Government's punctuation war over

Labor has mocked a federal government declaration that its war on legislative red tape is over.

"We've now done the major work to clean up the statute books," assistant minister for productivity Peter Hendy declared in The Australian on Thursday.

Dr Hendy said repeal days would be replaced by annual reports that assess the government's performance on regulatory reform.

Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke, who specialised in ridiculing the four earlier repeal days, oozed sarcasm as he proclaimed: "The war is over.

"Punctuation has been defeated and the government's semi-annual skirmishes against hyphens and semicolons have come to an end."

Mr Burke cited repeal of a 1904 Defence Act reference to state navies, which haven't existed since 1913, and the end of a law requiring mules and bullocks be registered for military purposes.

On the punctuation front, Mr Burke said the government has removed 40 hyphens, one comma and one inverted comma; changed two full stops to semicolons, one semicolon to a full stop; and inserted two commas, one full stop, one colon and one hyphen.