Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Fenner has just explained, Labor will be supporting the Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Measures No. 2) Bill 2017. It is largely technical in nature. The clear thing that comes from this legislation is that the reason it is here today is to clean up the mess that this government had already made last year when rushing through its changes to superannuation law. The government has clearly been a disaster when it comes to superannuation. In last year's budget are the government announced its planned changes to superannuation. 'Planned' is probably a bit euphemistic here. They included tax breaks which we were told would reduce reliance on the age pension. It was, in a way, another example of what has been dubbed 'Labor light'—a good Labor idea, but under this government it did not go far enough and was badly implemented.

However, half of those superannuation tax breaks would still go to the top 20 per cent. The government's Financial System Inquiry found they were unlikely to be relying on the age pension. So the government's backbench and its donor base opposed the measures put forward, such as a $1.6 million transfer cap, the $500,000 lifetime non-concessional cap and the $25,000 concessional cap that they believed would have had adverse effects. These changes were announced in the 2016 budget with no consultation. There was no prior conversation about what government intended to change and how. Implementing these proposed changes was done in a hurry. Even the superannuation industry had serious concerns that the number of people affected by the transition to retirement changes could be five times larger than the estimates that the government had given. The coalition faced the consequences of bringing forward proposed changes to people's retirement savings without having done any proper consultation whatsoever.

After months of internal division—it sounds pretty similar to now—and debate the government eventually had to revise its package. Lo and behold—the damage had already been done, and confidence in the superannuation system had been undermined because of the way this government had handled changes it wanted to make to superannuation. In November last year the government did eventually pass a watered-down version of its proposed changes. After its own budget a significant backlash was heard, not just from a broad cross-section of Australia, but from its own base as well. So the government has been especially cautious now in its treatment of superannuation. But, of course, having lacked a consultative process in bringing forth changes to superannuation and rushing through legislation to try to make it happen, once its party room had sort of agreed on where it was going to end up, they botched it. So we find ourselves here today having to deal with some technical changes to make sure that we can fix up the problems that they created in their own 'plan' because they rushed it through.

I think this is something that we must take note of in this chamber, because at the moment we see a government going through the throes of the same things again when it comes to energy and climate change policy in this country—marathon party room meetings, big debate across the party room, clear divisions emerging, multiple views being expressed on different television channels and interviews, and concerns about leaking from the government and the party room. We have seen this before. We saw it only a few months ago in reality when it came to superannuation. It does cause us quite a degree of alarm because, at the end of the day, we are having a discussion about the complete lack of policy focus on the other side when it comes to energy and climate change, and the lack of certainty that is currently being provided to industry as a result of the lack of policy focus of this government.

It is as a consequence of that that we have seen underinvestment in energy in this country, which is causing a large number of the problems which the government are complaining about. They are driving themselves into exactly the same problem now in the area of energy and climate change that they did under superannuation. We could see it writ large in the behaviour of this government only a few short months ago. Certainty is such a critical factor in the area of climate change and energy policy in this country that we do not want to have the government bring forward some rushed version of legislation after having not properly consulted, after having division in their party room, and then months later having to come back again only to fix it all because they botched it the first time. It is writ large from the behaviour of this government through all of their activity to date, and I think the Australian people need to take note that those on the Treasury benches right now cannot be trusted when it comes to technical reform, whether it is on superannuation or whether it is on energy and climate change policy. It is of grave concern to people on this side of the chamber, and it should be of grave concern to the Australian people. That is why, as a responsible party, the Labor Party will support this legislation to make sure that the system that the government have proposed to introduce works properly. But let us take note: we need to make sure that we do not see these problems manifest again in other areas of law reform such as we can see unravelling right now before our very eyes when it comes to things like a CET.

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