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

I thank the honourable member for Hasluck for his question and for his support of what are certainly the largest superannuation changes in 20 years. I can inform him that great progress is being made. The consultation period has now finished and the government proposes to introduce legislation later this year so that the scheme is up and running on 1 July 2007. Under the changes to superannuation, when you are over 60 and you take your money out of a taxed superannuation fund there will be no tax on a lump sum, there will be no tax on a pension, the different age based contribution limits will be abolished and the post-tax contributions will also be simplified so that people have an incentive to put superannuation contributions into their fund over the whole course of their lifetime. We get rid of complicated tax, we get rid of RBLs, we get rid of age differentials and we really make superannuation the preferred form of saving in Australia.

I regret to say that as of now the opposition still does not have a policy on superannuation. This policy was announced five months ago. We have been consulting with the industry and we have been having very productive discussions, but we have not heard a peep out of the opposition as to whether or not it will support these far-reaching changes. If we are going to encourage people to have confidence in superannuation, it is very important that this have bipartisan support. This needs bipartisan support so that people can have confidence that the money they put into superannuation in their 20s and their 30s and their 40s is going to be there after their 60s so that they can draw down on it. I am beginning to see a pattern as to why the opposition will not commit to supporting these superannuation changes—

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