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

I will try to be brief in answering that question. In terms of the propositions made about superannuation, there have been a range of measures made in this appropriations bill and there has been work done by the Treasury officials funded in this appropriations bill previously and going forward. So, adopting the standard of the member for Dunkley, I will range widely in terms of giving a comprehensive but brief answer to the member for Robertson.

First of all, Labor is the party of superannuation. Without the successive Labor governments, the superannuation system as we know it now—universal and providing retirement nest eggs as part of people's retirement strategies—simply would not exist. It is also fair to advise the electors of Robertson that, whenever the coalition has had an opportunity to increase superannuation, they have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Again, the latest budget just represents more of the same of their DNA—to make superannuation the preserve of just some, not all.

In particular, the member for Robertson asked me about what is being done to in support for women and their superannuation. I would obviously refer not only to this budget but also to earlier legislation which has seen the abolition of the 15 per cent contributions tax paid by people who earn less than $37,000. As the member for Robertson well knows, a high proportion of the very large number of Australians who earn less than $37,000 are women. What we have done is, basically, provided in the course of this year an almost billion-dollar tax concession to the low paid. That is good news for the people of Robertson, in particular to the women electors who earn less than $37,000.

But that is part of the broader superannuation strategy in which we have been assisted by Treasury. We have increased the rate from nine to 12 per cent—that is good. We have abolished the tax for the low paid—that is equitable. We have put on a slightly higher charge for people who earn over $300,000—that is equitable and it is making sure that tax concessions are falling to those who most need them. We have also been improving the back office. I do acknowledge that the coalition today has voted to support some of our efforts in the back office operation of the SuperStream levy. We have also managed—although we were opposed by the opposition—to abolish the discrimination against people over 70 who are employees. Courtesy of this government, if the member for Robertson has people over 70 who are still employees, they will, from next year, be able to get superannuation on what they earn.

In addition we have propositions in the parliament about better governance of superannuation. We had to take the difficult decision to defer the concession caps—that is the amount of money you put into superannuation above which you do not get the tax concession advantage. We had hoped to make it $50,000 per annum for people over 50. This year, clearly, the need to get back into surplus and the wise economic stewardship of the nation required a deferral of a quite attractive proposition to July 2014. I note also, for the member for Robertson to advise her electors, that we are the only political party interested in having an increase in the concessional caps. Unfortunately, we have heard nothing from the opposition—they are very good on the negative but not so good on the positive—in terms of superannuation.

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