Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's always something to follow the member for Whitlam, least because he is the chief champion against homeownership in this country. He has moved an amendment that once again focuses on putting homeownership last and their mates in super funds first. You never hear the member for Kingston or the member for Whitlam complain about the tens of millions of dollars of bonuses that get paid to fund managers, who happen to be their mates—and I wouldn't be shocked if they donated to their campaigns as well. This is the fundamental problem. Labor's economic position is based on their interests and not on the interests of the Australian people.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (2020 Measures No. 4) Bill 2020 makes sensible and practical amendments to address fundamental issues around large-scale generation certificates. It makes sure that responsibility for superannuation complaints goes to AFCA. There are amendments around the Competition and Consumer Act and the industry code for franchising, and the extension of the modification power related to measures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This debate is on rudimentary legislation to address and manage the economic affairs of this nation, to put laws in place to make sure that consumers who are wronged have pathways for redress and to make sure that we can deploy renewable energy investment across Australia, but Labor want to turn it into not virtue signalling—because that assumes that there is virtue behind their agenda and there is no virtue behind their agenda—but what at best can be called self-interest signalling, with the amendment moved by the member for Whitlam. The member for Whitlam has form. The member for Whitlam will always choose those in big super ahead of aspirational Australians. The hard data is quite unambiguous about this.

Up until 1992, on the entirely logical pathway of life, the biggest financial decision that young Australians made was to buy their own home. It fit in the slipstream of their life. They went to school and may have moved onto a skill, tertiary education or an apprenticeship. They saved for a deposit for a home with money they put away from their wages. They used that money to pay a deposit to buy a home. At that point the average age was 26. They got into the housing market and paid off their mortgage over the next 10, 20 or 30 years, so, even if it was a 30-year mortgage, by the age of 56—still a decade off the retirement age as it is set now—they had paid down their home while concurrently saving for their retirement. That was an entirely logical pathway to manage the challenges of life. Of course, once families had children off their hands, had reduced their costs and paid off their home, they were able to save and contribute more towards securing their financial security in retirement.

What's happened since 1992 is that we've taken that entirely logical process—homes first and super second—and reversed it. We've engaged in a form of economic social engineering to feed the interests of the Labor Party and their friends in big super. Their friends, who are fund managers, get paid bonuses in excess of $13 million. At least some fund managers have boasted of up to $36 million.

We have engaged in a form of economic social engineering to put super over homes, and the dreams and aspirations of young Australians have gone with it, for the perversion of the self-interests of the Labor Party so that they can stand up and scream self-interested virtue or signal their motivations and intentions. We know the consequences of this. The average age of purchasing your first home has blown out. Before I said the average age in 1980 of purchasing your first home was 26, but it was actually 24, and it has blown out now to 36. Young Australians' dreams have been thrown on to the ash heap by the Labor Party.

We do understand why. It's because home ownership is the greatest democratisation of the ownership of this country. It is the greatest empowerment of young Australians in economic terms in this country. Superannuation is the greatest advancement of the concentration of the economic capital in the hands of the few associated with the Labor Party so that they can achieve undemocratic ends, manipulating capital to achieve things they can't achieve in this chamber because the people of Australia don't trust them.

The Labor Party has actively undermined young Australians' dreams and aspirations to own their own homes. While they've done that, of course, the price of housing has gone up. They don't sit on the other side and scoff when big super invests Australian super to purchase homes that big super owns. They have no issue with that, because what they actually want to do is create a nation of Australians who are dependent serves to their own superannuation so long as they maintain control. If not, then the member for Whitlam would pass amendments to this bill to say that big super shouldn't be able to invest in housing.

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