Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank all members who have spoken on this Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 1) Bill 2010. The opposition have indicated that they support each of the schedules except for schedule 1, and so I will confine my remarks to schedule 1. Schedule 1 implements the government’s superannuation clearing house proposal, which as well as being an election commitment, as the opposition have acknowledged, is an important contribution to reducing red tape and the business compliance burden for small business in particular. It is a very important initiative. It has been acknowledged as such. For example, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia said this measure was:

The most significant first step in lowering administration costs for employers …

The House and the Australian people are entitled to ask: what has the business community done to deserve the treatment it has received from the opposition today and over recent days? Yesterday and the day before we saw the opposition proposing a great big new tax on Australian businesses—not just big business but right down to medium-sized businesses—to fund their thought bubble on parental leave, and today we see the so-called party of small business selling out small business and saying that they oppose this schedule. They oppose this initiative to reduce the compliance costs and burden of paperwork on small business in dealing with what can be a very significant issue of multiple superannuation payments to multiple funds on behalf of employees.

The opposition have indicated some reasons for their opposition. I will go through those in sequential order. Firstly, they are critical of Medicare. They are critical of Medicare’s ability to deliver this service. They are critical of Medicare’s expertise. They say Medicare has no expertise in delivering services in relation to superannuation. The fact of the matter is that Medicare deliver a range of services on behalf of the government. They did so under the former government, they do so under this government and no doubt they will do so under future governments. The service delivery mechanism of Medicare is not confined to health only. They deliver a range of government payments and services which range from irrigation matters, right across the spectrum of government services. To suggest that Medicare is not particularly qualified in service delivery, that Medicare is not able to deliver the service, with all due respect, is completely incorrect.

The opposition is critical of Medicare’s engagement with the industry. They say we have not had enough engagement between Medicare and the superannuation industry in relation to the development of Medicare services. The honourable member for Cowper at various points in his speech quoted evidence given before the Senate committee. He has taken some of that evidence and not taken other elements of that evidence. That is his right; that is his prerogative—just as it is my right and prerogative to correct the record. It is fair to say that Medicare has been very assiduous in its consultation with industry and is well developed in its plans to deliver this service on behalf of government. In fact, Mr O’Shaughnessy, on behalf of IFSA—the opposition was keen to quote IFSA but did not quote this part—said:

In regards to Medicare we believe that the manner in which Medicare have been formulating their approach will advance the development and uptake of much-needed improvements in electronic payments in the industry. The Medicare working group meetings which IFSA have sat on have been positive and constructive and have demonstrated that Medicare have, first of all, proven to be responsive to industry needs in building system requirements to facilitate contributions, acceptance and processing.

For the record of the House, Medicare has developed two working groups on the implementation of this very important issue—one for the superannuation industry and one for small business. Those have been very important in helping Medicare deliver this initiative on behalf of the government.

The opposition was critical of the use of Medicare and said we should be using the private sector to deliver this service. Importantly, the government made the decision, based on the advice of the Treasury, to adopt the model of Medicare for very good reasons. One was that Medicare was well qualified and experienced to deliver the service efficiently. In the view of the government, it was the most efficient. Secondly, a very important part of this initiative was the commitment by the Labor Party in opposition, which we retain in government, that when a small business makes a payment to the superannuation clearing house that employer has fulfilled their obligations and should not worry about what happens to the payment after it is made. They should not worry, for example, if the company that they have made the payment for goes out of business. They should not worry if the payment does not reach the employee, because they have fulfilled their obligations. It was the view of the government that if you were to do that—and it was a very important part of the initiative, because if you did give that commitment to small business they would be correctly very wary of making those payments—the best way of meeting that commitment to employers and employees would be to have the government deliver the service through its service delivery arm—Medicare.

The opposition may disagree. They have that perfect right. The opposition may say they would have a different approach. They have that perfect right. But they need to be cognisant of the facts. They cannot simply say, ‘Risk is part of life and we don’t care about the risk and we don’t care if you say to employers that they have fulfilled their obligation and therefore if something goes wrong employees will be denied their superannuation.’ They say that we are saying there is an element of risk already. But there is an essential difference. The essential difference is that this is a service provided on behalf of the Australian government, and the Australian government is saying to small business people, ‘You will have fulfilled your obligation to your employees once you have made a payment to a superannuation clearing house.’

The honourable member for Cowper said that in some way this may take away from the focus of Medicare at an important time of health reform and would endanger Medicare’s delivery of health services. This is again incorrect. As I said at the outset, Medicare already delivers a range of services on behalf of the government. They do so with no impact on the delivery of their core responsibilities when it comes to health. This is a measure which is fully funded from the budget. It is fully resourced. Medicare need not draw down on its existing resources. It is fully resourced by the appropriation from the budget, so that reason for complaint from the opposition is also nonexistent.

I accept that there are private sector operators who believe they could deliver this service. Of course I do. I accept that there are successful clearing houses in operation at the moment. Of course there are. There are clearing houses which have been in operation for a long time which would like to deliver this service on behalf of the government. That is a fact. But we have a duty not to outsource our policy development. We have a duty to develop public policy in the best interests of all players—small business people and employees as well as the superannuation industry generally. It is not incumbent on the government to deliver a service which suits one particular segment of the superannuation industry—whether it be superannuation funds, small businesses or individual employees—but to deliver one which maximises the benefit for the entire superannuation sector. So, while I respect the views expressed by others, those views were considered, as the shadow minister himself acknowledged, through an extensive consultation process. However, the government has decided that the best way to deliver this service is through the government’s service delivery arm, in this case Medicare.

The opposition can express their concerns. They can move their amendments. They can say that, on that sorry day when they next form a government of Australia, they may do things differently. That would be perfectly appropriate. But I say to the opposition: you will have a choice when this goes to the other place. Are you for small business or are you against it? Are you for reducing small business compliance costs or are you against it? Will you pass this important policy to reduce costs for small business or will you oppose it? Will you stand in the way of the government implementing this election commitment or will you honour the government’s implementation of its election commitment to introduce a small business clearing house? That is the choice the opposition will face. They will need to decide whether they support this legislation or oppose it. The government will be pursuing it vigorously. The opposition is perfectly entitled to express their views—that they would do things differently—but, at the end of the day, they will have a choice. It is not a choice I am going to relieve the opposition of making. Do they support small business or not? Otherwise we will know that the opposition does not support small business.

The opposition have raised concerns. They are not concerns which they raised with me. They are not concerns which they raised, I understand, in a briefing with the Treasury on this item. If they want more briefings from the Treasury or from Medicare, I am more than happy to make them available to the shadow minister so that he can reconsider his position. I am more than happy to make available to him whatever information it is reasonable and prudent for him to have, either through the House or through other mechanisms, because this is particularly important. We want to help small business. We want to reduce the compliance costs. When I go out and talk to chambers of commerce and when I have discussions with business, I hear from small business that one of their biggest compliance burdens is superannuation. One of their biggest compliance burdens is making payments to different funds on behalf of different businesses. They want this fixed. Get out of the way and let us fix it. Do not stand in the way of small business. If you want to take a different approach then do so, but do not stand in the way of this important initiative.

I know the opposition is in a particularly cranky mood these days. I know the opposition is particularly obstructionist. I know the opposition likes to take the ‘Dr No’ approach. I know that, if the government were to come in here tomorrow and move ‘that the sky is blue’, the opposition would find a reason to oppose it. Do not stand in the way of this important legislation if you want to be seriously regarded as a party which supports small business. If you want to live up your to your rhetoric and your claims to be a party of small business, then the very least you can do is let us get on with the job of implementing this commitment to the small business community.

What does the small business community want? They simply want to be able to make their payments to one place. I dare say the small business community does not care if it is Medicare. They do not care if it is Centrelink, Australia Post or a private sector operator. They just want somewhere to make their payments. That is what we are prepared to give them. I invite the opposition to join us in giving it to them.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

See this speech in context