Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Eden-Monaro said that the Labor Party did not invent superannuation. That is true; superannuation for rich people has been around for a very long time but, by crikey, what we did do was spread superannuation to ordinary Australians. Ordinary people can now find, through the superannuation guarantee, over $1 trillion which was not there before we set up the superannuation guarantee and never would have been there if those opposite had their way. They have sought to undermine the superannuation guarantee at every turn and even now I hear the right-wing economists, from whom they take their cue, deriding superannuation by saying that this is forced saving and that people ought to be free to spend their money however they please. The fact is that those opposite do not give a damn about the future; they feign concern about the future. They cry crocodile tears over things like the budget deficit, which they have been adding to, and population ageing. But they do so merely to serve a big-end-of-town agenda. When it comes to issues which really affect future generations like superannuation and climate change, they sit on their hands and they white-ant and undermine real action.

In my electorate of Wills, over 26,000 workers will be adversely affected by the plan to reimpose a 15 per cent superannuation tax on low-income and part-time workers, with shop assistants, waiters, bartenders and cleaners being the hardest hit. This superannuation tax plan will slash the retirement savings of these 26,000 low-income workers in my area, the majority of whom are women.

The member for Lalor pointed out in her contribution that some 2.1 million or 60 per cent of those low-income earners are women and women are already retiring with less in their super accounts because of the disparity in their pay compared to men. Women also take time out of the workforce to have children and so they are impacted by lower superannuation savings. The policy that we are debating this afternoon would mean that over 40,000 women in my electorate would have less super in their retirement.

Around a third of hospitality and childcare workers and around a quarter of the electricians in the Wills electorate will suffer from this government policy. Some 57 per cent of all food preparation assistants and 53 per cent of all checkout operators would be worse off. This is an attack on some of the poorest people in the Wills electorate whose retirement savings are modest at best. We should be doing all that we can to boost those savings. The key point here is that the Treasurer cannot argue on the one hand for the need to make the age pension more sustainable by restricting its eligibility and cutting its amount and then on the other hand cut the very means by which workers could achieve less dependence on the pension. As was reported in TheGuardian on 30 September there are six in 10 Australians drawing the full age pension and eight in 10 receiving some form of pension support. So why does the government want to cut superannuation, which is the sustainable and responsible avenue to lessen the load on taxpayers for retirees?

The Liberal government is undermining the retirement savings of working Australians both through the delay in the introduction of the increase in the superannuation guarantee from nine per cent to 12 per cent by seven years and by removing the low-income superannuation contribution. The increases in the superannuation guarantee were due to come in from the current level to 12 per cent by 2019-20. The Liberal government first said it was stopping them in their tracks until at least 2021. Then in the budget they announced the 12 per cent would not be reached until 2022. Now they have announced a third delay meaning the full 12 per cent will not be reached until 2025. At this rate, we will never get an increase to the superannuation guarantee.

We also have issues to do with the low-income superannuation contribution. This was something being done for low-income earners. Together with the halt to the superannuation guarantee, the estimated combined negative impact on national savings by 2025 will be $150 billion. This sells out the future. There is one side of politics concerned about superannuation and it is the Labor side of politics. (Time expired)

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