Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Seeing that we are interested in employee entitlements, let me tell people what Labor’s opposing this superannuation reform will mean for them. If you are a 25-year-old on $1,000 a week and receiving the SG, and if Labor is able to defeat these reforms, you will be worse off in retirement by $7,000 a year. If that same 25-year-old earning $1,000 took his lump sum, and if Labor succeeds in opposing this plan, his lump sum would be reduced by $37,000. Just in case you thought that it was only young people that Labor was against, a 65-year-old retiring with a $400,000 allocated pension under Labor’s system would have their allocated pension reduced by $4,900 a year. If that same 65-year-old took their money in a lump sum, their lump sum would be reduced by $43,000.

The young and the old stand to benefit from this superannuation plan. It has the support of IFSA, ASFA, AMP and the Institute of Actuaries. The only person who does not have the guts to stand up and back the government’s reform is the Leader of the Opposition. He was warned about this by former senator Susan Ryan, who endorsed the government’s plan. Not only did former senator Susan Ryan—a former Labor minister—endorse the government’s plan but she finished off her article in the Australian on Friday, 12 May 2006 by saying:

Maybe faced with the Treasurer’s bold gazumping of Labor’s cherished but slightly shabby super property, the Opposition will find the resolve to get another big picture worked out, and the wherewithal to let voters know about it.

Maybe or maybe not—no big picture, no wherewithal, no leadership, no policy, no credibility and no support.

See this speech in context