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

I rise to speak to the bill that is before the House. I listened with interest to the contribution of my friend the member for Deakin. He made a point about the way we deal with legislation in this House and the way it is spoken about. He suggested that people should be a bit more straight-up in the way they talk about a bill such as this one and should not pillory the government's approach by saying it is some sort of stunt. He suggested that people should just stand up and say they agree with the content of the bill and not complain about the way in which the bill is presented by the government and the messaging around it—the spin, in more blunt language. But the difficulty with that proposition is that this bill and the bill that preceded it in the House today are part of spin. This suggestion that these worthy but pedestrian parts of the business of the parliament somehow constitute a magical red tape repeal deregulation agenda is wrong. This bill and the preceding bill are, as I said, just part of the ordinary work of the parliament—reviewing laws and making small, incremental changes to respond to community needs. So to make a song and dance about these bills as though they are a part of some sort of magical repeal and deregulation achievement of this government invites the sort of contribution that the member for Deakin has complained about.

If you want to talk about spin, the corporations legislation deregulation bill that was before the House this morning was not a deregulation bill at all; it was actually about a very important issue. It was about striking the balance between the right to protest and the rights of shareholders in public companies to have value for their shares. That is a really important concern for our democracy. You have to give people the right to protest the decisions of companies in which they hold shares. Equally, you have to strike a balance that prevents the small minority from causing damage to the value of the shares of the majority.

Protest is a really important part of what makes our democracy very strong. For example, today in the electorate of Bonner, which is next door to my electorate, casual employees at a factory have been protesting for equal pay for casual employees. They are protesting in a traditional form. Similarly, under the 100-member rule, which was the subject of the previous bill, shareholders might want to call an extraordinary general meeting of a company and seek to ventilate concerns via a motion of that company. The previous bill, which we supported, quite properly sought to strike that balance by saying that you cannot use the 100-member rule to get an EGM but you can use 100 members to get an issue onto the agenda of an AGM. It is a very important issue: how do we strike that balance to allow for the proper ventilation of genuine concerns and, at the same time, not allow smaller groups or minorities to cause damage to the interests of a company? Of course, when you are talking about the interests of a company, you are talking about the interests of its shareholders.

Instead of spinning that bill as being about that issue, it was spun as a deregulation bill. Those sorts of funny approaches to spin are, unfortunately, very common from the coalition. Who can forget the names of some of the bills during the Howard era? For example, they gave workplace relations bills names such as 'More work, better pay' when in fact they were going to have the opposite effect. If the member for Deakin is concerned about contributions being made that deal with views about the messaging around bills then perhaps some straighter approaches to the naming of bills and the reduction of spin for those bills might go some way to assisting with that.

Similarly the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014 has a little bit of spin in the title as though it were some massive achievement for the repeal of red tape. In fact, it is very straightforward legislation that deals with four groups of items that are important, useful and supportable; but this is part of the ordinary, everyday work of the parliament and no fanfare is required to do it. 'Look at me, look at me! Aren't I great? I'm doing a repeal day bill.' This sort of nonsense is not that helpful. This sort of legislation should be discussed in the straight-up way suggested by the member for Deakin previously.

The first schedule of the bill goes to superannuation reporting on pay slips. This is an important issue. It is going to repeal the provision that will require an employer to state on pay slips the amount of superannuation contributions and the date on which they are expected to be paid. There is already an obligation to state the liability for superannuation on the pay slip.

This provision in the SI(S) Act that is the subject of the current bill is slightly different, in that it would require the amount of the contribution and the date on which it is expected to be paid, and that is important. It is important because there are, unfortunately, unscrupulous or disorganised employers out there who fail to pay superannuation on time. That can usually be rectified pretty quickly via paying the superannuation guarantee charge once the mistake is noticed or to rectify a deliberate omission, but if the company goes broke, if the company ends up in insolvency, it can be extremely difficult to recover superannuation contributions from the company. Of course, there are entitlement protection schemes in place, but that just socialises the loss to the taxpayer, when in fact the obligation ought to have been borne by the employer itself.

I guess the other issue that arises when superannuation is not paid is that, if there is a gap in the payments of superannuation contributions, there can sometimes be a gap in the superannuation fund taking income insurance premiums through that superannuation process. If a person then suffers an injury and seeks to rely on their income protection insurance, or the other insurance that they thought they had via their superannuation scheme, but the premiums have not been met, that can leave people—and this has happened—in a situation where they do not have the income protection insurance. They do not have the insurance provided under their superannuation that they thought they had. If you have been injured to the point where you cannot work, that can be catastrophic for a household. So when we are dealing with superannuation reporting issues they are very important. They are issues of significance that should be debated in a proper way.

Labor is always happy to talk about superannuation. We introduced compulsory superannuation. The massive superannuation sector that Australia has, this massive amount of national savings that is such a great buffer for our country, was a great nation-building reform of a previous Labor government. We are always very proud to talk about superannuation in this country for that reason. We are certainly very proud of the way that superannuation funds have grown and developed and we are proud of the fact that we are helping Australians to plan for their own retirements. We have always supported superannuation, unlike the coalition. I think it was a very well-known coalition member of parliament who described superannuation as the 'greatest con job of all time'. Of course, that was some time ago. There is at least on the surface, at least ostensibly, bipartisanship around the value of superannuation.

Having said that, we know that this year, regrettably, the superannuation guarantee increase was pushed back further by this government on two occasions. There was an argument made to the Australian people that the money would be in their pockets instead of locked away in their superannuation funds. That is actually a very silly argument, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, a lot of Australians are covered by enterprise agreements that already have pay rises locked away for the next few years and will not necessarily be in a position to have higher pay rises as a consequence. It will be difficult for them to renegotiate the pay. But, secondly, there is no obligation on the part of employers to increase pay to compensate employees for the superannuation that they thought they were going to be getting and now will not be because of the decision making of the Abbott government. It is fundamentally an attack on superannuation, and a shocking one at that, because we all know that we need to increase Australians' retirement savings. We need to continue to work on superannuation and to increase the level of the superannuation guarantee charge.

Of course, that is not the only regressive and unfortunate step that this government has taken in respect of superannuation this year. We have also seen the government moving to abolish the low-income superannuation co-contribution, which is a superannuation tax break for the millions of people who earn $37,000 per annum or less—predominantly women. The government, in its questionable wisdom, decided to take away the low-income superannuation co-contribution at the same time as forgoing some tax revenue that sensibly ought to have been collected from people with very high superannuation balances. So at the same time as they are giving tax breaks to the rich they are taking away tax breaks from people on $37,000 per annum or less.

That is unfortunately typical not just of this government's approach to superannuation, the coalition's traditional scepticism of superannuation, but also of the coalition's inverse approach to taxation policy and to social policy generally. This idea that you give tax breaks to the rich while taking away tax breaks from the very poor is unfortunately very consistent with the coalition's approach to public policy—another obvious example being the paid parental leave scheme where, the more you earn, the more taxpayer support you get. You could not imagine a more regressive policy, I think. It is funny—you mention it to people from overseas and they are just shocked that a so-called conservative government would come up with such a large cash splash from the public purse. But it is unfortunately consistent with what this government wants to do. It wants to redistribute money towards the well off and away from the less well off. It wants to contribute to inequality, not tackle it.

We know that this government has come under a great deal of fire and pressure not just from economists and community groups but from its own backbench to scrap the ridiculous $20 billion paid parental leave scheme. I hope that it is one of the so-called barnacles that will be scrapped. But, as I say, it is consistent with the way that this government has approached public policy generally.

They unfortunately have these very, very odd ideas about what an appropriate use of taxpayer money is—another example being forgoing five tax evasion loophole closure mechanisms that Labor proposed last year. They voted against the tax evasion bill that Labor proposed last year. And the list goes on when it comes to the way that this government has been approaching the issues of fairness and equality, because tax evasion and tax loopholes go to the heart of fairness and equality. If you allow people and companies to avoid paying taxation, that has a direct effect on government's ability to provide services to the community.

Turning to the other parts of the bill, schedule 2 makes mechanical and non-controversial amendments to the Taxation Administration Act to consolidate duplicated provisions, repeal redundant laws and move longstanding regulations into primary law. I note the member for Deakin was very supportive of these changes. The fact is that of course legislation should be made easier to read, of course it should be made more practical for practitioners and laypeople alike, but it is just a job. It is the everyday job of this parliament to do those things; it is not something that requires a great big fanfare. I do not think the government needs to jump up and say, 'Ta-da! We've managed to do our job!' Just get on with it guys. Schedule 3 amends the Financial Sector (Shareholdings) Act 1998 in respect of— (Time expired)

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