Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Competitiveness) Share this | Hansard source

Today in question time the shadow treasurer confirmed that the coalition, if it wins government, will scrap the increase in superannuation for working Australians from nine per cent to 12 per cent. The shadow Treasurer on Friday, responding to the Treasurer's release of the revenue for the MRRT, said that he would get rid of the tax—that is, he would get rid of the increase in superannuation from nine per cent to 12 per cent. I will take people through what he said. He mentioned the following expenditures to which MRRT would contribute: the superannuation contributions tax, the supplementary income support for low-income earners and the superannuation guarantee increase from nine per cent to 12 per cent. That is a direct quote from the shadow Treasurer.

He was asked in that doorstop interview on Friday afternoon: 'So what would you cut?' The shadow Treasurer said: 'I just outlined them. I can go through them again if you want.' The journalist said: 'So you would cut all those initiatives?' The shadow Treasurer said: 'Absolutely. You can't afford them.' Unequivocally and absolutely the shadow Treasurer said that an incoming coalition government, if it won the election, would axe the increase in superannuation for working Australians from nine per cent to 12 per cent. That was Friday afternoon. National Nine News ran that in the story. At 7.09 pm the shadow Treasurer tweeted in these terms:

Would be nice if Nine News had checked the facts...Coalition remains committed to keeping increase in compulsory superannuation from 9-12%.

That was just hours after the shadow Treasurer said absolutely it would be axed. A little later, Bernard Keane tweeted:

Hockey stumbles on superannuation … good thing there's no election campaign.

The shadow treasurer responded to Bernard Keane:

please just don't accept the False Labor spin Bernard.

The words came out of the mouth of the shadow Treasurer that the nine to 12 per cent superannuation increase would be scrapped by an incoming coalition government. Within two hours he denied twice that he had ever said that. And in question time today, in response to a question from the Leader of the Nationals and would-be Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, I pointed out that the shadow Treasurer had said on Friday afternoon that he would scrap the nine to 12 per cent increase, and twice the shadow treasurer, across the table, nodded and said that is right. So he said that was going to scrap it, he denied that he said he was going to scrap it and now he says that he is going to scrap it. I guess by early evening he will be denying that he denied his denial about his denial and say he never said that he was going to scrap it.

That is why I tabled the screen shots of the tweets. They are the words that came out of the mouth of the shadow Treasurer, and he just looks down the barrel of a camera and says, 'I never said it.' And the journalists in the national press gallery are expected to believe that.

Twice now he has confirmed—on Friday afternoon and again in question time today—that a coalition government would scrap the nine to 12 per cent increase in superannuation for the working men and women of Australia. The reason that they would do that is that they have a $70 billion black hole.

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