Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Universal superannuation is a great Labor reform. It's one that we're proud of. It is not only making a difference to people's lives in their retirement; importantly, it's a ballast for our national economy. We are the envy of the world, with $3 trillion in superannuation funds to make an extraordinary difference to our national economy so that at a time of crisis there is a pool of national savings that helps to create jobs and helps to provide that certainty in our national economy, particularly during times of difficulty, as we're seeing with the pandemic. The truth is that this pool of savings has helped Australia during this crisis and has helped to stop predator hedge funds hoovering up distressed Australian businesses during the COVID pandemic. Superannuation is safeguarding both Australian workers and Australia's national sovereignty.

The coalition have never believed in universal super. They opposed it at the beginning, and they continue to undermine it each and every time they have an opportunity. Those opposite aren't true conservatives. They don't have respect for institutions. They're vandals when it comes to attacking the institution of superannuation.

Raids on super during the pandemic meant that people were robbing their own futures. We have 600,000 people who will be left with zero in their superannuation accounts because the government refused to provide them with other support. Casual workers, particularly younger people, were encouraged to take money out of their super, which will not only have a negative effect on their retirement income down the track; it will also make an enormous difference to our national economy, because it will place greater burden on future budgets. This is a government that had $1 trillion in debt. It gets worse over coming years, rising to $1.1 trillion then $1.2 trillion then $1.3 trillion. They have no plan on those issues.

What they have a plan for, though, is to continue to undermine our superannuation system. Every single increase in super has been opposed by the coalition. This Prime Minister is trying to cut your super. Most cynically in recent times, out of all the attacks that have occurred on superannuation, was when the government announced a plan to let the victims of domestic violence raid their own superannuation to fund their own escapes from violent relationships. This would have made them victims twice over: not only victims of domestic and family violence but victims in terms of paying for their own escape down the track—reducing their own savings. They did scrap that plan, after heavy criticism. But you just know that, given a chance, it will be back. It will be back because they don't get it. They just don't understand superannuation. This Prime Minister has a tin ear, and we know he has a heart of stone.

We also know that, at a time where they discovered they probably should have a women's budget statement, they re-introduced it, after they abolished it in 2014 when, I kid you not, Tony Abbott was the then minister for women as well as Prime Minister. We had the extraordinary circumstances during that debate where they wanted to undermine superannuation further and place further pressure on the victims of domestic violence. One of the things that we know that occurs in domestic violence situations is further intimidation of the victims. Can you imagine the pressure that would have been placed by perpetrators—who, by their very definition, are people who don't have ethics about placing pressure on women—saying, 'You go and raid your super.' It's extraordinary that this government doesn't get it.

But this government, of course, does want Australians to retire with less. They want Australians to work without proper compensation, having frozen wages effectively for eight years. Over the next four years, wages are actually going to go down. What is their argument about superannuation and wages? These frauds opposite argue that somehow there's a connection that if you have less super then you'll have higher wages. The problem with that is that during the last eight years you've had stagnant wages at the same time as they've held off and broken commitments that they took to the 2013 election and the 2016 election that they would not freeze super. Of course, in 2019, they tried to do that as well. Now they've had a little back-off, just on the eve of the next federal election. But we know that they're opposed to the increase up to 12 per cent in superannuation.

This is a government that has presided over and brought down a budget that will have lower wages, low growth, low productivity and lower workforce participation. What a quadrella from this government. The fact is that when super was increased from four per cent to nine per cent, wages increased. They increased during that period. But under this government, of course, we've had stagnant wages and stagnant superannuation. The truth is that superannuation also provides a boost to our national economy. The truth is that the savings that can go into infrastructure investment, that can go into investment, that can go into strengthening our national sovereignty—that is something that should be applauded by those opposite. But instead of that we have this rubbish legislation that's before the House here.

This bill follows on from their budget and introduces three elements. The first is a new system to staple individual members to a single super account. Imagine what will happen there. Imagine the big banks going out there, offering a product, signing someone up, saying, 'We can give you this account, rather than industry super.' They'd had it with industry super, because it's too successful. It's too successful. Remember the big review they had—industry super versus retail funds? What's more successful? Industry super. They had a whole royal commission. Here it is: a royal commission into the banking superannuation and financial services industry. What did they find? They found all sorts of shenanigans in the banking industry and all sorts of shonky activities in financial services, but what they found with industry super was good returns for members. But, because there's a connection, a proud connection, with the trade union movement, they're against it and, therefore, they just attack it. But what they want is to have that stapling of accounts so that if you're stuck in an account that isn't delivering or in an account that has high fees then you're in there for life.

The second element is a new system to test the performance of certain funds. But, of course, what this bill, as it's currently drafted, does is introduce performance benchmarks that penalise a fund for investing in unlisted Australian assets such that Australian super savings can actually go to the United States but not be used here. Gee, isn't that smart? The bill also proposes to lock members into underperforming dud funds. A young worker who enters the super system for the first time may find themselves locked into that poor fund as they get older. The bill also ignores admin fees in the performance benchmarks. Can you imagine that? It just ignore them. It gives a green light to bad funds to increase their admin charges at the expense of member accumulation.

Despite their being the so-called champions of the market and free enterprise and boardroom sovereignty, the thing that should torpedo this legislation more than any other is the measure that gives the bloke who sits over there, the Treasurer of Australia, the right to veto an investment that a superannuation board considers to be in the interest of their members. Think about what the Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia did in vetoing funding from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to a windfarm that would have created 250 jobs in North Queensland. He intervened and vetoed it. No problem. Nothing to see here. What they want to do is allow a Treasurer to determine what a board does. You hear from those opposite when it comes to super: it's the people's money. This bloke thinks it's his money! This Treasurer wants to control what happens in individual super accounts throughout the entire country. It is absurd.

We know, with the political interference and the views of those opposite, that they'll be vetoing renewable energy projects. We know they'll be vetoing projects they don't agree with, unlike the superannuation funds and the role they play in infrastructure investment in this country, whether it be public transport projects, like the Gold Coast light rail—the possibility that you had there in terms of investment in our ports. I mean, this mob—and we had a bit of a debate today about national sovereignty—couldn't stop a Chinese-government-linked entity buying Darwin's port, but they want to stop superannuation funds of Australian workers owning ports around Australia! That's their view. What a farce!

On this bill, as to this provision, I've got to say: in a totalitarian state is where it belongs. It's a provision that allows a Treasurer to veto funds that are not government funds and veto where they invest their money. That is something that occurs in totalitarian states, not in a democracy like Australia. And that is why this bill should be rejected.

Look at the impact of this bill. You would think that this bill, if it were really positive, would actually have a positive impact on growth. But have a look at it. It's a $46-million impact on the budget—not lifting it; driving it down! It's another masterstroke by these so-called economic managers. 'Economic managers'! They've given up on fiscal policy. They treated Australians like mugs when they came in here and said that the budget was already in surplus, when it wasn't. They got elected promising a surplus in their first year and every year after. But they always seek to undermine Australian national economic sovereignty. They did that when they drove car-makers offshore. They did that when we lost 90,000 jobs in manufacturing. They're doing that by ignoring, instead of embracing, the opportunities that would come from dealing with climate change and, in doing so, creating jobs and driving down energy prices as well as emissions.

They're also doing that in undermining superannuation for ideological reasons. They just don't like the fact that workers can own capital—that workers can be in that position. For the first time, we're a net exporter rather than an importer of capital, because of the strength of our superannuation funds.

And thank you, Paul Keating, for this reform and for this vision. This is a proud Labor vision, superannuation. We will defend it. We will argue for it, because it's in the interests of workers but also in the interests of our nation.

The fact is: those opposite can't be trusted. They are not on the side of Australian workers.

We, in the Labor Party, are on your side. That's what we say to those people who understand how important superannuation is to the quality of their retirement and to our national economy.

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