Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Early Release of Superannuation) Bill 2011 because, like many members who have spoken on this bill, it has particular relevance to operations within my electorate and impacts a number of people. Let me say at the outset that superannuation is a very valuable tool for people's retirement. There is much debate on whether it should be nine per cent or 12 per cent et cetera, but it is obviously designed to provide retirement income for many Australians as compared to the pension, which is not a lifestyle remuneration but a safety net. That is why superannuation is so important. This bill does change the early release of superannuation on compassionate grounds in two ways. It transfers the responsibility for administration of the early release of super on compassionate grounds from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, or APRA, and the Australian Taxation Office, or ATO, to Medicare and it transfers the relevant component of fees currently collected from APRA-regulated funds to cover the cost of administering the early release of super by Medicare without any financial impact. This bill does not affect the criteria for early release of superannuation on compassionate grounds. This is important to my electorate because Canning has 40 per cent of voters aged 55 or above. It is quite an interesting demographic. Fifty-five years is the general minimum age that the early release of superannuation payments can be applied for. As we know 55 is not old—I am 58, which is not old at all; in fact, I suspect it is the old 35—but it is the trigger point.

I do not oppose the release of superannuation on compassionate grounds and I do not necessarily oppose the restructuring of the channels through which these moneys are distributed. But there must always be a sense of caution. My office is quite often contacted by people within the electorate saying: 'Look, I am in dire straits. If I don't get access to my superannuation funds, I'm going to lose my house.' There is a whole range of issues such as health care: someone has contracted a terminal disease, they need the funds for medicines et cetera. They are all genuine cases, but the word of caution is: should the funds be released without a lot of scrutiny, which then leaves nothing left for retirement? I suspect if you are not going to be here then it is not going to be any use to you, but if you get an early release of funds and that is all you have then it does not say much for the quality of life you are going to have some years later.

Another reason why I am cautious about this bill, and we do not oppose it, is the impact it is going to have on Medicare services. This government obviously is giving more responsibility to Medicare. We know that is the mechanism that the flood levy was going to be collected through. We had Centrelink as a one-stop shop, now Medicare will be a one-stop shop. The problem with that is Medicare will continue to be under continued pressure.

I am sure that members of parliament in this House would agree that whenever somebody has a problem with a government department, because it is too difficult for the officer at the front desk to give them a straight answer or is not the answer they might be looking for, they come to us as their elected representatives. We always get the too-hard basket ones. You know they have often shopped around before they come to us as members of parliament.

In the coalition government, the member for North Sydney, Joe Hockey, was responsible for public administration. In the case of Centrelink, he appointed electorate liaison officers. It really was fantastic. When Labor came to power they got rid of them. However, if you had a problem with Centrelink—and this is what I suspect the government might want to look at in loading more responsibilities onto Medicare—you discussed it with an electorate liaison officer and this person had the authority to sign-off. It stopped a mountain of paperwork and a mountain of delays because we had an electorate liaison officer in the local Centrelink office that we could go to and have problems solved. How sensible was that? They did not spend their whole time on it, they were doing other duties, but we had a go-to person.

People say, 'Oh, yes, but there are government liaison people in Medicare you can go to.' No, these electorate liaison officers were specifically assigned to our electorates and they knew our electorates. They were quite often in Centrelink offices within our electorates, so they knew the turf, they knew the people and they knew the issues. As a result, we could get some very good results for people who did not want a paper war—a letter to the minister, a reply that came back, essentially written by the department in any case, which said, 'Computer says 'no'', which meant we then had to take the lobbying process even further. I want put on the record that, as a result of loading up Medicare, this could be an alternative if the government really wants to ease the burden.

We know that the areas of responsibility shifted to Medicare include the administration of the Home Insulation Program on behalf of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, and setting up the clearing house arrangements for small business—more extra duties for Medicare—yet the government's position on private health industry insurance is to limit the desire of people to have private health insurance. We know the government has tried several times to take away the private health insurance rebate. The effect of that will be to force more people onto the public health system. It will load up public health and the rebates and all that goes with it.

Yesterday, I stood in the courtyard here with other members and senators from Western Australia because the health insurer HBF had collected 32,000 signatures on a petition from their Western Australian members in a month saying that if the government, in conjunction with the Greens—we know the Greens have a particular view on this as well—were to remove the 30 per cent rebate, it is going to force many people off private health insurance and back onto the public health system. As a result, and we know anybody who goes to hospital or a doctor will be treated one way or another, it will load up the public system. In effect it is a cost-shifting mechanism. The effect of trying to do this is expected to cost an extra $3.8 billion to the public health system. In turn, this will put more pressure on these related services. For Labor to deny this is totally untrue. You cannot believe them. I will not use the three-letter word, but I can say it is not true. The health minister, Nicola Roxon, clearly stated in a media release dated 26 September 2007:

… on many occasions for many months, Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all the existing Private Health Insurance rebates, including … the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians

What have the government done? They have tried to change that three times at least. It is a bit like: 'There will be no carbon tax under this government I lead. I have my fingers crossed behind my back; please believe me.' Research by the Australian Health Industry shows that under Labor's proposed health insurance rebate changes, 175,000 Australians would drop private health cover—putting pressure on the public health system, and putting pressure on Medicare, which is the office meant to deal with this early release of superannuation. Minister Roxon was forced to admit on 16 October 2008:

The projection of the number of people from Treasury that will drop out of health insurance is just under half a million—492,000 people.

And the Australian newspaper on 24 June 2011 reported:

MORE than 2.4 million Australians with private health insurance will be forced to find up to $935 extra a year for their premiums if the government can manoeuvre its means test for the 30 per cent rebate through parliament …

In fact, I have received correspondence from constituents who are very concerned about this issue as I speak today. Even they can see that Labor's proposed changes would increase private health insurance premiums, and put more pressure on the public health sector and systems like Medicare—but this is the agenda of the government.

I have a particular view on superannuation. As I said, I am very supportive of those who need a release of superannuation on compassionate grounds. Those who need early release for those reasons should be well heard, but with the caveats that I have put on it. But we have a massive amount of money tied up in superannuation funds throughout Australia. You have heard the dulcet tones of the former reserve bank governor, Bernie Fraser, 'Come to my industry fund and put the money in there so that we can purloin your money and help our organisation.' I say: use the money wisely. One of the ways I would like to see it used wisely, from a personal point of view and a policy point of view, would be for some of it to be released for first home buyers. Not young people necessarily; parents could get access to a deposit for their home through all this money tied up in superannuation. After all it is their money. If they can grow it by buying an asset like a house why should they not be given that sort of opportunity? That is my personal view, which is nothing to do with coalition policy, but there is a massive amount of money tied up, particularly in the hands of industry funds, which have a different agenda from some others, and it could well be used in a more effective way in the future.

In conclusion, the government does not have a competent record on administration. As I have said, what a farce the BER was. What has happened to the set-top boxes that were announced in the budget? Who is going to administer the set-top boxes? Is this going to end up in one of these departments as well? How many people are going to get a set-top box in one of the wackiest policies that this government has ever put out? Who is going to administer that? Is this going to go through Medicare as well? I have to say that in terms of public policy the people who thought that up were obviously the same people who thought up putting pink batts in your roof and how to burn down your house in a short while! At the end of the day I am not aware of anyone in my electorate who has come to me and said, 'I want a set-top box.' In fact, if you gave me a voucher for $300 or $400 I would probably go and buy a plasma TV or something at Harvey Norman but not a fancy set-top box.

As I have said, I agree with the need for early release of superannuation on compassionate grounds. Certainly, these payments are important and help people in often financially and emotionally tough situations. I do hope that the administrative changes will not cause any further costs or pressures to our healthcare system, as I have outlined, and Medicare services or any duress to administering payments to the people who need them most.

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