Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

We have clearly struck a chord: the Leader of the Opposition, who calls superannuation a legalised tax haven, insulting millions of Australians with 14 million superannuation accounts, $2 trillion of funds under management which grew from $300 billion in just 1997 and which will go to $9 trillion by 2040. The Leader of the Opposition is extremely sensitive today to the fact that we have read back to him the words of a doorstop he held less than two weeks ago. He was so impressed with his own words, and I am going to read them again. On 3 June the Leader of the Opposition held a doorstop. When asked by a journalist, 'What is Labor's policy on superannuation?', he said: 'If you've got $2 million in superannuation and you're in retirement and you're earning an income of $100,000, we are proposing you pay a reduction in the tax concession.'

Well, that is not Labor's policy, because I have their press release here from 22 April this year, where he actually said that Labor's policy is to put a tax on earnings above $75,000, not $100,000, and on balances above $1.5 million, not $2 million. The Leader of the Opposition has no standing in this place on superannuation, because he does not even know his own policy. He was thinking back to 2013, when he put out a press release with his best friend back then, the member for Lilley, saying that the tax on super that Labor proposed was on earnings above $100,000. Now we know that it was above $75,000. In its press release on 22 April this year, Labor had the audacity to say that it is only going to affect some 170,000 Australians. David Leyonhjelm had the Parliamentary Budget Office do the same sort of modelling for the same proposal, because the Labor Party would not release the modelling.

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