Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

If you ever needed more evidence that this is a government completely confused not only about its role in government but also about superannuation, we just had it all. Ten minutes of all sorts of speeches smashed together, not once talking about superannuation—one of the most important issues that faces the Australian people—for an ageing population, budgets or the economy. It is one of the most important matters that face us as an economy, but they did not mention it once.

I, on the other hand, am very proud to talk about our history on superannuation. Not only have Labor created super for ordinary working Australians and making sure that we add to the national savings pool in our country but we have also created a super that underpinned our ability to sustain during the global financial crisis, with a country of just 24 million people, the No. 4 spot for the country with largest funds under management in the world. We have a national savings pool of around $1.84 trillion—I will repeat that: trillions dollars—because 20-plus years ago it was Labor who structured and put forward one of the most important economic policy decisions that this country would ever make. That was called Superannuation Guarantee.

It is on the public record, and in Hansard, that it was the Liberals, and Tony Abbott then in opposition, who opposed superannuation every step of the way. This is a government that continues to oppose it. Only just recently, on 25 September 1995—recent enough—Tony Abbott said this:

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

How wrong he was then and how wrong he is today. How could he ever have had those views? It is clear that there is just purely an ideological hatred against superannuation.

You would have to ponder the thought of what that means and how that has come about. Why would the Liberal Party and the National Party—it is very, very odd: why would there be this ideological, pathological almost, hatred of superannuation? What it does for our country and what it does for ordinary working Australians is just give them an opportunity to have some independence in retirement, have a decent retirement. Not a wealthy retirement—

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