Mr RIPOLL (Oxley) (11:25): It is important for all of us to talk about red tape reduction and deregulation. What is more important than talk, though, is to actually see it through over long periods of time, which is exactly what Labor did in government. I take the opportunity to speak on this motion, because I want to set the record straight. This motion does not reflect fact or reality and it is peppered with inaccuracies. The contribution from the previous member was an unintelligible rave of a collection and series of phrases, slogans and words that any year 12 student writing an assignment would string together without any knowledge of what he is actually talking about. Let us stick with facts and what happens in reality and what this so-called red tape reduction and deregulation the Liberals and the Nationals are going to foist on the Australian public actually is. Right at the outset I want to make it very clear that we support red tape reduction and we support deregulation. The Liberals and Nationals admit that we actually had a minister for deregulation. The fact is, according to the Parliamentary Library, while in government we repealed more than 16,000 pieces of legislation and other instruments, 7,500 of them last year. That is a record we are very proud of. There is this furphy that does the rounds that we introduced 21,000 new pieces of something, but they do not go into the detail—sometimes they say 21,000, sometimes 22,000, they just make up the number. The reality of what those 21,000 were about, if you look at them, is that 3,400 of them were air safety certificates. I am sure if the opposite side had the chance they would have said, 'there are 3,400 pieces of red tape and regulation we do not need in Australia'. Those are air safety certificates. Another 4,200 were regulations to relax tariff concessions to make life easier for small business. Perhaps they would not have done that. But we know that what they actually did do the moment they got into government was to take away from small business $4 billion worth of direct assistance. We know that for a fact. The Prime Minister, how is beyond me, crows that getting out of the road of small business by taking money away from them makes life easier. I am sure some people could argue that is not actually the case. The fact is, and these are facts, that we did more of this in government than the other mob are dreaming about doing on their stunt day—which is all it is. The normal course of government ought to be that you turn up here and you do not make a song and dance about it every single day. It is actually your job. Getting rid of red tape and making life easier for consumers and small business is your job. It is not a stunt to turn up here every day and crow about it and make it sound as though you are doing something new and unusual that nobody has ever done in the past. The facts are evident when you check with the Parliamentary Library, or Fact Check, or anywhere you want to check. In fact, check with big business, the mates of the Liberals and the Nationals. Check with them on their own graphs. Check what they say about regulations and who introduced the most. Surprise, surprise, it was done under the Howard government—the great bastion of regulation and red tape. They put mountains of it in place. When Labor got in office there was this peak. We had to siphon through it all to start trying to get rid of some of it. We did, and we did a good job. At the same time, as a government we faced one of the biggest economic challenges this country had seen for 75 years—a global financial crisis, not something dreamt up by small-minded Liberals and small-minded Nationals, those bastions of small business. The first thing they do as the friend of small business is to attack small business directly by taking away $4 billion, and then they smile at them and say, 'But we're your best friends.' That makes me think, 'Oh, boy, if that's what a best friend does to someone, I'd hate to see these guys if they don't like someone.' Let us get a few things right and look at some facts. There are 21,000 pieces of legislation that supposedly we introduced and they are made up of a range of different things, including thousands of things that were repealing bits of regulation. Of course, those opposite count those in. So we will be running a ruler across them to see how much legislation they actually introduce. What Labor did was beyond this argument about red tape—this argument about bits of paper, bits of blank paper. They are talking about a bonfire of regulation—50,000 bits of paper. They may as well go down to some paper seller, grab 50,000 pieces of paper and burn them because that is about how useful it will be to ordinary people, ordinary consumers and small business. They think that somehow repealing— Mr Frydenberg interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): Order! I know the member for Oxley can look after himself very well, but I remind the parliamentary secretary and others that if they are out of their place they are disorderly. Mr RIPOLL: Thank you for your protection, Mr Deputy Speaker, from that unruly and disorderly mob. Perhaps they would like to get rid of the rules in this place as well. Perhaps they think there is a heap of regulation that we do not need in this place—and I would support them. But I can certainly defend myself. In government, we implemented the Seamless National Economy agenda to reduce costs for business, to reduce compliance and to reduce the unnecessary and inconsistent regulation across jurisdictions. This is the hard lifting and the hard yakka that takes years, not some stunt where you grab a regulation from 1954 or some other outdated piece of law that has not been used for 50 years that just sits there, that barely anyone knows exists, and burn it and say that you have done your job as a government. They should do something a little more real. The members on the other side think they are so clever. This is what they have come up with: let's burn a whole heap of regulations, including the Acts Interpretation Act 1954 and the amendment about the minimum size of the star on the Australian flag. I do not know how much money small business is going to save by these guys burning the amendment to the Flags Act. This is going to save people a fortune! I can see them now: small business ramming down the parliamentary secretary's front door—he shakes his head. But there are thousands of examples like that. You are getting rid of stuff that no-one even knows exists or has zero impact—monetary, economic, ethical— Mr Frydenberg: What about FoFA? Mr RIPOLL: I am glad he threw that one in. FoFA is the great catch in all this. That is in the middle of those 50,000 empty pages of nothing that will fan the flames and create lots of smoke. We will see lots of smoke coming out of those guys over there on the other side but not too much that is real except when it going to hurt people. I am not going to go into all the details of FoFA here, but, simply, FoFA is about professionalising and lifting the standards in the financial services sector, something that they have been asking for for two decades. They want the standards lifted. They want to be professional. They want to be recognised as professional. We want to help them do it. The other thing to note here is that we want to protect consumers. If you are a retiree or you are saving for your financial independence at retirement, you need a little protection, a little regulation and a little law. Whether you are young or old, or in the middle, it does not matter. There are scams out of there and unfortunately there are people who will do the wrong thing. That is why we need good, consistent and strong consumer protection laws when it comes to financial advice. Why? Because (a) you might not know that it is happening to you (b) by the time you find out, it is too late, and (c) if you lose your life savings, you need a little help. We have seen $4 billion wiped off the funds and life savings of pensioners following the Storm collapse and Westpoint and Trio—there is a list as long as your arm, the so-called non-criminals that some of the members on the other side seem to want to protect. I do not know why they want to protect those guys, some of whom have gone to jail for ripping off pensioners. I will take the side of pensioners any day. I will take the side of people saving for their retirement any day. I can tell you that those on the other side of this House do not have too many friends. When it comes to it, National Seniors are against them and everybody is lining up, as well as all the consumer groups and even big business—and those opposite are the friends of big business; they are in their pockets. People will understand that this is the government of insiders. They are the great insider traders of government. They are inside big business. They are inside cabinet. They are inside the Liberal Party. They are insiders. They do not care about consumers. They do not care about retirees. They do not care about ordinary folk. When they are in the middle and they get an opportunity to jump, they ask: 'Which way will I jump? Do I side with big business in making sure they get millions of dollars of extra fees or do I side with ordinary people? Do I go for the hard lift? Do I do the hard work, not just the stunts on repeal day, or do I do the good stuff?' I will tell you where the Labor Party will always be. Regardless of the popularity and regardless of the cost, we will side with consumers. We will side with senior Australians. We will protect their life savings. We will stand there for them. We will be there for the workers, moving their superannuation minimum from nine per cent to 12 per cent. We will do all that regardless of where we end up politically. We will do all that and we will continue to do that. We are not going to jump into bed with big business just because it suits somebody's particular agenda. In putting in place the standard business reporting which pulls together business activity statements, tax file numbers, declarations and a whole range of things, we will do the heavy lifting. We are the ones who will stand up for small business. We are the ones who will stand up for medium-sized enterprises. We will stand up for consumers when those opposite will not.