Angus Taylor’s plan for scissor gang to cut red tape

Regulators and government agencies would be held to account for bureaucratic delays under a plan from the Coalition it says will make it easier to kick-start construction and greenlight big builds.

In an echo of the drive by the Trump administration to bring a private sector approach to government, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor will use an address on Wednesday to reveal plans to create a standalone office called Investment Australia with a mandate to reduce regulatory costs and red tape.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor will use a key speech on Wednesday to outline plans to make the public sector more pro-investment.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

It will target the financial services, construction, resources and energy sector, with Taylor to promise a chair with strong private sector and public administration experience to be installed within 100 days of the May 3 election.

In a major speech to the National Press Club on the Coalition’s economic agenda, Taylor will argue that productivity-enhancing investment by the private sector was being held back by government red tape.

The new Investment Australia agency, which would sit within the federal Treasury, would have call-in powers to target regulators and agencies responsible for “bureaucratic delays” to economically beneficial projects.

“Investment Australia is a structural reform that will provide lower costs and send a lasting message that Australia is open for business,” he will say.

“It will streamline our overlapping and confusing public service agencies, while driving a pro-business, pro-investment mindset throughout the public service.”

In his budget-in-reply speech last week, Liberal leader Peter Dutton argued he could make Australia a mining, agriculture, construction and manufacturing “powerhouse”, with the revenue from those four sectors used to build new infrastructure while funding health, education and defence.

Taylor will also focus on those four sectors, arguing they were being held back by red tape.

“It will have an impact across all the industries that drive our prosperity, from our manufacturing and mining and resources industries, to our world-leading agricultural sector, and our forestry and fisheries,” he will say.

“This reform is not an inquiry but rolling and structural red-tape reduction to reduce costs to consumers and bring down the cost of doing business and the cost of living.”

Taylor will also reveal plans for the Coalition to introduce within 100 days of the election a “securing Australia as a financial centre bill” that will legislate reforms to the financial services sector.

He will argue these reforms, ranging from digital assets such as bitcoin to financial advice regulation, would make it easier for people to buy a home and plan their retirement.

The pushback against regulators is a developing theme within the Coalition, which also plans to direct the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority – which oversees the nation’s banks – to lower its current mortgage rate buffer.

The buffer was set at 3 per cent by the authority during the COVID pandemic when the Coalition was in power. Banks are required to assess the ability of borrowers to service a loan at an interest rate 3 per cent higher than their original rate.

A Coalition plan to reduce the serviceability buffer on new mortgages has been backed by the property sector.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Some banks have pressed for the buffer to be reduced, arguing it is too conservative and is pricing thousands of young people out of the mortgage market.

But APRA has pushed back against the change, while the nation’s biggest lender, the Commonwealth Bank, told a Senate inquiry last year that reducing the buffer could increase debt for younger Australians and leave them tackling “unsustainable debt and in financial hardship”.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said while buffer was ultimately up to APRA to determine, the Coalition wanted young people to find it easier to get into the property market.

“We think potential arrangements are in place at the moment that are too difficult for young homebuyers,” he said on Tuesday.

The property and housing sector backed the Coalition’s move.

“With the correct financial and regulatory settings that appropriately manage risk, we can support more first home buyers to get into the market,” Property Council chief executive Mike Zorbas said.

But Zorbas said ultimately the key factor to affordability was the supply of new homes.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the Coalition had different positions on whether it would set the mortgage buffer or leave it to APRA, which was trying to ensure the stability of the entire financial system.

Accusing Dutton of planning to make cuts in health and education, Chalmers said the Coalition’s agenda was effectively mirroring Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency with no thought to its impact on ordinary Australians.

“This is DOGE-ee Dutton, taking his cues and policies straight from the US in a way that will make Australians worse off,” he said.

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