Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation) Share this | Hansard source

Following on from the Chief Opposition Whip's interest in fishing, the member for Dunkley has decided to do his own form of fishing which cannot be regulated by protection of the Barrier Reef. Fair enough. The most substantial question which the member for Dunkley led off with was about superannuation and who pays it. Let me be very clear on this matter. It is not appropriate for the opposition to spend their time scaring business and misleading people about who pays for superannuation. Superannuation increases are paid for out of the creation of value and wealth in enterprises going forward. For this, I submit the real-world evidence of what happened between 1992 and 2002. Over that time period, where compulsory superannuation was increased from three per cent to nine per cent, we saw at the same time a decrease in the unit labour costs of business, an increase in business profit as a share of GDP, an fall in unemployment from 11 per cent to something around six per cent and a rise in real wages in a continual pattern. It is not good enough that those opposite, who are the shipwreck survivors of the Howard-Costello era, without necessarily the capacity of some of those former members, have forgotten their own party's record on superannuation. What they always do is initially oppose and then they try to own the changes.

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