Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein is yet again arguing in the face of progress. At least he is consistent. MySuper offers a generic and standardised super savings product that will return more to retirees—some of us will be retirees soon and some of us a bit later—and, in doing so, will improve this country’s national savings pool. Safe, low-cost and simple superannuation solutions are essential to help Australia’s retirement savings. By 2050 one in four Australians will have reached retirement age, compared to one in seven today. You do not get a bill in the post, but Australians are currently paying $85 a month on average in superannuation fees, which is more than the average person’s monthly mobile bill. We need to have the offer of low-cost superannuation products for people who cannot afford and who do not seek to have high-priced superannuation products.

It is our intention to allow super funds to offer simple, low cost superannuation products called MySuper, from 1 July 2013. This will be a new default superannuation product with no unnecessary fees or charges and with simple features to make it easy to compare fund performance. This benefit for a 30-year-old worker on average wages would lift their retirement savings by $40,000. When we talk about superannuation and if we want to relieve cost of living pressures, we need a bigger national savings pool. I think the opportunities of moving from nine to 12 per cent, the doubling of the concessional cap, the improvements for low income earners and the extension of the SG from 70- to 74-year-olds will help build a national savings pool. A national savings pool is one of the competitive advantages of Australia in the global economy. This whole House should get behind that rather than having the point-scoring debates about the cost of living that the opposition have tendered in this MPI.

I would also suggest in closing that, if we want to talk about the cost of living, there is a cost of inaction on climate change which has been recognised in the Stern report. There is a cost to inaction. Just as well there is a cost to an $11 billion hole in the funding policies of those opposite. We keep hearing about debt. Let us just put some facts on the line. We are the envy of the world in our government debt situation. Our peak debt will be six per cent of GDP in 2011 and 2012. Our budget returns to surplus in 2012-13. I do not think the opposition is happy about that. I think they resent that Labor is able to return it surplus. We are doing much better than the rest of the world in international net debt for the government sector, and I think we have the plan for the cost of living—(Time expired)

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