Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I find it rather amusing that here we are yet again in this House amending one of the government's own bills, amending a bill that they rushed through as part of a $900 million money grab, with a hand deep into the pocket of Australian workers and taxpayers to grab their money. I would have thought that if you were a hung government you would have actually done a lot more homework on your legislation that was introduced, to make sure that you were not put in this position of having to go back to a hung parliament yet again to amend your own legislation.

By way of background as to this bill that we are talking about, the Banking Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2013, what this government did, in seeking to prop up its bottom line because of its own mismanagement of economic affairs, was reduce the time frame by which the government could access Australian people's money in bank accounts. For bank accounts it reduced the period from seven to three years. For life insurance moneys, previously treated as unclaimed after seven years, the period was reduced to three years. Superannuation accounts with balances of less than $2,000 and the accounts of unidentifiable members that had been inactive for 12 months were required to be transferred to the Commissioner of Taxation Office. It was reducing from five years to 12 months the period of inactivity before which the superannuation accounts of unidentifiable members were transferred to the ATO and the unclaimed property of corporations was now to be recognised directly in the Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Fund—impacting the underlying cash position of the Commonwealth—upon receipt by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, as opposed to the companies and unclaimed moneys special account. As I said, this is nothing short of in essence a fraudulent, rapid, expedition of accessing Australians' cash in accounts. There was nothing wrong with the time frames that were there. This is purely a measure to gain access in particular in the 2012-13 year to some $700 million to prop up the bottom line.

In one area in particular, as was so eloquently put by my colleague the member for Berowra, there are people who put money aside before they retire for a long-term purpose, thinking about the days ahead. Perhaps one of the saddest things would be a person, particularly a pensioner, who may now be living on their own because their partner is deceased and, as my colleague the member for Berowra said, they have put aside money for their funeral fund, not wishing to pre-purchase their funeral but making sure their affairs were in order. They might have lived beyond the three-year period but they have had the money in the account without any activity.

I was informed that the addition of interest to the account still does not make that account an active account. How hard would it be for the family of a person who has passed away to then access money that the government has taken to prop up its financial position? What process and paperwork would they have to go through to find this account, identify this account and recover the moneys from that account to pay for funeral plans? These are issues that have not been thought through by this government.

One of the other areas, as put by many members in this House, is where grandparents—indeed, parents—on the arrival of a child or grandchild have put away money in an account for that person. Quite often it is to be for them when they turned 18 or when they turned 21, hoping it was an investment that would grow and be there for that person. If that account has not been added to by the parent or grandparent—indeed, anyone else—now after three years that account becomes inactive and the government gets direct access to that money. It is not that this money is held in a trust account by the government; it actually goes straight off the bottom line of consolidated revenue.

I would ask the minister in his summing up to advise the House what the cost of bureaucracy will be in going through and processing these claims for payments. Will it outweigh the benefit that you would have received after seven years in relation to a bank account as against three years? The cost of bureaucracy is becoming something that is unsustainable in this government. I think what you have added to is the cost to government.

Another area I wish to talk about in particular is superannuation. I have been on the record congratulating the Keating government for introducing compulsory superannuation for people to look after their long-term affairs. But in the beginning, particularly in relation to the tourism industry, people moved from one job to another job to another job and each of those employers might have had separate superannuation funds. In the early days people could not actually move from one fund to another fund and therefore a lot of those accounts would have had under $2,000 in them. Those have now been consumed if they were inactive for 12 months. Young people, in particular, might have been transient or moving around or taken the overseas holiday for 12 months or two years. They come back and they find that all this money has been consumed. In relation to superannuation, where it might have been earning higher than the government approved rate, what will the government do to compensate people for the loss of earnings on that superannuation money? Nothing.

This bill would never have been under consideration if the government had been able to manage the financial affairs of this nation properly and adequately. This set of amendments would never have been before the House today if the government had put enough thought into what was going to happen when people started claiming money back. In fact, the purpose of this amendment is to amend the act to exempt reactivated accounts from being reported and transferred to the Commonwealth as unclaimed money and to allow the Commonwealth to provide refunds to authorised deposit-taking institutions if the money is collected unnecessarily.

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