Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

The proposition that has been put before the House this afternoon by the Labor Party is that there has apparently been a failure: firstly, to plan; secondly, for fair and sustainable retirement; and, thirdly, for all Australians. Labor is comprehensively wrong on all three of these points. First of all, we absolutely do have a plan. We have a plan designed to deal with the fact that the retirement income system—the age pension—costs $43 billion a year, and that cost is increasing. If it is to continue to be afforded, we need to have a plan to deal with it. We do have a plan on this side of the House—unlike this empty, weak rabble opposition that is consistently standing forward, standing up and engaging in cheap populist jibes. The former proud Labor Party has descended to this! None of you are descendants of Hawke and Keating. You are an embarrassment to the former proud Labor Party.

On this side of the House we have a clear plan to deal with a serious public policy issue: sustaining the provision of the age pension so it is always there for those who need it. Indeed, with the measures announced in this budget, those with no or few assets will see their pension rising, on average, by $30 a fortnight from 1 January. And yes, those with significant assets are facing an incremental tightening of the assets test. It is true that a couple with a house and assets of $1.15 million will now see a reduction in the assets test to $823,000. We recognise that this is an impost on a relatively small group of people, but this is about making sure that the overall system is sustainable, and we have a fair plan to do it.

Secondly, the issue before the House is whether the plan is fair and sustainable. With a $43 billion age pension system, we need that to be sustainable. We need to continue to be able to pay for the age pension system. We need to make sure that the pension will always be there for those who need it—the neediest, the vulnerable, those who get to the stage of life where they rely on the age pension and do not have other assets to rely upon. What could be a more cruel and irresponsible hoax from any major political party than to not ensure that the pension system is sustainable so that those who need it, when they get to their retirement age, have the pension system available to them? From the other side of the chamber, what do we hear from the once proud party of Hawke and Keating? What we hear is: 'Don't worry about there being deficit after deficit. We won't even turn our mind to it. We won't even worry about how things are to be afforded, because apparently that is the domain of a responsible political party. We are not going to worry about that.' That is essentially the argument that we are getting from this once proud, once economically responsible political party that is engaging in the cruel hoax of pretending that everything can be afforded, that there is no need to worry about it.

As serious advocates of policy know, we have in this country a welfare system where a key principle is that we target it to people who are in need, and that is an absolutely critical principle of the changes that we have announced in this budget. We are asked: how is this fair? Fairness is critical. It is critical that we encourage people to save for their retirement through the superannuation system so that they can build up the biggest possible balance and they can rely upon their own resources to the maximum extent possible. There is nothing fair about changing the rules on the taxation of super when people have been accruing savings throughout their working life. All of a sudden the Labor Party wants to increase the tax on superannuation so that if your income from superannuation is above $75,000 you are going to be facing new unexpected taxes. We reject that. It is not a fair approach.

The third principle is an approach for all Australians, and the right approach for all Australians is a retirement income system that meets the needs of all. For those who are in a position to save to provide for themselves and build up significant assets, the superannuation system is there for them to rely upon. For those without significant resources, we always need to have the pension system there. It would be a cruel hoax to pretend that we can continue to afford it without the responsible measures that we are introducing.

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