Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Early Release of Superannuation) Bill 2011, which the coalition does not oppose. This bill deals with the administration of the early release of superannuation on compassionate grounds. I stress the point that it is the administration. In reading the bill I find that it does not speak of changing the wording or the intent. It does not speak of making the process for applying for early release of your superannuation any easier, it just shifts the administration from one body to another.

The bill transfers the responsibility for administration of early release of the superannuation on compassionate grounds from APRA—the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority—and the Australian Taxation Office, which I will refer to as the ATO, to the Chief Executive of Medicare and allows APRA to include the cost of administration of this early release by Medicare in the annual levy it charges for superannuation funds. The rationale for the transfer from APRA and the ATO to Medicare as given in the explanatory memorandum is that this scheme is best administered 'by an agency that has other elements of income support and an efficient customer support infrastructure'. Predominantly what that means is that Medicare has more outlets around the nation—there is more accessibility to frontline staff—as opposed to dealing with APRA, who I am sure are competent but their areas of expertise probably do not include the frontline specialist skills that we require.

Before I go on, let us look at some of the comments we have heard from previous speakers who took the opportunity to drift into the topic of increasing superannuation amounts from nine per cent to 15 per cent. One of the examples that they brought up was that as a government we should not deprive the Australian people of an increase to 15.4 per cent because that is what the politicians get—why should we get it and not let the general public share the same superannuation levy? That is economic ridiculousness. Why not go one step further and say that everyone should be on the same money that the Prime Minister is on? This is the same economic rationale that that argument brings to this House.

The reason that these comments would be raised, in fairness, is that very few people from the other side of the House actually have any concept or fundamental understanding of how small business works, and this is where the cost would be borne in an increase from nine to 15 per cent superannuation. It would be borne by business. While the government says that there would be a one per cent decrease on their tax, from 30 per cent back to 29 per cent, I suggest that there is only so much money available in a business to try to make ends meet and when you have to trim costs, often one of your variable cost line items is your staff. So I fear that the silliness of the economic rationalism being used could potentially put Australian jobs at risk and I would encourage people to tread carefully when considering flippant increases to 15 per cent.

I also remind the government of the enormous pressures on small business and families at the moment with the basic cost-of-living pressures. One must consider the outrageous increases in energy costs since 2007. Don't shake your head, they have gone up. I have seen it at home—50 per cent they have gone up!

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