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

What a hide the member for Oxley has asking that question! He has led with his chin. The Labor Party has become irrelevant in the negotiations to save the Australian taxpayer billions of dollars. We have reached an agreement with the Greens because the Labor Party refused to come to the table to negotiate an important reform to ensure the sustainability of the pension. The fact is, all of those questions you have asked are there for people to plainly see in the press releases, which make it very clear that we have reached an agreement that will ensure a saving to the taxpayer of $2.4 billion over the forward estimates. Some 170,000 people on the pension, including, I am sure, some in the great electorates of those on this side of the House, will get, on average, an extra $30 a fortnight. I would like to know this: would the member for Chifley, would the member for Fraser, would the member for Oxley and would the member for Hotham like to go to the members of their electorates who are on the pension and say to them, 'I didn't even participate in a negotiation that would have led to an increase of $30 a fortnight in the pension'? Just so you understand: 170,000 pensioners will now get, on average, an extra $30 a fortnight; some 50,000 pensioners who are on the part-pension will now get onto the full pension; and the Australian taxpayer will save $2.4 billion over the forward estimates.

The member for Cook, the Minister for Social Services, deserves a lot of credit for the way he has gone about negotiating this very practical and successful agreement with the Greens, because the Labor party has decided to be a party of objection, a party of no ideas and a party that has failed to come up with any of its own savings.

The key question that the member for Oxley raises is: what have we decided to do about superannuation? The key answer to that is that we have said we have no plans to change the taxation concessions on superannuation because we took to the Australian people at the last election a commitment to make no adverse or unexpected changes to super.

Mr Van Manen interjecting—

I am asked here by my good friend the member for Forde, the Beattie killer: what was our commitment? I said no adverse or unexpected changes to super. What was the Labor Party's commitment? On the eve of the 2007 election, one Kevin Rudd stood up and told the Australian people that he would not change superannuation one jot or one tittle. And what happened? The member for Forde knows all too well. What happened there was that the Labor Party introduced 12 adverse changes and it produced some $9 billion of additional taxes. Then the Labor Party was so ashamed of its position on super that the member for McMahon, as the Treasurer of Australia, rushed out a press release in 2013 and said to the people of Canning, the people of Forde, the people of Dunkley, the people of Reid—and I have just met with the people of Reid and I wish all of them well—and the people of Lyons and the people for Eden-Monaro: 'We will not make any changes to super for five years.' That lasted all of 48 hours!

Now we have the member for Fraser, who once called for the abolition of negative gearing, the member for McMahon, the shadow Treasurer in this country, and the member for Maribyrnong, the Leader of the Opposition, all saying they support two additional taxes on super, both on the contributions and on the earnings phase. This will hit at least 425,000 Australians—that is from the Parliamentary Budget Office. It is more than two times the estimate of the number of people affected given by the Labor Party. The Labor Party have a budget black hole approaching $60 billion, with savings measures of ours they do not support in the Senate and additional spending measures of theirs. What have they decided to do? They have decided to raid the hard-earned savings of ordinary Australians in superannuation. Shame on the Labor Party!

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