Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will tell you about it. It said that a Liberal-Nationals government would:

… deliver greater stability and certainty on superannuation – we won’t move the goalposts.

We will ensure that no more negative unexpected changes occur to the superannuation system so that those planning for their retirement can face the future with a higher degree of predictability.

That is actually what the document said. It is something that one might look upon with great surprise now, given what has actually happened since the election. As we have seen time and time again with the Abbott government, this promise, like many others made before the 2013 federal election, was not worth the glossy paper it was written on. Despite claiming to be a government that keeps its promises, the government has not only moved the superannuation goalposts but has yet again broken faith with and made it even more difficult for hardworking Australians to retire with dignity and certainty.

The Abbott government's decision to delay lifting the compulsory superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent until at least 2025 means that not only will Australians lose $128 billion from their retirement savings but also these workers—and we are talking about thousands and thousands of workers, who have negotiated a workplace agreement, relying on another one of this government's promises—have been deceived. On 2 September, when Tony Abbott ripped this money from people's retirement savings, he claimed that workers would now see more in their take-home pay—a disingenuous argument. No-one is buying the Prime Minister's claim that this superannuation freeze is good for workers. There is no guarantee, let alone evidence, to suggest that workers will now see a subsequent increase in their wages. There is no evidence that employers are moving to renegotiate with those employees to ensure that they put the money that will not be going into superannuation back into the pockets of those working people. In fact, business has been quite clear that people will not see a proportionate increase in their pay.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive Kate Carnell said that the reduction in future costs was fantastic for business, and she said that although employers had capacity to pay higher wages the correlation would obviously not be linear. If this super freeze is fantastic for anyone, it is certainly not fantastic for the working Australians who will see their retirement income take a hit. And it is not fantastic for those people in the small businesses of Australia who rely on wage earners to be customers, who rely on wage earners to be the people who buy their products and services, because there will not be situation where this money is going into the pockets of working people.

Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox does not expect wages to increase to offset the postponement of the superannuation guarantee, and former Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser said:

Employers are not going to say, 'well look, we don't have to make this mandatory improvement in super contributions so therefore we are going to give the equivalent amount to workers' - that's not going to happen.

And that is the truth of it: that is not going to happen. These comments contradict the Prime Minister's argument that workers will not go backwards as a consequence of this superannuation freeze.

Those employees who have negotiated agreements since September of last year have already gone backwards. Because of this superannuation freeze an employee aged 25 will be $9,000 worse off by 2025 and $100,000 worse off by the time they retire. This Prime Minister cannot claim to be a friend of the workers, and he cannot claim to be a friend of those who believe in the right to a dignified retirement after a lifetime of hard work. But this motion that I am moving today gives the Prime Minister, the Liberal government and all of those opposite an opportunity to honour, in actions, their words. I call on the government to enable those workers who have made workplace agreements, relying on the pre-election promises that the Prime Minister made, to renegotiate their wages so that they have at least a chance to get into their pockets the money that now will not be going into their superannuation. The government should allow people who made those agreements between 7 September 2013 and 2 September this year to renegotiate the pay they will receive under those agreements, because this government claims that those workers will be getting the money in their pockets. Well, government, Mr Abbott, is— (Time expired)

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