of reforms that was agreed by classification ministers at a meeting of the Standing Council on Law and Justice.

The first phase of agreed reforms includes:

broadening the scope of existing exempt film categories and streamlining exemption arrangements for festivals and cultural institutions;

enabling certain content to be classified using classification tools (such as online questionnaires that deliver automated decisions);

creating an explicit requirement in the Commonwealth classification act to display classification markings on all classified content;

expanding the exemptions to the modification rules so that films and computer games which are subject to certain types of modifications do not require classification again; and

enabling the Attorney-General's Department to notify law enforcement authorities of potential Refused Classification content without having the content classified first, to help expedite the removal of extremely offensive or illegal content from distribution.

These reforms will deliver benefits to industry including streamlining administrative processes and reducing the regulatory burden whilst ensuring that consumers continue to receive useful and accurate classification information.

Several of these reforms are particularly significant.

The first significant reform is the introduction of classification tools. Classification tools, such as online questionnaires, might be developed by government, industry or other classification bodies overseas. These tools represent an effective and efficient way to classify the significant volume of unclassified online and mobile computer games that is available in the market today.

Currently, the Classification Board does not have the capacity to classify the vast amount of content that is available on mobile devices and online. As an example, last year the Classification Board made over 6,000 classification decisions across all forms of content. However, the digital market offers hundreds of thousands of computer games to consumers—which presents significant practical, logistical and compliance challenges for the current National Classification Scheme.

This reform will facilitate innovative and technology-based solutions for classification in line with initiatives being considered elsewhere by classification bodies that are dealing with the same classification difficulties.

Enabling the use of such instruments will support and complement the work of the Classification Board, provide certainty to industry and increase compliance with Australian classification laws. Most importantly, this reform will mean that the Australian public will have access to more classification information than is possible under the current system.

There are a number of safeguards built into this reform. For example, a classification tool can only be implemented following its approval by the minister. In deciding whether to approve a particular tool, the minister will consider a range of matters, including whether it delivers decisions that are consistent with Australian classification requirements. The bill also provides the Classification Board with the opportunity to classify content, even after it has been classified by an approved tool, if it considers that the decision is problematic. As a final protection, if there are concerns about the effectiveness of a classification tool, its approval may be suspended or revoked at any time.

Another important 'first tranche' reform includes changes to the current modification rules. This will reduce the regulatory and financial burden on industry, the theme of today's bills, by removing the need to have classified content classified again when certain modifications are made to the content, providing that the modification does not affect the original classification

For example, currently 2D and 3D versions of the same film must be classified separately, incurring two classification fees, because the format change is considered to be a modification. It will no longer be necessary for both 2D and 3D versions to be classified where the only difference is the changed format. In these instances both films must carry the classification marking assigned to the original film classified by the board. Existing safeguards, such as the Classification Board director's power to call in content, will remain in place. This means that the director may call in content to be classified by the board where a modification has changed a product to the extent that it would likely change the classification, and the product is therefore unclassified.

The third key reform will expand the definition and scope of exempt film categories and streamline exemption arrangements for festivals, special event operators and cultural institutions.

Many of the existing exempt film categories currently state that a film must 'wholly comprise' particular content in order for it to be exempt from classification requirements. These categories have been expanded to include films that 'mainly comprise' particular content—similar to the New Zealand exempt film categories. Two new exempt film categories have also been added. Broadening the scope of existing exempt film categories to better reflect contemporary film content will improve the utility of these exemptions by accommodating a range of documentary-style content that it is appropriate to exempt.

The reforms will also simplify exemption arrangements for festivals by establishing a consolidated set of rules in the Commonwealth Classification Act—replacing the convoluted and inconsistent provisions that are currently set out in each state and territory's classification regime. Most importantly, the reforms will rationalise the administrative and regulatory requirements for festivals and cultural institutions by removing the mandatory requirement to apply to the director of the Classification Board for formal exemption. Instead, exemptions will continue to be available to support the arts and cultural sector but on a self-assessed, deregulated basis.

Safeguards, similar to those currently in place for festivals, will ensure that the public is being protected—in particular, children. For example, exemption conditions will include restrictions on the screening, exhibition or demonstration of unclassified content to particular age groups if it is strong or high impact. It will require that patrons be provided with warnings about the content that they are about to see and prohibit content that is likely to be classified X 18+ or refused classification. Training and registration facilities will be established to support officers of the Classification Liaison Scheme, who will monitor the operation of the reformed arrangements as part of their routine compliance and educational activities.

This bill also makes a number of minor and technical amendments to the classification act to improve the clarity of certain provisions, address legislative anomalies and enhance the administrative efficiency of the National Classification Scheme.

For example, amendments will be made to the classification act to align the provisions relating to the Authorised Assessors Scheme for Computer Games with the provisions relating to: the Additional Content Assessor Scheme; the Authorised Television Assessor Scheme and the Authorised Advertising Assessor Scheme. These amendments will ensure that there is a consistent approach in the regulation of these assessor schemes.

In addition, the bill makes several minor consequential amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992.

These reforms represent the first step towards modernising the classification scheme and demonstrate the government's commitment to a scheme that is better equipped to meet the needs of industry and consumers in the digital age. Consistent with the government's broader deregulation agenda, these reforms will help to ensure that our classification system continues to be effective, efficient and relevant in the 21st century.

Debate adjourned.

Mr ANDREWS (Menzies—Minister for Social Services) (10:50): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Th is is the first of two b ills to implement the g overnment ' s election commitment to repeal the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.

The c ommission is established under the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012 and commenced operation on 3 December 2012 under legislation introduced by the previous government.

An organisation must be registered as a charity by the c ommission before it can receive charity tax concessions and other Commonwealth exemptions and benefits from the Australian Taxation Office. However, the process has resulted in an increased red tape burden for many organisations.

The commission was established with the intention of it being a single reporting point for charities. How ever, this has not eventuated— the majority of charities continue to provide information to multiple jurisdictions in the course of conducting their business as charities.

Establishing the commission has introduced new powers in information collection, monitoring and compliance that are not available to Commonwealth bodies with comparable powers in relation to enforcement and removing responsible persons (such as the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority).

The additional oversight and reporting burdens on the charitable sector are particularly onerous given the absence of harmonisation across all jurisdictions.

The majority of the sector which are unincorporated organisations (approximately 21,000 of whom are registered charities) are now subject to this new regulatory regime, whereas they previously fell largely outside of the sector's regulatory framework.

The large number of incorporated associations (approximately 136,000, around 6,000 of which are charities) already regulated under relevant state and territory acts now have duplicated reporting requirements.

Charitable trusts, accountable to the state Attorneys-General, are now regulated at the Commonwealth level, with obligations or compliance activity they were not subject to previously.

Given that the regulators in place before the c ommission was established can provide similar regulatory oversight at a lesser cost — both in terms of administrative costs to g overnment and in terms of costs imposed on regulated entities — the introduction of a specialist regulator to monitor and enforce a codification of generally applicable laws has not proven to be the best use of Commonwealth funding.

The government made a clear commitment during the recent election campaign to abolish the commission.

With this bill, we are taking the first step towards implementing this election commitment—and we want to remove the regulatory impost on the sector as soon as possible, to ensure that organisations are not reporting unnecessarily.

Repealing the c ommission will remove unnecessary regulatory control over the civil sector, and move instead towards Commonwealth support for the sector to self - manage.

The repeal is consistent with the broader deregulation agenda to boost productivity by removing any excessive, unnecessary and overly complex red and green tape imposed on business, community organisations and individuals.

Vesting powers in a separate entity to oversee and regulate charities runs counter to the deregulation approach, which takes a risk-based approach to oversight of the institutions of civil society, whether they are for-profit or not-for-profit.

This b ill will repeal the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012, thereby abolishing the commission.

However, this bill will not take effect until the enactment of a later bill, which will provide the details of the arrangements replacing the commission. This two-stage approach allows the government to affirm its intention to repeal the commission, while working through the legislative and administrative issues involved in winding down the commission's operations and establishing the National Centre for Excellence for civil society.

This bill allows the minister to determine, by legislative instrument, a successor agency to deal with certain transitional matters.

The bill will provide transitional arrangements for matters such as transferring to the successor agency records held by the commission, any outstanding Ombudsman investigations, and annual reporting requirements.

There will be continued protection for information disclosed for the purposes of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr BILLSON (Dunkley—Minister for Small Business) (10:56): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill will implement the government's commitment, foreshadowed during the 2013 election campaign, to reduce the red tape burden and compliance costs on business by ensuring that they are not required to be the paymaster for the government's paid parental leave scheme.

To ease this burden, the paid parental leave legislation will be amended to remove the mandatory requirement for employers to administer government-funded parental leave pay to their eligible long-term employees.

From 1 July 2014, employees will be paid directly by the Department of Human Services, unless an employer opts in to provide parental leave pay to its employees and an employee agrees for their employer to pay them.

Importantly, this measure will generate a significant compliance cost saving for Australian businesses, especially small businesses. Small businesses are particularly impacted by regulations, as they often do not have the resources or specialised staff to deal with compliance requirements.

It is estimated that the average annual reduction in compliance costs on business will be $44 million, strongly delivering on the government's commitment to reduce red tape on businesses.

This measure put forward by the government is strongly supported by the business community. In a member survey conducted by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in May 2013, 84.3 per cent of businesses agreed or strongly agreed that the government should not require employers to be paymasters for the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

The government is committed to continuing to reduce red tape burdens for business, including new and established businesses, as a critical step towards improving Australia's productivity—unnecessary red tape hinders innovation, investment and job creation.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr BALDWIN (Paterson—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) (10:59): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The continuing success of the Australian economy depends to a large extent on our ability to innovate, adopt new technologies and capitalise on new markets.

The intellectual property system is crucial to this success because it encourages invention and investment and provides business and consumers with access to valuable new technologies, products and services.

This government is determined to reduce the regulatory burden on business that is holding back Australia's economic prosperity and development. Therefore, the intellectual property system needs to fulfil its important role in the most efficient way possible and lower red-tape costs for businesses.

The intellectual property system must also enable Australia to be a good global citizen and help less fortunate countries to access vital technologies essential to their health and wellbeing.

The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2014 contains a package of measures, many of which will reduce red tape for those wishing to obtain or enforce their intellectual property rights and will provide more support for other countries facing health emergencies.

Firstly, schedules 1 and 2 to the bill amend the Patents Act to implement the protocol amending the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, also known as the TRIPS protocol. The Howard government accepted the TRIPS protocol in 2007, and its implementation in Australia is well overdue.

The TRIPS protocol helps developing countries that are suffering health crises, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, to obtain essential medicines from other countries at affordable prices. Millions of people die from such diseases every year.

At present, elements of our patent system can make it harder for Australian business to provide assistance to such countries.

To address this, the bill will enable Australian pharmaceutical manufacturers to obtain a licence from the Federal Court to make generic versions of patented medicines and to export these medicines to countries with a demonstrated need.

The scheme will ensure that patents can only be used under strict conditions and that patent owners are fairly compensated.

The scheme is also designed to be as easy to use as possible, while ensuring appropriate safeguards are in place and consistency with Australia's broader international obligations.

Secondly, schedule 3 to the bill will make amendments to the Plant Breeder's Rights Act to extend the jurisdiction of the Federal Circuit Court to include plant breeders' rights.

Plant varieties are very important to the success of the Australian agricultural industry. Plant breeders' rights encourage breeders—many of whom are small businesses—to invest in developing new, improved varieties.

At present, breeders can only enforce their rights against alleged infringers by commencing proceedings in the Federal Court. This can be a very expensive path.

The bill will give plant breeders the option of using the faster, more cost-effective and more accessible Federal Circuit Court for less complex matters.

Thirdly, schedule 4 to the bill allows for a single patent application and examination process for Australia and New Zealand; and a single trans-Tasman patent attorney regime.

These measures build on the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations free trade agreement by further integrating trans-Tasman regulation.

At present, most patent applications filed in New Zealand are also filed in Australia, but undergo separate examination processes in each country.

In what I understand to be a world first, the bill allows patent applications for the same invention to be examined by a single examiner in either country. The regime will take account of differences in national laws and will result in two separate patents for Australia and New Zealand.

A single, more efficient patent application process will remove duplication and make it easier for businesses to protect their intellectual property in both countries. This has the potential to save Australian business and exporters thousands of dollars in professional advice costs.

To support this change, the bill will allow for an address for service of documents, which is required when parties wish to challenge patents in the relevant courts, to be in either Australia or New Zealand. It will also move the rules relating to addresses for service to the regulations. These amendments will not change in any way the existing requirement of a physical address for the service of documents.

The bill will also introduce a single trans-Tasman regulatory framework for Australian and New Zealand patent attorneys.

As the majority of Australian and New Zealand patent attorneys are registered in both countries, a single regulatory body will remove barriers, encourage competition and save time and money for the profession.

The framework will include a single register of patent attorneys, a single IP attorneys board and a single IP attorneys disciplinary tribunal.

The Australian government has worked closely with New Zealand to establish this framework. This is a small but significant step forward for our economic relationship with an important trading partner and the creation of a seamless trans-Tasman business environment.

I thank the New Zealand government for its cooperation in this endeavour.

Finally, schedule 5 makes a number of minor administrative changes to the patents, trade marks and the designs acts.

These changes will repeal unnecessary provisions that require the government to keep intellectual property documents for longer than they are needed. This will remove unnecessary red tape and help to reduce the government's warehousing costs. The bill also makes a number of technical corrections to the legislation.

In summary, this bill makes a number of important improvements to Australia's intellectual property system to streamline the processes, to reduce the barriers and regulatory costs for Australian businesses.

I note that, when in government, the opposition supported the progression of these matters. Therefore, I look forward to the opposition's support for this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr FRYDENBERG ( Kooyong — Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister ) ( 11:07 ): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The purpose of this bill is to repeal the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act 2010and to abolish the Office of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor.

This is part of the government's strong commitment to reduce bureaucracy and streamline government. The government is working to remove, as far as possible, duplication of responsibilities across Commonwealth agencies and between different levels of government.

The government remains firmly in support of independent oversight of counter-terrorism and national security legislation, however, multiple independent oversight mechanisms already exist which perform this role. These include the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, the joint parliamentary committees on law enforcement and intelligence and security, and the parliament itself. The executive also has powers to appoint ad hoc reviews.

The position of the monitor was created in 2010 and Mr Bret Walker SC was appointed the first monitor on 21 April 2011. He has published three annual reports, which were tabled in parliament on 19 March 2012, 14 May 2013, and 12 December 2013, and is proposing to publish another report before his term expires on 20 April 2014.

Together these four reports are expected to cover the extensive list of key issues in Australian national security laws that the monitor indicated in his first annual report would be considered and reviewed during his term. The end of the monitor's term brings to an end this thorough review and the government would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Bret Walker SC for his service.

The government considers the best way forward is to work through the large number of recommendations made by the monitor and to continue engaging with the extensive range of existing independent oversight bodies.

The Attorney-General's Department leads the development of the government's response and ensures a coordinated response to overlapping recommendations of the COAG Review of Counter-Terrorism Legislation.

A number of counter-terrorism provisions will sunset in 2015 and 2016, which will also provide further opportunities for review of the relevant provisions.

Together, there has been, and will remain, a comprehensive body of independent reviews of the government's counter-terrorism and national security legislation.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) (11:10): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Personal Property Securities Amendment (Deregulatory Measures) Bill 2014 aims to continue the reforms of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 while decreasing the administrative burden the PPS regime places on Australian businesses.

The Personal Property Securities Act was introduced with bipartisan support in 2009. A main reform of the PPS Act was that it established the Personal Property Securities Register and introduced a single national system for the creation, registration, priority and enforcement of security interests in personal property.

This regime fundamentally altered the way in which businesses, especially small businesses, are able to borrow, while providing greater confidence to lenders and securing their interests.

The PPS regime replaced 23 state, territory and Commonwealth property and securities registers and over 70 pieces of supporting legislation.

This alone involved the migration of 4.7 million registrations to the new, national Personal Property Securities Register. However, reform on this scale is not without its challenges.

As with all reforms of this scale, ongoing assessment and adjustment where necessary is important to ensure that the PPS system meet the needs of all Australian businesses.

In consultation with Australian businesses and particularly the hire and rental industry it was clear that although the PPS Act was a significant initiative it has created several issues including a significant administrative burden and substantial compliance costs and needs to be reformed.

This is why the government proposes to simplify the rules on when a lease will be deemed to be a security interest for the purpose of the PPS Act and to clarify the definition of a motor vehicle in the Personal Property Securities Regulations 2010.

The PPS Act deemed certain arrangements to be security interests for the purpose of that act. This includes the lease of goods where the lease term is for more than 12 months or an indefinite term, and the lease of serial numbered goods (for example, motor vehicles) for 90 days or more.

However, since the commencement of the act, it has become clear that the two deeming provisions can be a source of confusion and additional cost to business, as the lease of serial numbered goods can give rise to the need to make multiple registrations on the register in relation to the same lease.

The bill will repeal the provision deeming leases of serial numbered goods of 90 days or more to be security interests for the purposes of the act.

In addition to this amendment, the government will amend the PPS Regulations to clarify the definition of a motor vehicle. The current definition of a motor vehicle includes an item capable of travelling at speeds of at least 10 kilometres an hour or which has one or more motors with a total power greater than 200 watts.

As a result it has become clear that some items have been captured by this definition which would not, in an ordinary commercial sense, be considered to be motor vehicles. An example includes a vibrating plate, or wacker packer, as it may otherwise be known, that only travels at a speed of 0.5 kilometres per hour but which has a 3,700-watt motor and is therefore covered by the definition.

This definition will be amended to provide that a motor vehicle will now be something capable of travelling at speeds of at least 10 kilometres per hour and which has one or more motors with a total power greater than 200 watts.

Finally, the Attorney-General will announce the statutory review of the PPS Act to consider whether the entirety of that act creates an efficient and effective consolidation system governing personal property and securities ownership in Australia.

The regulatory burden imposed on the industry by the PPS Act in its current form, is more than is necessary for the achievement of effective and certain secured lending against personal property in Australia and therefore this burden should be lifted.

The Personal Property Securities Amendment (Deregulatory Measures) Bill 2014 and associated changes will provide relief to industries captured by the PPS Act and, in particular, the hire and rental industry, an important industry with a total turnover of around $6.6 billion, that employs over 18,000 Australians and provides essential support to the building and construction sectors. It is expected to reduce the number of registrations that may need to be made and save business over $11 million per annum, most of which will be to the benefit of small businesses. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON (Werriwa) (11:16): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights I present the committee's fourth report of the 44th Parliament entitled Examination of legislation in accordance with the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011; Bills introduced 3 to 6 March 2014; Legislative instruments received 22 to 28 February 2014.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON: This report examines 17 bills introduced in the period 3 to 6 March and 49 legislative instruments received in the period 22 to 28 February The report also includes the committee's comments on 12 responses to matters raised in previous committee reports.

The committee's function is to assess legislation for compatibility with the seven international human rights treaties to which Australia is a party. In broad terms, these treaties cover the range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights expressed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

In its relatively brief existence, the committee has established a non-partisan and consensus-based approach to its work, and this approach is an appropriate foundation for the committee's mandate to report to both houses of the parliament on the compatibility of legislation with human rights.

To do that, where legislation engages and would appear to limit human rights, the committee's assessment of its compatibility with relevant rights is based on three core questions These are: whether the limitation is aimed at achieving a legitimate objective, whether there is a rational connection between the limitation and that objective, and whether the limitation is proportionate to that objective.

I know that members in this place will recognise that these core questions are—although perhaps not in the same terms—the same questions we are asked to consider when we come to this chamber to consider the necessity and merits of any legislation proposed or already in operation.

The value of the committee's assessment of the compatibility of legislation with human rights is therefore its capacity to inform our consideration of both proposed and operating laws, and in that spirit I draw members' attention to the contents of the current report.

Of the bills considered in this report, I note the following are scheduled for debate during this sitting period commencing 17 March 2014. They are the Farm Household Support Bill 2014 and a related consequential bill; the Quarantine Charges (Collection) Bill 2014 and three related bills; the Export Market Development Grants Bill 2014; and the Civil Aviation Amendment (CASA Board) Bill 2014.

The committee also considered the Qantas Sale Amendment Bill 2014 which is currently before the Senate and was introduced to, and passed by, the House on 6 March 2014.

Of the 49 instruments considered by the committee for this report, I am pleased to advise that none appear to raise any human rights concerns and all of them are accompanied by adequate statements of compatibility.

However, the committee notes that a number of instruments exempt from disallowance under the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 were not accompanied by a statement of compatibility. While such instruments are not required to be accompanied by such a statement under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011, the committee is required to assess all legislative instruments for compatibility with human rights. The committee therefore regards the preparation of a statement of compatibility for exempt instruments as a best practice approach in support of the work of committee.

In relation to responses to matters previously raised by the committee, the report contains consideration of 12 such ministerial responses. Of these, responses relating to one bill and one instrument have adequately addressed the committee's concerns, and the committee has concluded its interest in these matters. However, the committee retains concerns and has sought further information or the inclusion of safeguards in relation to three bills and seven instruments. This includes a package of amendments to various pieces of migration legislation.

I note for the benefit of members that the committee will write again to the relevant ministers in relation to these matters. With these comments I commend the committee's fourth report of the 44th Parliament to the House.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ) (11:20): Madam Speaker has received advice from the chief government whip that he has nominated Mr Irons to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme in place of Mr Wyatt Roy.

Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (11:20): by leave—I move:

That Mr Wyatt Roy be discharged from the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and that, in his place, Mr Irons be appointed a member of the committee.

Question agreed to.

Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (11:28): As I was saying yesterday evening on this Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014, what is most important to Tasmania is Bass Strait. It is a critical link to the mainland and it is a critical link currently to international shipping services, which in the last five years have been absolutely decimated. In fact, they have been removed completely. One of the reasons for that is the cabotage arrangements that were in place by the previous federal government. I welcome wholeheartedly the comments made by the Prime Minister in this place this morning in announcing the repeal day next Wednesday and in relation to taking a serious look at the current cabotage provisions.

This has hurt my state enormously, more than any other place in Australia. A regional community that depends on shipping to move goods on and off the island has been hurt enormously. Unfortunately, the previous Minister for Infrastructure in my state, Minister O'Byrne, who was dealt a very harsh blow on the weekend and was not able to retain his seat of Franklin, spent three years doing nothing whilst exporters and businesses in my state were hurting. So anything we can do to support exporters is a good thing for my state.

I echo the words of Sally Chandler, who has spent much of her life advocating on behalf of and working with exporters in my state as a consultant. Sally Chandler suggests anything that supports exporters is very much welcomed. As she also point out, the export industry is not for the faint-hearted. It does come with challenges. Those people who are prepared to look beyond our shores, to take our goods and services to foreign climes—it is not for the faint-hearted and does involve risk. It involves risk every day, but their success ultimately becomes local success and ultimately their community's success. This is why exports are so important to our nation and to my state.

Governments can provide their support by supporting the export industries in a number of practical and tangible ways. I referred earlier in my speech to the free trade agreement with South Korea that was recently signed by the Minister for Trade and Investment. This is indeed an enormous benefit to many businesses and service providers within this country. The Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014 also does that in a practical way; it is indeed welcome. It goes beyond the $50 million election commitment that we made. We are a government that will keep our promises, and this is another indication that we are doing exactly that. It is indeed welcomed. It also proposes increasing from seven to eight the maximum number of export market development grants that can be applied for by one organisation, business or individual. This is a very practical enhancement of the existing scheme. Having worked for many years with customers in Asia—Japan, China and South Korea—I know relationships are important and that building relationships is critical. Unless the price is wrong, business never occurs on the first, second or third instance. Often it takes repeated visits and it takes repeated efforts. This practical extension of the scheme from seven to eight potential grants is indeed welcome.

Similarly, in terms of small businesses, reducing the threshold for eligible expenditure from $20,000 to $15,000 is indeed an enhancement that will help small business. It will help small business that is the backbone of our economy. It will help small business to be able to access these grants in a far more practical way. These are the people who fly economy; these are the people who do not spend their money on business class airfares. This practical reduction is another way that this bill will be an advantage to them. It reduces the current $5,000 deduction from the applicant's provisional grants to $2,500, and it provides for quicker payments of the grants in years of low scheme demand or where additional funding has been provided.

For an understanding of that, I would refer the House to explanatory item No. 7 within the notes attached to this piece of legislation. Where the department is quite aware of the fact that all of the money will be paid out in that particular year, it has the provision to be able to bring that balanced distribution date forward. This is a really big advantage for small business. This is about cash flow. This is a practical way to help businesses.

These grants have been in place for 30 years, and, indeed, they are a practical way of supporting small businesses. They often are supporting businesses that are getting into this space, that are looking to expand their businesses beyond our shores into the export market. It is really about helping businesses that are helping themselves, and this is very much something that is dear to my heart and dear to my party's philosophy around how governments should support businesses. They can use these funds for attending international trade fairs, for marketing products overseas or to bring potential buyers to Australia to see their product in its own environment. Obviously, product origin of food is increasingly important, but I have seen it also in the field in which I worked for many years—that is, exporting wool products. Whilst I spent that time in the market talking to customers, more often than not when I got those customers to come back to Tasmania, it was the producers themselves who were very best salesmen. They were the people who got the deal over the line. These are people like Julian and Annabelle Von Bibra, Peter and Ann Downie, Julian Cotton from the east coast, Adam and Granyre Greenhill, Jon and Isabelle Atkinson, Will and Nina Bennett and Frank and Prue O’Connor from Avoca.

Anyone who has been in business will know that if you do not have a marketing budget for international sales then you are way behind the eight ball. A diverse range of businesses in my electorate have benefited from this in the past 12 months. They include tourist businesses, agricultural businesses and pharmaceutical processing businesses such as TPI. Indeed, we are about to embark on another part of exporting our food produce. I am very excited and I know exporters within my state are celebrating the fact that we have a government in place that understands small business, that understands the importance of exports. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (11:36): I am pleased to speak on the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014. This is a scheme that is widely supported and used by many businesses in the community that I represent in Kingsford Smith. It is a scheme that generally has good support and it is a scheme that provides opportunities in export markets, particularly for small- to medium-sized enterprises. The scheme was initiated in 1997 under the Howard government. It was supported by Labor whilst in office. In 2008, Labor introduced a number of reforms to the scheme. These have seen the reach and expanse of the scheme improved, and made it much more efficient and effective in supporting small- to medium-sized businesses in opening up new markets throughout the world.

In 2013, Labor sought again to amend the scheme. Due to the proroguing of parliament, those measures were not put before the parliament, but it is pleasing to see that some of the measures detailed in the proposals at the time have been picked up in this legislation. However, there are others which were not picked up and we would encourage the government to have a look at those measures in the future.

This scheme is administered by Austrade, a wonderful arm of government, which is doing great work internationally, supporting growth and development of export markets, particularly for Australian small- to medium-size businesses. I was recently speaking to a young entrepreneur in my community who had set up a business involved in the exchange of gold and silver. He was keen to open new endeavours in the Asian market, particularly in China, where the expanding middle-class is providing opportunities for services such as those his business is delivering. He told me that on the first occasion he went to China he basically cold-called other businesses. He went to many of the capital cities and sought to speak to the heads of various businesses to promote the work he was intending to do, but he did not get a very good reception. He had not done the necessary groundwork or made contacts to effectively convert his approaches into opportunities for his business. Before he went to China a second time, he went to Austrade. Austrade officials worked out the opportunities and assistance they could give him in Asia and, through their contacts in China, he had much greater success. As a result of Austrade's work, he converted some of those opportunities into solid business proposals and has created jobs here in Australia and in our community. That is the role Austrade should play and that is the role that export market development grants can play in assisting small- to medium-size businesses to open opportunities.

The purpose of this bill is, firstly, to amend the Export Market Development Grants Act 1997 to increase the number of grants able to be received by an applicant from seven to eight, with no change to the rules for approved bodies and for approved joint ventures. Secondly, it is to reduce the minimum expenses threshold required to be incurred by an applicant from $20,000 to $15,000. Thirdly, it is to reduce the current $5,000 deduction from the applicant's provisional grant amount to $2,500. The final two elements are to prevent the payment of grants to applicants who EMDG consultants have assessed are not a fit and proper person under the act.

The EMDG scheme has fit and proper person rules under section 87AA of the act to provide for the non-payment of a grant if the CEO of Austrade has formed an opinion that the person or an associate of the person is not fit and proper to receive a grant. This provision has been activated since 2004 and has generally worked well. However, under the current rules where an applicant engages an EMDG consultant to prepare a claim and the EMDG consultant is not a fit and proper person, the applicant is not subject to the provisions of 87AA, which obviously is an anomaly that needs to be fixed. This item extends the fit and proper person provisions of the EMDG Act to consultants who engage in false and misleading behaviour, or whose behaviour is considered to be inconsistent with accepted community standards of commercial and personal property.

The item provides the legislative framework to enable the CEO of Austrade to decide whether a person should be assessed as an excluded consultant, similar to the provisions that apply generally to applicants and their associates in respect of the fit and proper person test. The item provides that the consultant or the associates of the consultant who are not fit and proper will be subject to the rules. The rules for determining an associate of an EMDG consultant will be a legislative instrument made by the Minister for Trade and Investment, as provided for in this particular bill. The instrument will also contain assessment criteria to be used by the CEO of Austrade to determine whether or not a person or an associate of that person is fit and proper and that will be done in accordance with the guidelines.

Importantly, this part of the bill also provides for consultation and for Austrade to seek further information about the associate or about the consultant. The provisions allow for a request that a person provide Austrade with specific information—books, records, documents and/or written consent—to enable the CEO of Austrade to obtain relevant information to assist in the formation of an opinion.

The final element of this bill is to enable a grant to be paid more quickly, where a grant is determined before 1 July, following the balance distribution date. This relates to section 67 of the act where, essentially, applicants entitled to a grant of less than the initial payment ceiling amount are paid their grant at the time the claim is determined. Applicants entitled to an amount exceeding the initial payment ceiling amount are paid the initial payment ceiling amount and then, often many months later and following the settling of the balance distribution date, are paid the balance of their entitlement. This balance amount will depend on an assessed value of the applicant's entitlement and will be paid to applicants entitled to a second tranche amount on a pro rata basis. Under the two-tranche arrangement, Austrade is unable to pay the full amount of assessed grants to applicants as quickly as desirable when scheme demand is lower than expected or when additional money is appropriated for the scheme. In these circumstances, it would be preferable to bring forward the balance distribution date and this is what these provisions do. This item looks to amend section 82 of the Market Export Development Grant Act to provide that if Austrade determines the amount of a grant after the balance distribution date the grant becomes payable immediately. There is no additional cost associated with this change.

It is interesting to note that in 2011-12, the last reported figures for the uptake of the EMDG Scheme grants, 2,933 businesses throughout Australia benefited from export market development grants with a total value of $125.6 million. This scheme encourages small- to medium-sized Australian businesses to develop export markets and receive some form of reimbursement of the expenses incurred on eligible export promotion activities. It is a wonderful example of a partnership between government and small- to medium-sized businesses. It opens doors for businesses, it provides opportunities to businesses to grow their markets, and it ensures those businesses have opportunities into the future and, importantly, are employing Australians.

In 2008 the Labor government delivered in full on its commitment to better tailor the EMDG Scheme to the needs of exporting businesses. It was Labor's intention, following a period of some stagnation, to revitalise Australia's trade performance and to ensure that our trading sector once again became a positive contributor to economic growth and that the Australian economy was sustainable beyond the resources boom—that we looked to diversify our economy by providing new opportunities, beyond mining, in support of small- to medium-sized enterprises. We took a twin pillars approach to our trade policy for sustainable economic growth—trade liberalisation at the border was complemented by economic and trade reform behind the border. Labor worked through bilateral and regional agreements consistent with our multinational objectives to ensure that trade liberalisation occurred, but also that new opportunities were opened up. The Export Market Development Grants Scheme has been a key Australian government financial assistance program for aspiring and current exporters, and under Labor it was a huge success.

Companies to benefit from the scheme include Opengear, which designs, manufactures and delivers secure remote infrastructure management solutions. They have seen their sales grow 40 to 50 per cent annually for each of the past three years. Opengear has graduated from being a business supported by the Export Market Development Grants Scheme to a business with $10 million in revenues, branches located in the US and Europe, and 90 per cent export sales. Other beneficiaries of EMDG Scheme grants include Bartco Traffic Equipment, an Australian manufacturer of portable traffic management equipment—full-matrix LED displays, portable traffic signals, message signs, directional arrow boards and other road safety equipment. Bartco has seen a remarkable growth in its export sales over the past few years and there is growth in the pipeline in Eastern Europe, the UAE, South America, India, the UK, Hong Kong and the USA. There are a whole host of examples of great Australian companies—small- to medium-sized enterprises, many of them in my community—that have benefited from export market development grants.

Labor took the approach of supporting this scheme while ensuring that the operation of the act effectively and efficiently assisted Australian businesses. It is pleasing to see this bill continue that tradition of supporting Australian small- to medium-sized businesses. I am pleased to commend the bill to the House.

Dr HENDY (Eden-Monaro) (11:50): I rise in support of the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill. As we said in our election policy, the coalition believe exports are the basis for a successful economy in services, agriculture and manufacturing. We said that we would progressively restore funding for the Export Market Development Grants Scheme with an initial $50 million boost and look to further increases as the budget improves. We noted that over one in five Australians are linked to trade, and an increased export capacity will allow Australian businesses to grow by accessing new and emerging markets. The EMDG Scheme assists in encouraging small- and medium-sized Australian businesses to develop export markets, particularly those who specialise in unique and high-value manufacturing operations.

The government has a well thought through trade agenda and I am pleased that I was able to help draft the coalition's trade policy before we came to government. Today's bill is an integral part of that policy. Rather than assisting Australia's vital export sector, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government severely weakened Australia's trade position. The catastrophic decision to ban live cattle exports to Indonesia without warning significantly damaged not only Australia's valuable cattle export trade to Indonesia but also our reputation as a trusted and reliable trade partner. It was a huge blow and it will take years to repair that part of our relationship with Indonesia. It was the iconic issue displaying the previous government's attitude to the export sector—they were ever ready to bow before the Greens despite the damage to Australia's national interest.

The last government's frequent changes to the EMDG Scheme created unnecessary business uncertainty at a time of global economic instability. In the 2012 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the Labor government took the decision to make annual cuts of $25 million to this scheme. That was the second significant budget cut to the scheme following their 2007 election promise to actually expand the scheme. Soon after taking office in 2007, Labor expanded the scheme by lowering the eligible expenditure threshold from $15,000 to $10,000, increasing the number of grants that an applicant could receive from seven to eight and increasing the maximum grant from $150,000 to $200,000. The cost of these changes was estimated at $50 million a year, but—and this is the key—Labor increased funding only for a bit over a year. In June 2010, Labor amended the scheme to reverse the 2008 implementation of their election commitments.

The EMDG Scheme, administered by Austrade, partly supports the export promotion expenses of eligible enterprises in order to boost exports and to grow our economy through Australian produced goods and services. The scheme began operation in financial year 1974-75, which would mean that it was started under the Whitlam government. Given the hit to small business caused by that government, it is quite ironic that this scheme has that pedigree, but credit should go where it is due. It has proven to be a successful policy that has helped many businesses over the years. When I was the chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry we regarded the EMDG Scheme as one of the most successful small business programs around. The added bonus is that it is an export assistance scheme that fully accords with the rules of the World Trade Organisation. According to the Austrade website, claims are reimbursed retrospectively for expenditure incurred in the previous financial year, pro rata up to the cap. I understand that about 5,000 enterprises per year apply for grants.

As the minister noted in his second reading speech for the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014, the changes proposed in this bill deliver on the coalition's pre-election commitment. As promised, after the election the 2013 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook allocated an additional $50 million over four years. The associated policy changes required to give effect to this provision, as well as some additional administrative enhancements to the scheme, are contained in this bill.

In summary, the bill increases the maximum number of grants per applicant from seven to eight and reduces the required expenditure threshold to qualify for a grant from $20,000 to $15,000. According to the minister, based on the profile of last year's applicants, this will enable hundreds of extra small businesses to benefit from the scheme. Currently the export market development grant does not reimburse the first $5,000 of an eligible claim. With this bill, this figure will drop to $2,500, and around 85 per cent of export market development grant recipients will receive an extra $2,500 per grant as a result.

The improvements the coalition is making will benefit many small business exporters in rural and regional areas, such as in my electorate of Eden-Monaro. Last financial year, 2012-13, I note that there were two recipients in Eden-Monaro. One recipient was Campbell Foods Australia Pty Ltd, which deals in meat, poultry and smallgoods wholesaling and is based in Narrabarba, south of the town of Eden. They export to five-star hotels and restaurants around the world. The other recipient was Found Enterprises Australasia Pty Ltd, based in Jerrabomberra in my electorate, which undertakes a grocery wholesaling business. They export organic pomegranate juice, watermelon juice and other products.

Our EMDG policy is only part of a larger trade policy. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government was a disappointment to Australia's exporters, especially in its failure to conclude bilateral trade agreements with key regional partners. The failure to conclude free trade agreements with Australia's major trading partners has resulted in a loss of real export income. Since the launch of Australia's free trade agreement negotiations with China in 2005, over 20 rounds of discussions have been held without result. This lack of action stands in stark contrast to New Zealand, which concluded a free trade agreement with China in 2008 after three years of negotiations. Indeed, they started the negotiations the same year we did—in 2005. Since then, New Zealand's goods exports to China have trebled, with more than 90 per cent of its goods now entering China duty-free. New Zealand has also finalised a free trade agreement with Taiwan.

The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government's disregard for bilateral free trade agreements and the benefits they provide to Australian exporters and investors is exemplified by former trade minister Craig Emerson's statement that a free trade agreement with China was 'overrated'. This is despite a joint feasibility study finding that a free trade agreement with China could boost Australia's real gross domestic product by approximately $24 billion over the period 2006 to 2015. We have a vastly different attitude. The Prime Minister has put a deadline on the China free trade agreement negotiations and has asked that they be concluded by the end of the year. Similarly the Chinese Prime Minister has backed an accelerated timetable. I am sure our Minister for Trade and Investment is up to the task, given his great performance in relation to trade with Korea.

Labor's refusal to consider a proposal for an investor-state dispute settlement clause in a free trade agreement with South Korea placed Australian exporters at a direct disadvantage compared to their competitors in other countries. The Korean-United States free trade agreement, which entered into force on 15 March 2012, has enabled the USA to capture a significant part of Korea's lucrative beef market at the expense of Australian beef producers, who are still subject to higher tariffs. When the competitiveness of our exports is lost, so too are Australian jobs.

I am glad to say that the Minister for Trade and Investment and his team have been able to pull off a great win with the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement, KAFTA. It is a world-class, comprehensive agreement that substantially liberalises our trade with a major market. KAFTA gives Australian exporters significantly improved market access in goods and services and substantially improves investment protections. I understand that when KAFTA comes into force 84 per cent of Australia's exports, by value, to Korea will enter duty free, rising to 99.8 per cent on full implementation of the agreement.

As part of our commitments, Australia will be removing its remaining tariffs on Korean goods over several years. For rural and regional Australia, where my electorate sits, I note that in the agriculture sector, the KAFTA will see Korea eliminate tariffs immediately on entry into force for raw sugar, wheat, wine, and some horticulture. Tariffs of up to 550 per cent on most other agricultural products will be eliminated within short time frames. Importantly, Korea will eliminate its 40 per cent tariff on beef progressively over 15 years, which will help to level the playing field for Australian beef exporters. And with a large dairy industry in my electorate, I should note that duty-free quotas for cheese, butter and infant formula and high tariffs will be eliminated on many dairy products between three and 20 years. KAFTA will also provide Australian services exporters with the best treatment Korea has agreed to with any trading partner. Key outcomes include: expanded markets for Australian law firms, Australian accountants, telecommunications providers, Australian financial services providers, education, engineering and other professional services.

Of course it would be preferable that more progress was made in the multilateral negotiations area. Despite the current the World Trade Organisation impasse on negotiations, the coalition remains committed to the Doha Round of negotiations as the best way to improve global economic growth and remove the barriers that restrict trade and investment. With its global framework of agreed trade rules, the WTO remains crucial in preserving the openness of markets around the world.

As an export-oriented economy, Australia has much to gain in pushing for further international trade reform. Over the last 20 years, multilateral trade liberalisation has boosted real family incomes by between $2,700 and $3,900 per year. However, the current impasse in the Doha Round increases the need for Australia to pursue bilateral agreements that expand trade and investment opportunities for Australian businesses. The government is devoting increased resources to fast-tracking the conclusion of free trade agreements not only with China—which I was talking about before—but also with Japan, India, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Indonesia. We will also explore the feasibility of free trade agreements with other trading partners including the European Union, Brazil, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, South Africa and Taiwan.

We are also committed to the negotiation of a Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement as a stepping stone to a longer term goal of an Asia-Pacific free trade area. The TPP negotiations have been progressing well and I have heard encouraging reports out of recent negotiations in Singapore. We also support negotiations for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership centred on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, and the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations or, as it is called, PACER Plus.

This bill is part of our small business policy as much as being part of our trade policy. It is therefore part of our jobs policy. Over the last 14 years the EMDG scheme has helped support small and medium business exports worth more than $60 billion. On average, those exporters employed 97,000 employees each year, thus, strengthening the EMDG scheme is also about boosting jobs. I conclude by again noting that I support the bill before the House as it further strengthens the EMDG scheme.

Dr CHALMERS (Rankin) (12:03): I rise today to speak on the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014. As other speakers have noted, the bill amends the EMDG Act to increase the number of grants available per applicant, to reduce the minimum expenses threshold for a grant, and to halve the current deduction from the applicant's provisional grant, among other quite technical amendments. We will be voting in favour of these amendments, several of which were proposed by Labor prior to the election last year, but we do voice our concern about the omission of some important measures which were proposed in Labor's EMDG Amendment Bill, and I will come back to that concern in a moment.

The export market development grants are an important incentive for small and medium businesses, as the member for Eden-Monaro just mentioned, to promote Australian-made products overseas. Goods made in Australia, or overseas from primarily Australian products, are eligible for this scheme as are tourism services and conferences and events held in Australia. Eligible applicants are reimbursed up to half of their expenses related to export promotion as long as their export costs are over a certain threshold. This program does make it easier for Australian producers to place their product in foreign markets and it was worth, I think, just over $120 million in the last financial year.

Foreign trade has been in the headlines a lot recently. We have had stories at least weekly about the Australia-China FTA, the Japan FTA, the TPP, the RCEP and the KAFTA. What all these high-level technical discussions and all these acronyms often conceal—and it is pleasing to see both sides of the House recognising this in this debate—is that it is Australian producers and Australian industries who can be the key beneficiaries of trade liberalisation between Australia and its regional partners if and when the agreements are in our national interests.

When the governments go into discussions with our foreign neighbours and deliver tangible outcomes, that should not be the end of the discussion when it comes to trade. The next key step is for Australian producers and industries to win market share in our trading partners. In a world where bilateral and preferential trading agreements are becoming increasingly commonplace, it is critically important for us to support Australian producers to win contracts and earn sales overseas. That is ultimately what this EMDG scheme is about—giving our small and medium businesses a leg-up in touting their wares in marketplaces overseas.

It is true that the nature of international trade is constantly evolving, and the trading environment today is remarkably different from what existed 50 or 20 or even 10 years ago. The nature of production has changed so that huge global value chains have become the norm in many industries. To take just one example, a recent study has found that the Apple iPhone that many of us carry around in our pockets has components from at least nine companies from five countries—the screen built in Japan, the processor in Korea, the camera in Germany, the Bluetooth in the US and assembly in China. That is just one example of the types of global value chains which have become possible and viable only as a result of the liberalisation of the international trade environment. It is vitally important in this context for Australia to stake out its place in these global value chains, and schemes like the EMDG program allow this government and this country to help Australian businesses get in on the action.

Staking out our claim in global value chains is also important in the face of structural changes in the domestic economy, particularly in the labour market. Every member in this place would be aware that the current unemployment rate, at six per cent, is higher than at any time in the global financial crisis. What this figure does not include is the job losses that have been announced but not carried out over the last six months. At Qantas, Holden, Toyota, Rio, Electrolux, Caterpillar and another 22 major Australian employers, a total of 27,300 job losses have been announced since the election. The reality of the situation is that the vast majority of these jobs are likely now gone for good, at least in their most recent form. Finding a place for Australians at the good, technological end of global value chains is therefore absolutely critical for the goal of future employment. Getting the conditions right in trade and the Australian market for exports, including the best possible scheme for incentivising export promotion, is a critical step towards achieving that goal.

So, in the face of a changing environment for world trade, the opposition will be supporting the amendments to the EMDG scheme. We are particularly supportive of the amendments in this legislation that were suggested by Labor in last year's proposed bill, including the increase in the number of grants available per applicant and technical amendments to enable the grant to be paid more quickly and to ensure that grants are not paid to companies engaging an EMDG consultant found not to be a fit and proper person. The member for Kingsford Smith talked at length about that particular measure. The decrease in the minimum expenses threshold is also welcome, as it allows even smaller players in Australia assistance for access to foreign markets. This will be particularly useful for niche producers to become part of the global value chains that I was talking about earlier.

Unfortunately, the bill does walk back some of Labor's proposed amendments from last year, and that risks Australia missing some opportunities. Before the election, Labor had proposed special incentives in the EMDG scheme for Australian producers to seek market share and promote exports in our Asian neighbours in particular. Everybody knows that in this Asian century our region will become the powerhouse both for production and for consumption. To see this, consider some statistics presented by my colleague the member for Lilley on Sunday, when he said that 60 years ago, in 1950 or so, just 15 per cent of the world's GDP fell within 10,000 kilometres of Australia's shores. Today this share has more than doubled and by 2030, with the continued expansion of China and India in particular, close to 60 per cent of the world GDP is projected to fall within 10,000 kilometres of Australia. This is the biggest story in the world economy in our lifetime—the shift in weight and heft from west to east and the tremendous opportunities flowing to smart countries from the middle-classing of Asia. It is disappointing in that context that the government has ditched the more specific incentives for Australian businesses to take advantage of these spikes in production and consumption, and in doing so we risk missing out on some of that huge growth in opportunity in the world's most dynamic region.

So we are disappointed but not entirely surprised that the government has put Australia at risk of missing the boat in the Asian century. Ever since the days of the Whitlam government and then again under Hawke and Keating, Labor has been the party of engagement with Asia, and the member for Sydney discussed some of this in her contribution to the debate last night. It was widely reported when the Abbott government officially dumped the Labor government's white paper on the Asian century from the Internet, doing their best to banish all traces of it from departmental websites. I commend the Australia in the Asian century report. There are still ways to access it, and anyone listening to this debate should familiarise themselves with this very important document.

If the government had bothered to read the Asian century white paper before they deleted it and removed traces of it from their own websites, they would understand some of the opportunities that we risk missing out on. By 2025, more than two billion people will be living in Asia's cities. By 2050, this number will be more like three billion, close to double the number living in an urban environment now. With Asia's rapid urbanisation and population growth, we will see greater demand from the emerging middle class. After 60 years of trade history with Asia, Australia is perfectly placed to capitalise on Asia's rapidly developing needs for transport, infrastructure, health care, housing, agribusiness, education and more. As the authors of the white paper put it, the tyranny of distance to Europe is being replaced this century by the power of proximity to Asia.

Australia needs to get the domestic environment right for trade promotion so that we can use this power of proximity to its full advantage. The opportunities for Australia for trade in the Asian century are extraordinary and we need to grab them. In agribusiness Australia will be able to take advantage of Asia's growing share of food demand, with more than 60 per cent of international demand to be driven by Asia by 2050. My colleague the member for Hunter was talking in this place yesterday on another bill about the 'dining boom' that Asia presents for Australia, and I think the opportunities in agribusiness and the related sectors in particular are extraordinary. In advanced manufacturing Australia has opportunities in pharmaceuticals and aerospace technology exports to Asia. In biotech Australia will provide services and healthcare products for Asia's rapidly ageing population, with almost 700 million people aged over 60 in Asia by 2030. In infrastructure Australia can play a key role in the financial markets and design services of the estimated $8 trillion worth of infrastructure investments in Asia by 2020. And in energy Australia is well placed to provide both the resources and the sustainable energy skills for our regional partners. All in all, across each and every industry, Australia's trade with Asia will only grow over the course of this century.

But these opportunities are going to escape us unless our small and medium businesses become part of the international global value chains that characterise world trade today. To work towards this goal the EMDG scheme should be tailored in the way recommended by the previous Labor government so that exports of goods and services to Asia are given the priority that they need and deserve.

With the large number of regional and bilateral trade agreements currently under negotiation, it is a bit disappointing that the government has not taken full advantage of this opportunity in this bill to help domestic producers take advantage of the biggest economic and demographic shift in our lifetime. This is the big omission from an otherwise commendable bill.

Mr PASIN (Barker) (12:15): I am pleased to speak today and contribute to this very important debate around supporting the export potential of small and medium-size businesses in Australia, particularly in my electorate of Barker. Few of the elected members in this place could claim to represent electorates as reliant on exports as the seat of Barker. As such, I am very much in favour of this bill, which I believe will significantly improve the Export Market Development Grants scheme. The work the coalition government is undertaking to enhance the way the EMDG scheme is administered is even more significant given that the scheme was cut by $25 million a year by the previous Labor administration. I think that funding cut is another sad reminder of the lack of understanding Labor has for the small and medium-size business sector, particularly in agriculture.

I am proud to be a member of a broad political organization which understands the mechanics of our economy and is willing to support its engine room—private enterprise—rather than get in the way of the business community and job creation. I am proud to be a member of this coalition government, because this bill will progressively restore funding to export market development grants, starting with an initial $50 million boost

When I was growing up, my father produced, packed and exported onions to the world. Though his business enjoyed much success, I saw firsthand how the profound lack of support from government for export businesses such as his ultimately drove my father to pursue other business and farming opportunities. Whilst he has enjoyed those other business and farming opportunities, the sad reality is that he employs far fewer than he did when he was operating a large-scale exporting business. That is the reality that we hear today: this is a program that is not focused on providing jobs and opportunity for Australians in, as the previous speaker indicated, the Asian sector during the Asian century.

That sort of firsthand experience means that I know how important it is for the government to play a positive role in helping small and medium businesses help themselves when it comes to export growth. That is why EMDG scheme grants, which assist small and medium-size enterprises to enter new export markets and become self-sustaining exporters, are just so important. I know that the allocation of an addition $50 million over the forward estimates in the 2013 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook will be very much welcomed by my constituents in Barker.

I want to ensure that Barker is one of the best places to start and grow a business, and these grants assist small and medium-size businesses to enter new export markets and become self-sustaining. What is more, the bill clearly shows the coalition is delivering on its election promises by driving real growth and innovation in our economy. The improvements the coalition is making will benefit many small business exporters in rural and regional areas across Barker, whether they are based in the south-east, the Mallee, the Riverland, the Murraylands or the Barossa.

All of these regions in Barker boast very proud export histories, and their local economies are all major beneficiaries of a range of sectors such as grain, red meat, dairy and wine. In fact, local businesses are already benefiting from this program, with some 15 recipients across Barker sharing in $565,370 from the 2012-13 round of funding. Some of those businesses include: the De Bruin family near Millicent, who are involved in wagyu production; the Almond Board of Australia at Berri; the Barossa Grape and Wine Association, based at Tanunda; BMD Wines at Berri; Farmer's Leap at Padthaway; First Drop Wines at Nurioopta; Hobbs Vintners at Angaston; International Timber Solutions at Mount Gambier; Irvine Wines at Eden Valley; John Duval Wines at Nurioopta; Koonara Wines at Penola; Ringbolt at Angaston; and State Peters Investments (SA) at Renmark. The breadth of the agricultural production and export potential in Barker is on show in that list.

I am sure these and other recipient businesses in Barker echo my strong endorsement of this bill and would speak very highly of the positives they have derived through the EMDG scheme. I believe very strongly that strong export markets are the key to generating economic wealth and job creation in Barker and the nation more generally; and, as such, I know these grants will help small businesses with market access which may not otherwise have been possible.

This provides an opportunity for me to place on record my thanks and the thanks of the constituents in Barker for the very good work that was done and finalised late last year by the Minister for Trade and Investment, the Hon. Andrew Robb, in securing the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement. This is a significant development in Australia's trade relations with Asia. I note with interest that negotiations with respect to the agreement meandered and ultimately stagnated under the former administration but were finalised thanks to the very diligent hard work of the minister. Why is the achievement of this agreement so important to the people of Barker? It is so important because of the following. For those in my electorate involved in the sheepmeat industry—like my father, producing lamb, sheepmeat and goatmeat products—a tariff of 22.5 per cent will be phased to zero over 10 years. For those involved in the dairy sector, the current eight per cent tariff on Australian dairy spreads into Korea will be eliminated over three years. In this regard, I think of Kraft International in Mt Gambier.

Australian table grape growers in my electorate currently face a 45 per cent tariff into Korea. This will be cut by half on day one and then phased to zero over five years. Growers of chipping potatoes face, wait for it, a 304 per cent tariff into Korea. This will be cut to zero when the FTA enters into force. I should say that my electorate includes the single largest producer of chipping potatoes in the nation. Oranges will benefit from a reduction of a tariff of 50 per cent to zero over seven years. That of course comes as good news to those blockies in the Riverland who have faced the vicissitudes of drought over recent years. Korea's 24 per cent tariff on Australian cherries will be eliminated when the FTA enters into force. Cherry producers at Kalangadoo have hailed that a great success. Australia's $10 million wine exports into Korea face tariffs of between 15 and 30 per cent. These will be eliminated. Exporters of crayfish fished off the rugged coast of my electorate face a 20 per cent tariff, which will be reduced to zero over three years.

I take this opportunity to remind the House that this agreement is critical and it is critical that it is finalised so it can come into force in advance of 1 January 2015, so that we can enjoy the first step down in tariffs for these various commodity groups on that date. Any delay will effectively increase the competitiveness of other countries relative to ours, and will also delay the reductions that I have just outlined that are of such importance to primary producers throughout Barker. Again, I place on record my thanks to the hardworking achievements of the Minister for Trade and Investment on behalf not of myself but of the primary producers in my electorate.

Returning to the bill before the House, an important aspect of the legislation is also to make the scheme more accessible to businesses looking to export. As anyone who has experience in the small- and medium-business sector knows, time is often the most precious commodity. This improved accessibility will also be welcome. For example, regional businesses in Barker looking to pursue their first export sales will now be eligible for a $5,000 grant if they spend $15,000 on export promotion. This is a significant improvement on the existing settings where such businesses would have received nothing and would have had to spend a minimum of $20,000 before they were eligible for any EMDGS funding assistance. I understand that in the past some exporters chose not to apply because they were not confident of meeting the grant threshold, which is why we are lowering that threshold. I believe this will be a catalyst for many small and medium enterprises to think about exporting for the first time or exporting into a novel market.

I note that the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Director, Trade and International Affairs, Mr Bryan Clark, praised the initiative and in particular the minister for trade for his commitment to opening up new markets through market visitation and through advancing talks on trade liberalisation in our region. I share the view of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry that these changes to the EMDGS will provide direct assistance to companies seeking to secure more commercial contracts, underpinning their viability and profitability, and ultimately providing more jobs and investment to our country. I enthusiastically commend this bill to the House.

Mr RIPOLL (Oxley) (12:27): The purpose of the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014 is quite simple: it is to amend the Export Market Development Grants Act 1997—a good act, one that does a great job for small business. It has changed only slightly over preceding years and is one that is supported very much by the Labor Party, by Labor in government and by Labor in opposition as well. It is an essential scheme that assists small business in being able to deliver to export markets in a more efficient and effective manner and, possibly further than that, being able to access export markets for the first time, or being confident that they have a hand-up rather than a handout when exporting. Through my electorate and through other electorates, I know of the good work that individual small businesses and enterprises have undertaken and the value of this assistance to them. I am very much in support of anything that improves this scheme.

The EMDGS is administered by Austrade. The scheme is generally regarded by everyone as a successful measure to support Australian small to medium exporters and business. The act has been amended over the years, largely for efficiency reasons. I do not think anyone would argue about the good quality of the work and the development of markets that can be achieved through some government assistance. On the face of that, this would just seem like common sense.

While the government are moving these amendments and we support them, it does fly in the face of a lot of what the government say on other matters. The government say, 'We'll just get out of the way and you can get on with doing your own things.' They do not want to intervene. They do not want to help. They are dismantling all sorts of assistance measures, including direct small business assistance lines and, very importantly, some very good consumer protection measures that were put in place by the previous government specifically to support small business.

We are seeing this develop and come out under the cloak of getting rid of red tape and regulation—which everyone supports. Why wouldn't you? You would be mad if you did not support getting rid of red tape. It drives us all crazy and we should get rid of more of it. And that is exactly what Labor did in government. We actually had a minister for deregulation. We took this so seriously that we repealed thousands and thousands of regulations and got rid of red tape. We went further. We did not just do the easy lifting. We did not just pick the low-hanging fruit—while we are talking about export markets. We actually did some serious stuff, some reforms. Whether it was in the charitable sector or the small business sector, with business names registration and a whole range of other measures we went a very long way to reduce red tape, regulation, costs and paperwork. We did all the things that you would expect any good government to do.

What we are going to see develop out of this week and the coming weeks, unfortunately, is the government operating under the cloak of red tape reduction and all of that—that nice big cloak they are going to put over all this. Everything that is red tape and regulation must be bad; that is what the government says. But it is just not that simple. Every time I meet with small business groups, with farmers, with exporters, with anyone, they do not come to me saying, 'Get rid of stuff.' They say: 'Can you just give us a bit more protection in this area? Can you just give us a bit of a hand here? Can you help us to compete better? Can you protect us? Can you help us?' This is what they say to me about things that are happening to them.

We agree with them, and we agree on both fronts. We should reduce red tape and regulatory burdens and make it as affordable and easy as possible for small businesses to flourish, because they are at the core of creating jobs in this country. Small business is not just the bastion of the Liberal Party or the National Party. We get it. We put programs in place to support and develop small business. There are many things we did. I am going to list them, because there are some people in this place, on the other side, who just happen to think they are the only ones who have ever had an idea. But so far all we are seeing of their ideas is: 'How much can we cut from small business? How much can we take away from small business protections and consumer protections? How much can we make life harder for them? How much direct assistance can we take away from them?' What they will say is, 'We can't afford it.' Well, they can afford the things they like or the things that ideologically suit them. If it is a rolled gold paid parental leave system for some of the wealthiest people in this country, of course, that is fine—$5½ billion or $6 billion. But when it comes to supporting small business with real funds, about $4 billion has just been taken away from them. So I would say to every small business owner: 'Who got the $4 billion that just got taken off you? Who got your money? I will tell you who got your money: the government did. They just want to put it in their coffers. That is who took your money.'

This bill does not cost a lot. It is only $50 million over the forward estimates. It is only $12½ million per year. How generous, and we welcome it. We welcome it because, in government, these were the sorts of things we did, because we wanted to go out there and support small business and support market development, and the EMDGS is a great scheme and a great way to do it. But I can imagine right now—I can almost hear the crescendo of screams from the other side—if we had done this in government in those last days, when we had a bill that would have gotten through but the parliament was prorogued for the election. They would have said: 'We can't afford this. It's just more money, more waste.' The Liberal Party and National Party, every time you spent a dollar, said that it was debt, that it was a debt dollar. Every single dollar that the government has, according to the Liberals and Nationals, is just debt. They forget that you actually have government revenues as well. Which one is debt and which one is revenue? Which one are you taking out of which pile? They just dumb down the debates here. They simplify and dumb them down, thinking that Australians will not be smart enough to get the nuances. They come in here and they go, 'Here is $12½ million per year for a great, revolutionary program.' Well, it is simply not. It is a small, modest increase. But it is absolutely supported, because you would be mad not to.

This will be a cost to the budget, but we are not going to carry on about a cost to the budget on something that is a really good measure, that does good things. You get a return on investment. There are some new words for the Liberal Party: 'return on investment'. You will actually get value back. The more you help small business, the more they will return, through revenues, directly to government. That should be a focus of the Liberal Party—I am not going to talk about the National Party—who say they are the best friend of small business. If you are the best friend of small business and you rip at the heart of small business assistance and take away $4 billion of direct assistance, I would hate to see what you would do if you were their enemy.

Let us just talk about simple facts. What did we do in government—what actually took place and happened?—and what did the Liberal Party do when it got to government? It ain't a great story, let me tell you that. Let us just walk through a couple of the things. I am very proud of Labor's record in government. Labor introduced a Small Business Commissioner for the first time. For the first time, we have got a direct voice, a business voice, directly at the highest level of government, representing small business interests and concerns. I am glad to see that the Small Business Commissioner has survived. I am glad to see we still have the Small Business Commissioner, because it is a good idea and it actually works well for small business. It gives them a focal point. It is a direct link into government. The new government are keeping it. They are keeping Labor's policy

They are keeping Labor's Small Business Commissioner because it is a good idea and we ought to support it. So I thank the government for being so generous.

We also went to the heart of trying to deal with the costs for small business. One of the big costs for small business was business names registration. In the modern world in the 21st century, we had this curious system that was different in every state and territory, that was very expensive and time consuming. If you wanted to register your business nationally, you had to do some online, some by paper, some by visiting an office nine to five. And, if you got there, the cost was usually over $1,000. That was not good enough.

What Labor did in government was say: 'We can fix that. We can reduce your costs.' At the time, we reduced it down from $1,000 down to $30; one system, online. This was a massive undertaking by government, criticised the whole time by the Liberals because they thought somehow this might not benefit small business. Let me tell you, as the years march on, small business will realise and they will look back and think, 'Can you believe we once did it the other way and that it used to cost us that much?' It was Labor that introduced it, and this government will have to keep it—and they will keep it—because small business names registration was a bureaucratic burden for small business. We changed it. We made it easy. We made it seven days a week, 24 hours a day, online, cheap and accessible. That is what governments ought to do.

That is what governments ought to do for small business; real red-tape reduction, not just coming in here and going to some department and saying to the department: 'Look, find us anything, something from 1902 and something from 1910 that no-one even remembers exists, and we will just get rid of those bits of red tape and regulation because it will make it look like we are doing a lot.' But we are not fooled by that. You are doing a lot of nothing.

The areas where they are actually doing something are the areas that involve a little bit of pain. There is a little bit of a sting in the tail, a little bit more cost. You have to remember that this is how it works in this place: every time the government talks about saving, they are talking about saving for them. Every time they talk about saving, it is a cost to you. Everybody listening understands that every time the government says 'We're saving X million dollars', they are actually taking it from you. It is going to cost you. The Liberal Party think it is their money. They think the savings are for them.

A government member interjecting—

Mr RIPOLL: The Liberal Party are a bunch of insiders. Let's get this straight. I am getting all sorts of heckling and interjections and I welcome it—please bring more on—because it just reminds me of who these guys are. They are the great insiders in this country. They are the inside men—inside government, inside big business, inside the Liberal Party. These guys are the inside traders of government—

A government member interjecting—

Mr RIPOLL: Every dollar they are trying to save, they are charging it back to you, whether it is coming out of your education for your kids, out of your schoolkids bonus, which has disappeared, whether it is coming out of the low-income pockets of people earning less than $37,500 a year. Let's think about this for a minute. Put your hand up in here if you are earning less than $37,500 a year. It is not a lot of money. But, if you were going to get more savings for government, who would you target first? Let me tell you who the Liberals and Nationals target: very low income earners. About two-thirds of those are women, working part time. What this government has done is save themselves $500 measly dollars a year and taken it off them. They have taken it directly out of their back pockets. Even if it was just that measly $500 a year out of your salary, that would be one thing; but it is worse than that, because they are taking it out of their long-term retirement savings future. It is a low-income superannuation contribution. That is where they are taking it from.

Labor introduced the low-income superannuation contribution to do something really specific: to give low-income earners just a little bit of assistance. It is only $500 a year but it goes a long way to ensuring that, when people come to retirement—particularly women, who we all acknowledge in this place have lower superannuation balances and less opportunity to build their super balances because of time out of the workforce for family reasons—why would you target them? Why would you make them the victims of your callous behaviour? Why do they have to bear the brunt of what government wants to save while you charge it to the lowest income earners in this country? That is my question back to the government, to the Liberal Party and the National Party. They come in here full of confidence—

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

Mr RIPOLL: I am glad to take whatever interjection is coming.

Mr Nikolic: Under standing order 66, you asked a question and I would like to respond to it via an intervention.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): Mr Ripoll, would you take an intervention?

Mr RIPOLL: No, I would rather use the time for myself.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The intervention is denied.

Mr RIPOLL: Thank you for the delay tactic. I think that cost me 15 seconds but 15 seconds in this place is cheap. I do not need the extra 15 seconds to make the points that I am making—whether it comes to export market development grants, whether it comes to supporting small business, whether it comes to how they treat ordinary people and workers in this country—low-income workers—whether it is superannuation. We moved superannuation from nine per cent to 12 per cent and that has been delayed. We all know what a delay is: it is stuck at 9.25 per cent. It is not going to budge.

Here is my challenge to the Liberal Party: move it from 9.25 per cent; move it and move it soon. Move it as soon as you can. But of course who pays? The National Party are the great agrisocialists of Australia. Their version of the world is simple: 'Take the money off this mob and just give it to us. We know what to do with the best—

A government member interjecting—

Mr RIPOLL: I am sure that is not the view within the Liberal Party or the government when it comes to the National Party. I love these interjections from these guys. Let me tell you what they have actually done, their record. I would stand on my record any day and I will stand on their record any day. Their record is very short. It would not take me much to get up on top of it. But it is about cutting support for low-income Australians; it is about cutting your schoolkids bonus—cost-of-living pressures. How do you relieve cost-of-living pressures for ordinary families? You help them with schoolkids bonus; you help them with a range of things; you help them with their schools; you actually try to improve their schools; you try to help them with their health costs; you try to help them with small business; you really actually do something about the bureaucracy. That is what Labor did. We are getting to see exactly what the Liberals are doing.

Ms SCOTT (Lindsay) (12:43): I am pleased to rise today in support of the Export Market Development Grants Amendment 2014 introduced by the Minister for Trade and Investment this morning. This amendment delivers on the coalition's pre-election commitment to not only progressively restore funding to the Export Market Development Grants scheme but to also provide an initial $50 million boost. Of course as other speakers have noted, the previous Labor government cut these grants by $25 million per year, resulting in a disastrous effect on small and medium export business across our great nation. For Australia to maintain our international competitiveness, it is essential we find, nurture and support our innovative entrepreneurs, in turn enhancing the nation's export base across agriculture, services and manufacturing, the three economic pillars essential to the future employment of workers across Australia and crucial to the economic viability of the people in Western Sydney who look to such sectors for their future job security. Unfortunately, cuts by the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments say much about their lack of understanding in regard to Australia's small and medium businesses. They are clear examples of the misalignment of Labor's priorities and demonstrate their interest in meeting a target rather than supporting these important sectors.

We often hear that small business is the engine room of the Australian economy. In the private sector in Australia, small business employs some 43.3 per cent of workers, and I would like to remind the House that all businesses were once small. In order to secure the economic sustainability of our nation, the Australian economy must diversify. We must find new trade opportunities and ensure our place in new and emerging markets. This scheme works to do just that, thus enhancing Australia's manufacturing, services and agricultural export base. This is the primary goal of the EMDG Scheme and why I rise today to speak in support of this bill. As such, I welcome this $50 million increase to this important scheme.

The Export Market Development Grants Scheme helps potential small and medium Australian exporters develop their export markets to become sustainable exporters by reimbursing up to 50 per cent of eligible marketing expenditure. As someone who had a marketing background before entering this place, I applaud the investment in marketing, because marketing is where we find the potential markets that will buy our goods and services. If we are not proactively looking to find new customers for our goods and services, we do not make products that will find a place overseas.

The scheme is a key Australian government financial assistance program for aspiring and current exporters. Administered by Austrade, the scheme supports a wide range of industry sectors and products, including inbound tourism and the export of intellectual property outside Australia. This legislation gives effect to changes which will make the scheme more accessible to businesses looking to export, and, therefore, I anticipate that the sector will grow in leaps and bounds.

In addition to the increase of $50 million in funding, this amendment also proposes three changes to the way the scheme will be administered. It will increase the number of grants available to be received by an applicant from seven to eight. As a result of this change, it is estimated that an additional 138 exporters will be able to claim an additional allowance each year. This will allow more experienced exporters to claim an additional grant and will allow previously successful recipients to further develop their goods and services in existing markets, re-enter markets that are now commercially viable due to the reduced exchange rate and diversify into new and emerging markets.

This amendment will reduce the minimum expenses threshold required to be incurred by an applicant by $20,000 to $15,000. This will benefit an additional 143 exporters who are projected to be able to make a new claim each year. Essentially, reducing the minimum expenses threshold decreases the marketing budget small exporters are required to invest in their export marketing programs before they can claim an export marketing development grant. This in particular is expected to be well received by the small- and medium-enterprise community as well as industry associations. Finally, it will reduce the current $5,000 deduction from the applicant's provisional grant to $2,500, resulting in all grant recipients receiving an additional $2½ thousand per grant.

In the current difficult international trading conditions, exporters have faced several years of pressure on their marketing budgets from higher exchange rates and weak international markets. The ability to have even a modest increase in marketing funds is expected to be welcomed. This increase in grant funding will be particularly relevant now that many small and medium enterprises are increasingly eyeing their potential for increased international sales as exchange rates ease and international markets increasingly recover.

These three administrative changes are excellent news for Australian small- and medium-sized businesses who want to continue to be competitive and innovative—they want to find the products for tomorrow; find the new iPhones and the new iPads and find the new automotive technology—such as those I see in my electorate.

Before I move on to talk about my electorate and how I see these grants working locally, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the interesting comments made by the members for Sydney and Oxley. There was a pre-election assertion that Labor's proposed bill, which would have decreased grants for exporters in developed markets such as Europe and the USA and would have focused more on development, was a sign that they were recognising the importance of Asia and other exporters. I quote the speech by the honourable member for Sydney where she asserted these claims and then went on to say:

The Labor amendment bill introduced in the last parliament sought to realign the Export Market Development Grants Scheme to support small businesses exporting to East Asian and frontier and emerging markets. It is disappointing to see that the Abbott government has walked away from these proposed changes. I certainly believe that it must be possible to find a way to leverage this public investment to further the nation's strategic objective of a much deeper engagement with our region. Not only has the realignment of the scheme …

The important point to recognise is that small and medium enterprises who export are participating in global supply chains. Exporting to Europe and to the USA may well be of ultimate benefit to end-markets in Asia or in developing markets—for example, exports of fine wool to Italy end up in suits created and sold in Shanghai—so I do not think the opposition have much form in this space. Then we had the member for Rankin say that Labor got rid of red tape to help small business. I would like to remind the House that it was the previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government that provided 21,000 new regulations. So I look forward to our first repeal day when we will start rolling back the red tape that has been inflicted on the Australian economy by those opposite.

I move to my electorate of Lindsay. I can appreciate that from a helicopter view these changes may be viewed as technical or as only beneficial to large Australian exporters, which is just simply not true. This is why I am so pleased to note the previous recipients in my electorate of Lindsay, who have used these grants as an opportunity to increase their market share internationally. I am also happy to note that these companies welcomed the coalition government's additional support in this important area of their business. For starters, Concept Paints in St Marys is a business that I know quite well. Not only did my own family's small business get involved with its technology—it is a wonderful technology—but I have also visited its manufacturing plant in St Marys.

This is a medium sized business. It employs a lot of local people out of Western Sydney. It needs to be conscious of how it spends its money. It needs to be thrifty. It needs to weigh up the risks and the opportunities. To export a product overseas is not simply a matter of one or two meetings but rather, as Concept Paints describes it, it is a two-year pipeline of regular meetings, supplying and shipping of samples as well as contracting technicians to support the sale of the product. Because its product is new and innovative, it has to do a lot of work in marketing to explain to emerging markets how its product will improve productivity for people overseas.

It is quite a long process, and any type of process like this comes with costs. The primary competitors for Concept Paints are multinational companies, who have far bigger budgets that can be used to drive sales. Under the Export Market Development Grants scheme, Concept Paints will continue to be competitive. The grants will enable the company to push and promote its products into foreign markets and increase its global footprint, which is great news for Concept Paints and is a real success story about how these grants boost manufacturing, boost Australian products and boost the industry as a whole. Good news for the automotive industry!

GPC Electronics, located on Blaikie Road in Penrith, has also benefited from the Export Market Development Grants scheme. In the previous financial year, it received $150,000 under the scheme. For more than 20 years, GPC Electronics has successfully manufactured complex electronic equipment for leading global organisations, such as Toshiba, Nortel, Alcatel, Siemens and NEC. It is now one of the largest contract manufacturers in Australia, exporting to over 40 countries.

The list goes on: Packwest, in Jamisontown, is yet another local recipient. It is located in my electorate and it has received $10,495 under the export market development scheme. This is a fabulous local organisation that has strong ties with customers and suppliers to develop innovative packaging, products and solutions. There are so many other businesses that have benefited. Australian Natural Health, based in Emu Plains, specialises in pharmaceutical and toiletry goods. It is a wholesale company that has received $19,706. Epitomy Pty Ltd is an electronic equipment manufacturing company, based in St Marys, that received $10,689. Oz Trails, a tourism business, and Sydney Executive Tours, a fantastic travel and tourism company based in Penrith, received $30,000 from the scheme. Spiller Industrial Supplies, located on Batt Street Penrith, is a sole export distributor for Apollo Cleaning Systems. This year, they will receive $15,534. Finally, Sud-Chemie Australia is a fantastic international company which has its Australian offices based, once again, in Penrith. In the previous financial year, it received $18,137 in grants.

The reason that these grants are so important to areas like Western Sydney is that two-thirds of my workforce have to commute every single day for jobs. Grants like these create local jobs, help my local community and are the reason that I stand here today to fight for the people of Western Sydney. I appreciate that this money was administered under the previous government, but I encourage the House to consider how much longer this list will be with the administrative and financial boost introduced by the coalition government today. I encourage the House to consider how much stronger our small and medium sized business export markets will be under these changes. Let us not forget it was the Labor government who continued to make cuts in this important sector, who continued to cut the Export Market Development Grants scheme, who continued to cut into the opportunities that we as a government provide to this vital sector.

I am proud to be part of a government who seeks to support this sector and to continue to give small and medium sized enterprises a hand up. We want to make Australia one of the best places to start and grow a business. We want to be a smart economy. We want smart jobs. We want our local manufacturing, agricultural and service businesses to be exporting internationally. Small business and medium business are the engine room of our economy, and it is time we supported them. They need to be unshackled by this reckless opposition, who in government did all they could to burden them with regulation and more taxation. I commend this bill to the House.

Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (12:58): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014, because I understand the importance of export market development grants. The EMDGs provide assistance to aspiring and current exporters. They are a key measure in supporting Australia's small and medium sized businesses who want to develop export markets.

As a former small business owner, I know that these kinds of decisions can be heavy indeed. Deciding to export involves a great deal of risk. The research, promotion and travel required to identify markets and to build relationships to begin exporting are incredibly costly, time-consuming and rewarding. But they involve years of effort. The EMDGs reimburse a significant amount of eligible export promotion expenses, and the financial support available through them is often fundamental in providing business owners with the assurance that they need to begin exporting.

I will single out two fabulous organisations in my electorate who are doing amazing work in exporting overseas. The first is Aspen Medical, which last year won the ACT Exporter of the Year award. Aspen Medical's story is phenomenal. It is quite well-known right throughout Australia because of its extraordinary work. For those who do not know it, like so many successful small businesses it began at a kitchen table with a husband and wife team. And now Aspen Medical delivers world-class health care in remote, challenging and under-resourced environments. In 2012-13 Aspen Medical's exports grew to $44 million—an increase of 16 per cent over 2011-12—and accounted for almost 20 per cent of total turnover. During this time worldwide revenue more than doubled, and its team doubled in size. Growth is expected to continue as Aspen Medical leverages relationships with government departments, the resources sector, Indigenous partners and humanitarian organisations in the US, UK and UAE. They are an extraordinary outfit that I am very proud to have in my electorate. They just keep winning export awards and business awards—award after award. They are an extraordinary organisation.

The other organisation I would like to talk about today is CEA Technologies, which is located in Fyshwick in my electorate—again, an extraordinary outfit. They have been going for many, many years, and they do amazing work in terms of Defence contracts. They export throughout the world in very highly technical and innovative areas, particularly for ships—they do a lot of ICT and other work on ships, and their work is extraordinary. Again, I am very proud to have such an innovative, cutting-edge, world-class organisation in my electorate.

For some businesses, the assurance needed to begin exporting for the very first time comes from the EMDG scheme. For businesses already in the exporting game, EMDGs can provide support to investigate new markets, to maintain visibility in overseas markets and, most importantly, to develop key relationships. Those opposite are often critical of governments providing financial assistance to business, and this is demonstrated not only in their rhetoric but in their actions. But these grants are a wonderful example of how providing financial assistance to organisations can be instrumental in supporting jobs and growth right here in Australia. I am glad that, on this occasion at least, those opposite can see this benefit. Some of the comments that have been made by businesses that have received these grants include: 'The EMDG program has been a huge help for our company, and we have grown in size and credibility'; 'The EMDG has been instrumental in assisting our company's growth'; and 'Since signing on to the EMDG program our employment numbers have grown from 19 to 40 people, and we have had 10 years of double digit growth', which is an extraordinary achievement.

Many aspects of the amendments we are debating here today are good. They will help simplify the EMDGs and make the program more efficient. Labor is pleased that the government has adopted several of the measures contained in the amendment bill that we introduced last year. These include increasing the maximum number of grants per applicant to eight, preventing the payment of grants to applicants engaging an EMDG consultant who is assessed as not being a fit and proper person, and enabling grants to be paid more quickly where a grant is determined before 1 July following the balance distribution.

However, there are other amendments that Labor would have liked to see included in this amendment bill. Key amongst them is Labor's previously proposed incentive to export to Asia—to our region—especially in light of proposed new FTAs in the Asian region that have the potential to open up markets for existing and new export businesses. The government has abandoned these incentives, as it has so many other aspects of Labor's Australia in the Asian century white paper. When the then Prime Minister released the Australia in the Asian century white paper on 28 October 2012, I, like many Australians, was excited. I was excited about the many prospects and opportunities the Asian century offered Australians. I was excited that we were making a strategic and forward-thinking decision to make the most of those opportunities. And I was excited on behalf of the young boys and girls in my electorate who will grow up being Asia-literate, who will be fully engaged in our region, who will have multiple opportunities to study, to live and to work in Asia.

And here I want to talk about a couple of schools in my electorate that are already very Asia-literate. Mawson Primary has next to it an early childhood centre where children from basically one year old right through to school age are learning Chinese at the same time as they learn English. It is a fantastic program. I have been to a number of concerts at the school—all sung in Chinese, with everyone dressed up in little outfits; they are gorgeous. I have also been to a number of their working bees as well as their celebrations of other events. So, we have a fantastic program right here in Canberra—in Mawson, in my electorate—where children from the age of one are learning to be bilingual. It is an incredibly impressive program, and I applaud the work they are doing there. I know the staff are incredibly committed, as are the parents. It is not just a case of these children becoming bilingual; as a result of these small children learning Chinese from a very young age, the parents are encouraged to then go and study Chinese themselves. I have tried to learn Mandarin in the past, as I have tried to learn Arabic and a number of other languages.

An honourable member: Your English isn't too bad!

Ms BRODTMANN: My English is not too bad, no—I won't go there! But I know that Mandarin is incredibly challenging, and so I take my hat off to the parents who do make that effort—although there is no way they are going to keep pace with their children—to try to converse with their children in Mandarin as they learn to become completely bilingual from a very young age.

There is also a school in Farrer in my electorate that has a very impressive Japanese language program, and there are a number of other schools in my electorate where the students are learning Indonesian—that is, across Catholic schools, public schools and independent schools. So I would like to think that Canberra is at the cutting edge of bilingualism when it comes to Asian languages, and I know that it is going to set these children up for life in terms of being able to converse freely. The beauty of learning another language—and, as I said, I am not fully conversant in any language—is that, when you are learning another language you gain a good understanding of the culture. So it is not just a case of learning a language and being able to converse with people in the street or with people in business environments; it also gives you an insight into the culture and the history of a country. It gives you a richness that you simply cannot get from just having a visit there or even going to some business meetings there. It gives you, in a way, a window to the soul of the country. That is why I applaud the range of schools in my electorate who are doing amazing work in Bahasa, in Mandarin, in Korean, in Japanese, and in Hindi—my Hindi is not too bad after living in India, but with the others, it was a bad attempt. However, I do fear that as a result of the shift in this bill, that these opportunities will be lost under an Abbott government—in terms of engagement with and a focus on the Asia-Pacific region.

Labor recognises that Australia's future prosperity will be underpinned by our engagement with our region, and I wonder about those opposite. Before I entered parliament I had my own public relations outfit, and I had a particular interest in looking at how Australia promoted itself in the region. In 1989 I was awarded a Royce Fellowship to study northern Asian perceptions of Australia's strengths as a manufacturing nation. This provided me with a fantastic opportunity. I was with Austrade for about four or five months, just looking at what they were doing here in Canberra. Then I travelled up to northern Asia: to Japan, to Korea, to Taiwan, to China, and to Hong Kong. I spent time meeting with Austrade officials there, with Australian embassy officials, with Asian business people, with journalists, with universities and with think tanks, getting an understanding of what they thought of Australia as a manufacturing nation.

The reason I wanted to study this particular area, as some in this hall might remember, was because of a study Ross Garnaut did, Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy, which looked at trying to boost Australia's presence in the region in terms of manufacturing—to both elaborately and simply transform manufacturers. After I read that study I thought, 'that may be the case, and it is a great aspiration', but I was particularly keen to look at what the actual perceptions of Australia as a manufacturing nation were. At that stage the perception in northern Asia was that we were essentially a quarry and a farm. We wanted to broaden that perception. So, I just wanted to get a baseline of what the perception was among those opinion makers, business people, journalists, think tanks, and academics.

I continued with my interest in this particular area when I worked with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was posted to India, in 1996. That year we had a major promotion, right throughout India, that was incredibly complex. We were showcasing Australia as a sophisticated, modern, manufacturing nation that produced significant technological work and major innovation. It was designed to show that we were more than just a quarry and a farm, and to broaden the perception that the Indian community had of Australia. It was designed to deepen the perception and understanding that the Indian community had of Australia, and it was highly successful in changing attitudes. That year-long program, which was very extensive and comprehensive, built on a program we ran in Indonesia in 1994 that I had also participated in. It was also designed to showcase the modern, innovative and technologically advanced Australia—the Australia that was producing world class research, technology and products. That program also worked very well in broadening and deepening the understanding of Indonesians about what Australia was, beyond just being a quarry and a farm.

Those years of my career in DFAT, and working on the Royce study, have highlighted to me how important it is to help out our exporters in the region. That is why this EMDG is so important. Those years also highlighted to me the significant and beneficial role that Austrade does, not just in researching potential markets for exporters, but also in getting a sense of where they will succeed. Trying to export requires a significant investment, so you need to know that your product is going to succeed before you make that big leap of faith, because it is a high risk operation. I take my hat off to those Austrade officials, here in Australia and around the world, who are providing significant support to our exporters, and I thank them for their work. I know that they are incredibly committed to broadening, deepening and growing Australia's export base.

Labor supports this bill, we support these amendments, and we support the EMDGs, because we believe there is a role for government to contribute to Australia's successful engagement with the world—through exporting the remarkable skills and innovation, and the goods of our hardworking men and women. However, we do not support the government's indifference to our region. Ignoring the incentives to focus on our region is a mistake. The Asian century is here, it cannot be sent to the archives, and we need to be ready.

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (13:13): It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014. This bill is another coalition promise delivered, and delivered in full. Before the election we promised that we would reinstate an extra $50 million to this export development grants scheme, and that is what we are delivering in the parliament today. I have been very pleased to sit here and listen to the contributions from the member for Sydney, the member for Canberra, and the member for Oxley, all saying how they support this scheme, how wonderful it is, and how it assists our exports. They are 100 per cent correct. However, it is worth contrasting how the coalition is delivering on our promise to increase funding under this scheme with what the members of the Labor party did when they were in government.

Now let us go back to the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2013, which the member for Canberra actually voted for. What that bill proposed to do was cut $25 million from the export development grants for one year. The former Labor government wanted to take away $25 million worth of funding. We here in the new government are doing the exact opposite. We are putting $50 million back in over the forward estimates. We also should note the comments from our Minister for Trade and Investment in which he noted that our commitment was not only to make this one $50 million hit but that we would progressively restore the funding to the export market development schemes. This was a scheme that, under the former Labor government, they completely ignored. In fact, if we go back to 2006-07, in the last years of the Howard government, this scheme was funded to the tune of $154.4 million. But in the Export Market Development Grants bill of 2013, which the former Labor government members all voted for, by then they wanted to cut it from $150 million. So in their six years of government they had not even put one extra cent in—it was still at the same level as 2006=07—and they wanted to rip $25 million away. This is the complete nonsense that we hear from that side.

It is worthwhile mentioning the absolute nonsense from the opposition in this debate. The other thing that they tried to do was to reduce the number of grant years under the previous scheme for exports promotion to the USA, Canada and the European Union. Previously, the Export Market Development Grants Scheme allowed an exporter to apply for grants on a seven-year basis. In their last proposal for the scheme, the previous Labor government actually knocked out year 6 and year 7 for exporters exporting to the USA, Canada and the European Union and made a tokenistic one-year increase of an eighth year to Asia. They have a terrible record—a shameful record—of neglect of this scheme. This is in complete contrast to the coalition.

What this bill does, firstly, is commit an extra $50 million over the forward estimates period that will be paid to our small exporters that engage in export development. Secondly, and most importantly, it lowers the threshold. Previously, there was a threshold of $5,000 for an exporter's eligible expenditure that was not accounted. What we have done is reduce that to $2,500. That incentivises our small businesses—even down to our microbusinesses. In just one example, a business that had spent $15,000 on export promotion under the previous Labor government would have received a duck egg—zero; nothing. By the change that we are making to this scheme, that exporter would get back $5,000. Again, we are realigning this more to small businesses.

The second thing we are doing in the change to this scheme is increasing the number of grant years from seven to eight, irrespective of what market you export to. That is a very important step. I would hope in years to come, as the economy improves and our financial situation allows it, that we could increase that to extra years. That is important because exporters do not have just one product or one market that they export to. Over a period of five, six, seven or eight years, the market changes. The market that was eight years ago, compared to the market that exists today for exporters, is a completely different world. Exporters have to have new products; they have to go and seek new markets. Markets fall away and markets come back. That grants should be knocked out after a certain number of years is not good for the scheme. The fact that we have been able to increase this from seven years to eight years is a very positive step in the right direction.

As I said, this bill is all about backing small business. We are sending the message to our small business community out there: 'Go out and have a go in the export market,' because 99 per cent of the world's economy lies beyond our shores. So we are sending a message to those small businesses in Australia: 'Get out there; have a go in the export market; if you take that risk, the government is there and the government will back you up.' That is what we need to drive this economy. We need to encourage those entrepreneurs, those creative innovators in this country, to go out there, put their own money on the line and take a risk, because that is what drives the growth, drives the employment and creates the prosperity in our nation. That is what exactly this bill encourages.

Export markets are tricky and they are complicated. I know for myself. Before I entered this parliament I sat around in boardrooms in New York, in Singapore, in Dubai and in the UK, trying to sell things from small Australian companies into those markets. One thing I found was that, no matter what part of the world that I travelled, when they knew that I was from Australia they gave me a fair hearing. That is the message that I would like to send to every potential exporter in the country—'Get out there and have a go.' That is what this bill assists.

I would like to touch on one thing quickly. For our exporters, one thing that is important to them is to be able to transport their goods to those export markets. In this parliament there is a lot of debate about our airline industry. We need a strong Qantas, but we also need a strong and expanding number of international flights in and out of this country, because those passenger aircrafts do not only move passengers. In the belly of the aircraft they also move export air freight. That is so important to our nation because so many of the products that we have a competitive advantage in are perishable goods that need to be exported quickly by air to overseas markets. So the more air traffic we have—the greater the number of planes flying into Australia from international destinations—the more that opens up the volume, allows greater capacity and keeps the price down for our air freight exports. So we need to be very careful when we have the opposition not supporting the government and blocking changes to the Qantas Sale Act that would enable Qantas to compete on a more level playing field. The opposition are not only harming Qantas; they risk harming the thousands and thousands of Australian exporters and the tens if not hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on the export of goods into world markets through airfreight.

I am also very, very concerned about some of the statements by opposition members during this debate. It would appear that either they have not read the legislation or they do not understand the legislation. There is nothing that we are doing that adversely affects our exports to Asia. Previously, there was an eight-year allowance: you could claim a grant for eight consecutive years for export promotion to Asia. What we have done is extend that eight years to Europe, the USA and UK markets. The great concern I have when I read the speech by the member for Sydney in this debate, where she criticised the reform, is that she thought the government should somehow come in and say, 'This export market is more important than this export market and therefore you should have different rules for different markets.' This is what we see, unfortunately, from the Labor opposition. They have a complete desire and tendency to want to micromanage everything, to centralised planning. We should leave it to the exporters to decide where they believe they have the greatest chance of making export sales. It should not be up to members of the bureaucracy or members of the government to say, 'Isn't it wonderful, all this expansion to Asia is wonderful—that's where exporters should go.' Exporters understand that; they know that.

There is a scene from The Lego Movie, which is being released in the coming weeks in Sydney, that I want to mention here. In that movie the evil robots are called the 'micro-managers'. What the micro managers try and do is ensure that everyone in Bricksville adheres to the government's plan about what should be done. In the final scene the micro-managers go to war against what are called the 'master builders', the creative ones, the entrepreneurs. I bet when members of the opposition are sitting there watching that movie and see that final scene they will be cheering for the micro-managers, because that is what we see from their comments about this legislation.

The other concern we have about the government trying to decide which export market it would be best for marketers to sell to, rather than leaving it to the exporters, is that we need to be careful about the idea of giving Asia some priority. Yes, every exporter in the nation understands that there are many opportunities in Asia, just like there are many opportunities elsewhere around the world. But we have to be careful that we do not overrely on any one region in the world for our exports to go to. We have the example of the Woolworths and Coles effect on many small businesses, where small suppliers find that their market share of customer they sell to icontrols 40, 50 or more per cent of the market, so they simply become hostage to that customer. That is what we have to be very careful about with our exports.

We currently have a situation where more than 25 per cent of our nation's exports go to one country. That exposes our nation to external risks. If something ever happens with that market, or some centralised control in that market decides they no longer like Australia goods for some reason, we have put ourselves at risk. What the opposition propose is to have greater emphasis, with some centralised plan, on encouraging exporters to go to Asia. Not only is that a flawed idea; it could have many adverse, unintended consequences. So I am very pleased that this bill wipes that out. It levels the playing field. Under these coalition amendments, it will not matter where you export to the world, you get that eight years.

There are some very successful exporters in my electorate of Hughes who received export development grants over the last financial year. I would like to mention them, congratulate them and thank them for the wonderful work that they do to drive prosperity, to create jobs and wealth in our nation. They are: Abel Metal Services of Moorebank, Beverly Hills Trading of Revesby, Control Systems Technology of Revesby, D V Import & Export Pty Ltd of Illawong, Deb Australia of Chipping Norton, Destination Consulting of Alfords Point, Orion Art of Engadine, Sphere Healthcare of Moorebank and W & S Plastics of Moorebank. I hope that I can stand in this parliament in 12 months time and be able to add a great number of companies in my electorate to that list. That is what we all should do as members of parliament. We should all be out talking about this amendment, talking it up in our electorates, saying, 'We as the government support you to go out and have a crack in the export market.' Every member of parliament should be doing this because that is what is going to drive prosperity. We need those small businesses out there taking the risks. That is exactly what this bill does. I commend it wholeheartedly to the House.

Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (13:28): I too support the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014. These changes will support manufacturers and producers in the Bendigo electorate and central Victoria. This scheme—which, I might add, was introduced by the Labor government many, many years ago, under Gough Whitlam—will not only offer financial assistance for aspiring exporters, it will offer support for current exporters. In my region, central Victoria, it has helped many over the years. The Export Market Development Grants Scheme encourages small and medium Australian businesses to develop their export markets. In the current period of economic transition it is critical that we continue to support these businesses, manufacturers and producers, in creating new opportunities to export their goods overseas.

Bendigo, as I have said, is an area where we have a number of these small to medium enterprises. One of the strengths of our local manufacturing and producing community is its diversity, yet they come together to work well together under such organisations as the Bendigo Manufacturing Group. In Bendigo we are one of the major contributors to the Loddon-Mallee south region, with regional product estimated to be worth about $5 billion. Some of the big exporters are from the manufacturing sector in our region as well as food, financial and insurance services. We are in the Asian century, and Australia's future—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order no 43. The debate may resume at a later hour and the honourable will have leave to continue her remarks when the debate is resumed.

The SPEAKER (14:01): The question is that the motion moved by the Prime Minister be agreed to. As a mark of respect, I ask all present to signify their approval by rising in their places.

Question agreed to, honourable members standing in their places.