Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 1) Bill 2014 and in support of the amendment moved by the member for Fraser. I am very pleased to follow the member for Blair—it is a bit disappointing that he is not in the chamber to hear me say so—who articulated very effectively what is at stake, particularly in the health debate. What a difference a Labor government committed to Medicare and universality makes. I also note that what is at stake for the residents of the electorate of Scullin is just that little bit more than for the residents of Blair. The member for Blair spoke of $4.73 million. Unfortunately for Scullin, the GP tax, if implemented, would cost residents in the community I represent nearly $6 million a year.

This bill amends the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, the Taxation Administration Act 1953, the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 and the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 and also introduces some consequential amendments to the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986, the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 and the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. The substantive components of the bill are set out in four schedules. I will for the most part confine my remarks to matters contained in schedules 1 and 3. Schedule 1 amends the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act to introduce penalties for promoters of schemes that result in the illegal early release of superannuation funds, and schedule 3 deals with the phasing out of the net medical expenses tax offset and certain transitional arrangements.

But I should briefly mentioned schedules 2 and 4. Schedule 2 is of some significance, having regard to the growth in the self-managed superannuation funds sector and also the value of funds held in such accounts. In the circumstances, I believe it is appropriate that we recalibrate the powers of the regulator, the Commissioner of Taxation, to enable noncompliance to be addressed effectively to support the integrity of that sector. Turning very briefly to schedule 4, this schedule in effect adds four new entities to the list of deductible tax recipients. This is uncontroversial and ought to be supported.

In terms of schedule 3, however, like my colleagues on this side of the chamber have done previously, I do welcome the government's adoption of the previous government's saving initiatives. In particular, there is just no doubt that the phasing out of the net medical expenses tax offset with appropriate transitional arrangements is a saving that is founded on sound principles of equity. It recognises that Australians who have high out-of-pocket expenses but do not have a tax liability simply do not benefit from this measure. The parliamentary secretary noted in his second reading speech that it is not well targeted, and I can only agree.

However, I do think the broader context of the bill is worth reflecting on. Given that schedule 3 of the bill results in savings in the health portfolio, surely it would be appropriate that the savings generated through this measure ought to be reinvested back into providing universal healthcare access to all Australians to ensure that they get the care they need, not the care they can afford. And given the coalition's historical opposition to the very notion of universal health care in relation to the bill before us today, surely the government should commit to putting Labor's savings back into supporting a universal healthcare scheme. After all, it was the then Leader of the Opposition who promised not to make any overall cuts to the health or education budgets. In fact, he wanted this government to be the best friend Medicare ever had. I guess anyone getting pally with the now Prime Minister must be feeling just a little bit nervous. He also used to be the best friend of Australian workers. That was another relationship that simply did not survive the transition into government. This is of course a government that says one thing and then does another.

On that note, the government and the health minister in particular have been keen to foreshadow an impending GP tax that they are seeking to impose on the people of Australia, using talk of increasing health budget demands as the pretext. The member for Blair also took us to the important contextual remarks of Australia's health spending compared to some other developed nations, which puts the lie to this assertion. Again, we see pressures that were regarded, in quite definitive terms, as a non-issue before September now seemingly having a very different standing when they are used to justify a deeply ideological approach to governing Australia. But we have seen some consistency in this remark, and I will turn to the contributions of the member for Higgins shortly. Government ministers, as opposed to backbenchers of course, consistently refused to deny this policy until during the campaign for the Griffith by-election. As the member for Griffith, who is here now, well knows, there was a weaselly worded disavowal and retreat—a retreat, but not a surrender. Now that the by-election is over, we see once again an advance on this front.

Only yesterday, the member for Higgins continued to carry the flame, and it burst into a bit of light in the Australian Financial Review. The member for Higgins characterised this potential GP tax as a 'fee' which would ensure that 'we place appropriate value on the good or service and only use the amount we really need', raising the canard that people are seeing GPs who do not need to. There is no doubt that a tax would discourage people from seeing the doctor; in fact, it would prohibit many. In Scullin, this would mean the more than 980,000 people who accessed Medicare would have to pay $5.9 million. That is quite a disincentive, to say the least.

Dr Steve Hambleton, President of the Australian Medical Association, responded to this punitive approach in February, stating:

We don't want to create a situation where people defer seeking healthcare, and that might be expensive later …

Dr Hambleton has previously articulated the AMA's position:

The AMA does not support this concept and we have made our view very well known.

What is also becoming well known is this government's contemptuous view of preventative health—something the health minister could barely mention in his contribution to the MPI debate this week. On the other hand, a recent Lancet commission, when considering global health up to 2035, recommended that countries should lower the barriers to early use of health services, increase access to disease prevention and minimise the impact of medical expenses. And today we see reported research commissioned by the Consumer Health Forum, which has found that the government's proposed GP tax would decrease access to health care and see Australians delaying access to health care, leading to higher costs overall, and that there is no evidence there will be overall cost savings as it will only compound existing problems as well as further disadvantage people. This is just an ideological project dressed up in feigned concern for cost and budget. The research also confirmed that out-of-pocket expenses already make up around 17 per cent of total healthcare expenditure in Australia.

The second point raised by the member for Higgins was that 'a fair system needs to accommodate avoidable health care costs' and 'why should these costs fall on the taxpayer' as 'one-third of Australia's disease burden is due to lifestyle risks'. It is not explained how exactly a doctor, or a nurse for that matter, should go about making moral judgements about the nature of people's illnesses when deciding whether or not they can receive treatment. And this would be the situation, with some people simply not being able to afford to be treated—early, effectively, or at all. To be pointed about other aspects of preventative health that have been debated in this place recently, there is the question of how individuals can become informed as consumers about, for example, the health properties of junk foods. I reject this Victorian, Dickensian even, differentiation of the deserving and underserving sick that has been proffered by some members opposite. There are no goodies and no baddies here, just people—all of whom deserve health care based on need.

I turn now to schedule 1, which relates to superannuation. I welcome again the adoption of the previous government's initiatives to introduce penalties for promoters of schemes that result in the early release of superannuation. I make some broader remarks here as well. Labor is the author of Australia's compulsory superannuation scheme and believes strongly in ensuring the integrity and sustainability of superannuation for all Australians. It was Labor that introduced the scheme and only Labor that seeks to ensure our national savings pool continues to grow by increasing super contributions from 9.25 per cent to 12 per cent by 2019. In government, federal Labor put in place mechanisms to lift the superannuation guarantee from nine per cent to 12 per cent. This would boost the retirement savings of 8.4 million Australians and lift retirement savings by more than $500 billion by 2037. A person aged 30 today on average full-time earnings would retire with an extra $127,000 in superannuation savings. In contrast, the coalition is delaying any further increase until 1 July 2016 and the full 12 per cent will only take effect on or after 1 July 2021.

Unfortunately, to say the very least, the government is also removing the low-income super contribution. On International Women's Day, which I think is being celebrated today by all members in this place, this is something that we cannot celebrate. I note that the removal of the low-income superannuation contribution hits women particularly hard, with 2.1 million Australian women affected. The low-income superannuation contribution is a contribution made on behalf of individuals with an adjusted taxable income of $37,000 or less in an income year. I note that the cut will take effect from 1 July last year, so this is also a retrospective measure, something we ought guard against. This move will increase superannuation taxes on one in three of Australia's lowest paid workers—this a proposal from 'the party of low taxes', a mantra we hear all too often in this place. It is telling that within weeks of coming to power the government sought to cut the super of millions of Australians earning under $37,000 while at the same time boosting the super for the 16,000 people who have over $2 million in their super balances. It speaks volumes: two tiers for a health system; two regimes of superannuation; upstairs and downstairs. For high-income earners, superannuation can be concessional. For low-income earners, there aren't effective incentives for them to contribute to their superannuation.

The other major concern about the removal of the low-income superannuation contribution is its retrospectivity. Low-income earners entered the 2013-14 financial year on the understanding that they would be refunded their superannuation tax. The coalition has changed the rules on taxpayers in the middle of the financial year without any, much less any reasonable, justification. But all of this is unsurprising when one considers the Prime Minister's previous form in relation to superannuation, a matter already touched upon by the shadow minister but I think well worth repeating. He said in 2012:

We have always as a coalition been against compulsory superannuation increases.

And more bluntly earlier on in the piece he said:

Compulsory superannuation is one of the biggest con jobs ever foisted by government on the Australian people.

I mean, really, a con job? The coalition's delaying of the increase to the superannuation guarantee and the removal of the low-income superannuation contribution are in keeping with the Prime Minister's vendetta against superannuation. It has got nothing to do with good public policy making, much less with concerns of equity. Labor introduced compulsory superannuation to ensure that people did not retire poor. Of course, it has also done great things for the strength of our national economy, particularly through the global financial crisis. All of us have an obligation to our constituents to give them a better deal than was the case prior to compulsory superannuation—the security they deserve in retirement.

Labor, as well as being the party of superannuation, are the party of Medicare—30 years old last month, but of course it should have been 40. We are the party of universal health care, not a two-tiered system of haves and have nots. We will always stand up for the rights of all Australians to quality health care on the basis of need not capacity to pay. I am mindful, standing here, that 93 per cent of GP visits in the Scullin electorate are bulk-billed at present. In my electorate, as in electorates right across Australia, there is so much at stake for so many in keeping Medicare—in keeping our universal healthcare system.

So I am pleased to support the amendments moved by the member for Fraser. I am disappointed that the member for Riverina described it as a try-on. Really, that could not be further from the truth. Not only does the amendment open up a critical debate about the future healthcare needs of Australians and the responsibility of the Australian government in that regard; all it really does is to ask the government to mean what it said before the election. It is a tragedy that this government is a government that says one thing and does another.

See this speech in context