Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026

Dr HAINES (Indi) (10:46): I have just a few remarks on this bill. I rise to speak on the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026. Specifically, I want to focus on part 3 of schedule 2 of the bill.

Part 3 of schedule 2 would repeal provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act that require government departments to report advertising related expenditure in their annual reports. Now, the rationale for this is that these provisions overlap with other requirements under the PGPA rule and are duplicative. While I'm in favour of streamlining and consolidation, I'm not convinced that what's being removed here is truly redundant.

My concerns about this change are twofold. Firstly, the electoral act requires departments to provide detailed disclosure of amounts paid to advertising agencies, market research firms, polling organisations, direct-mail providers and media outlets. By contrast, the PGPA rule requires only a high-level statement confirming whether any advertising campaigns were conducted.

If the answer is yes, there's a reference to whole-of-government reporting published by the Department of Finance. To be clear, there's nothing wrong with that whole-of-government report. It's valuable, it's comprehensive—but it's not the same.

Anyone reading a department's annual report will no longer get insight into what's been spent on advertising, on polling and on research. They'll have to go to a second source. They'll also have to wait a couple of months because the Finance report typically isn't published until December.

That delay matters. Transparency delayed is transparency diminished. It's also not clear that this change would deliver a meaningful reduction in administrative burden, because departments will still need to collect, verify and transmit data to Finance.

I acknowledge there would be some saving in not having to report under two different frameworks, multiplied by every single department. But, truly, I'm not convinced it outweighs the reduction in transparency. My second concern is that the disclosure requirements would no longer be in primary legislation and would rely entirely on the PGPA rule, reducing the level of parliamentary oversight if they are modified or in fact removed in the future.

While there is much to welcome in this omnibus bill—there are many things in bills such as this, by their very nature—my concerns remain because they're significant. My concern about the change to disclosure requirements would make it difficult, ultimately, for me to support the bill in its current form. So I'm very pleased to note that the government has listened to my concerns and had a look at the amendments I proposed, and will now move its own amendment to remove part 3 of schedule 2.

I thank the government for their constructive engagement with me when I raised this and proposed a remedy to it. I particularly want to thank Minister Farrell, Minister Gallagher and their offices. I look forward to supporting the government's amendment when I see it and, provided that's there, I will ultimately be supporting this bill.