Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I compliment the previous speaker, the member for Moreton, on his fine contribution on the bill and also on his outstanding use of Hansards in the video background—a fine choice indeed!

Today we're here to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Flexible Superannuation) Bill 2020, and, like so many bills that are presented in this place by this government, it is a fairly innocuous bill—one that doesn't get to the heart of the issue that we should be getting to. Obviously Labor have already said that we support this bill, but today my remarks are going to focus on some of the issues that are raised within the member for Whitlam's second reading amendment, which I will come to throughout my contribution. But, like so many bills that are presented in this parliament, the issues that the bill seeks to address don't go to the substance of the things that actually need to be fixed in this country. There are serious issues in superannuation in this nation. There are serious issues of inequities in superannuation in this country. It is a real waste that the government doesn't seek to address some of the issues of superannuation that we need to address as a society.

Superannuation inequities in this country affect young Australians; they affect older Australians; they especially affect women and women over 55. So today I am going to go through some of those inequities, some of the issues that we need to address in superannuation, as well as some of the history that has led us to this place, and of course some of the ideologues in the coalition and government backbenchers that are driving the superannuation agenda, or the lack of superannuation agenda, in this country.

Superannuation is a great Labor reform. It is a reform that the Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating introduced in this country, and it has helped bring security and financial security to literally millions of Australians. It is through this scheme, where Australians have been able to acquire capital and savings, that many Australians have been able to achieve financial security and prosperity in this country. Yet this government and the coalition parties have consistently sought to undermine the superannuation scheme that we are so proud of in this country.

But if you really want to see how the Prime Minister cares about older Australians you only have to look at the last months, where the Prime Minister was caught out on the pension. The pension was going to be frozen, for the first time in a quarter of a century. In this pandemic, the pension for older Australians was going to be frozen. And it's only after being caught out that they have been shamed into actually looking at that issue.

Young people in this country are raiding their superannuation, when they can least afford it, in this pandemic. I think one of the things that we need to look at, as to why the government is making young people raid their superannuation, is that it followed the largest economic miscalculation in the Treasury department's history in this country. Seventy billion dollars was overestimated in the JobKeeper scheme. Originally we were told that the JobKeeper program was going to cost around $120 billion, and, instead of it costing that, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer announced that they had miscalculated by about $60 billion to $70 billion. And, instead of actually making sure that the JobKeeper scheme supported people throughout this pandemic, the Prime Minister's and the Treasurer's response was to make young people raid the superannuation accounts that they should not be touching in this time. What does that actually mean? In the middle of a blunder by this government worth $60 billion or $70 billion, young people are taking out $10,000 and $20,000. The Prime Minister said, 'Well, it's just a small amount of the total superannuation funds that are available'—spin, spin, spin—but for a young person in this country, who isn't on the Prime Minister's 15 per cent superannuation and isn't on the Treasurer's 15 per cent superannuation, taking out $10,000 or $20,000 will cost them potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in their retirement. Hundreds of thousands of dollars taken out of a young Australian's retirement—that's typical of this government. They're happy to push through the media story of the day, happy to spin around and spin all of the policies that they present to our country, but the reality is that they don't have a vision for our country and they don't want to support young Australians setting up their own financial security. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer don't want to make sure young Australians can retire with enough. Instead, they're saying: 'Just do a little bit. Just take a little bit out of your superannuation. It's not a big deal. It's only a small fraction of the total pool of superannuation in this country.' But the reality is that it's going to make a big difference to the retirement of young Australians. It's also going to make a big difference to debt and the amount of government commitment that is going to be required to support pensioners who don't have enough in retirement.

So on one hand the government are happy for young Australians to rob their future of serious financial security, and on the other hand, instead of actually addressing our society's serious and structural inequities on superannuation, their response is to break their own election commitment. Yes, of course Labor supports a rise in superannuation, but it was the government's own election commitment—Scott Morrison's own election commitment—to make the superannuation guarantee rise up until 2025. They're breaking their own election commitment, but, worse, the structural inequalities within superannuation that exist now adversely affect women. Women in this country are retiring with much less superannuation than men. One in three women in Australia are retiring without any superannuation at all.

At the last election, I can admit, Labor didn't get everything right. We didn't, and that's pretty soul searching and pretty devastating. But one of the things that we did take to the last election was a policy to help support women to access and receive superannuation in the times in which they are out of the workforce. Women in this country do more than their fair share of work at home. They do more than their fair share of work without pay. They shouldn't be penalised as a result of it. We need population growth in this country. We need Australians to be having more Australians, but at the time in which women in this country are taking the responsibility home they are being penalised and they are retiring with less. What's that resulting in? It's resulting in women over 55 being the fastest growing cohort of people facing homelessness in this country. To think about me, as a young man, and about my family members and my friends and women who are in that age bracket potentially facing homelessness is gut wrenching. It's un-Australian for people to be without a home. This pandemic has shown how important our homes are for keeping us safe. It has shown us how important it is that we all need to stay in our homes in order to keep others safe. Yet in Australia the systemic structures within our economy are leading to women over the age of 55 being the fastest cohort of homeless Australians. That is what we should be addressing in a superannuation bill. That is what we should be addressing as part of our country's vision to make Australians more financially secure, to make Australians more prosperous. Instead we have a government that is looking to break its own election commitment, not so that it can increase superannuation for Australians but so that it can reduce superannuation for Australians.

The architect of the Australian superannuation system, the great PJ Keating, legislated in 1992 to increase super gradually from three per cent to 12 per cent. It was going to get to 12 per cent in 2001 but, of course, the Howard government froze it. The Gillard government relegislated an increase in 2011, back up to the 12 per cent that was originally planned by Paul Keating. But it only got to 9½ per cent in 2014 before the Abbott government froze it again. We thought, 'Maybe there's going to be a change in the superannuation commitment,' when Scott Morrison and the government committed to a staggered increase of 12 per cent by 2025, prior to the last election.

In recent weeks and months the Treasurer was asked 'Are you going to scrap your commitment?' It's not Labor's commitment and it's not Centre Alliance's—or what's left of the party—commitment. It's the government's commitment. He was asked: 'Are you going to scrap your commitment to increase superannuation to 12 per cent?' The Treasurer replied: 'We have no plans to change that legislated increase. It goes to 12 per cent'.

The Prime Minister said, 'There's no change to the government's policy' on July 22. Senator Cormann, in the other place that we don't talk about, was asked, 'Can you rule out any changes to the timetable for the legislated increase to the superannuation guarantee?' and Senator Cormann, who I wish well in his retirement, said yes. But, of course, there is a growing movement of disgruntled young IPA operatives in the coalition backbench, born into a suit, who are furious about that commitment. They have been badgering and prodding and making sure their voices are heard to scrap the government's own commitment to superannuation.

It's hardly surprising that these young IPA backbenchers in the government, who are becoming more bolshie by the day, are allowed to run their agenda of scrapping superannuation when this minister for superannuation said she's 'ambivalent to the issue, to tell you the truth'. She's ambivalent to Australians retiring with a fair share of retirement savings. She's ambivalent to women having their fair share of superannuation. The assistant minister for superannuation is ambivalent to equity in retirement in this country. That says a lot about the agenda and the sense of fairness that governs this country, and it's hardly surprising.

One of my electorate neighbours, the member for Goldstein—busy doing Instagram videos in his lockdown—has been prodding and pushing for the super guarantee to be removed. I barely hear Senator Andrew Bragg, in the other place, speak without calling for a reduction of superannuation in this country. He is infatuated with it. This is an agenda that many in the government are seeking to pursue, to break their own commitment around superannuation—that is, to break their own commitment to help Australians retire with more. This is an agenda that is being pursued by people who are going to receive 15 per cent superannuation, who are getting paid their fair share. They're happy for Australians, especially women in this country, to retire with less. People in this parliament, who are receiving 15 per cent superannuation, are happy for young people in this country to withdraw thousands of dollars, potentially costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement. It says a lot about the priorities; it says a lot about the ability for members in this place to put themselves in the shoes of the people that they seek to represent.

We can do better. We can address the issues that are systemic in the superannuation industry. We need to make superannuation fairer for Australians. We need to make superannuation fairer for women in this country. We need to make sure women aren't retiring with less than men in this country. We need to make sure that young people have a prospect of financial security in this country. We need to make sure that people can save and can achieve capital savings in their lifetime so that they can rely less on the government and more on their own hard work. Yes, it should be hard, but it should be fair. At the moment the government's plan to roll back the superannuation guarantee isn't fair. It is going to hurt young people and it is going to hurt Australian women as well.

See this speech in context