Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

because that means more fees. You're quite right, member for Stirling, that means more fees for the union movement. And guess what? When you're not focused, it means the union funds can continue to underperform. They are relying on their members, probably good paid-up members, focusing on other priorities and not looking at their underperforming union super funds. This bill will simply mean that those union funds have to be transparent, so their members know about whether or not they're underperforming. Whether your funds are underperforming will be brought to the members' attention, so that you can make the best decisions for your retirement.

This bill comes back to a fundamental difference between us and the Labor Party, between the Morrison government and the Labor Party members opposite, including the member for Canberra. We know that superannuation is your money. It's your savings, yours to spend and yours to guide as you think best. The Labor Party thinks that it's the Labor Party's money. They think they know how best to spend it, the unions know how best to spend it, the superannuation boards stacked with their union mates and ex-union officials know how best to spend your money, so you best put your money into the super funds, not know whether your fund is underperforming, have your funds diluted by multiple funds through multiple unions because you go from job to job and each union signs you up to a different fund for your different jobs. All this bill does is provide transparency for your funds, for your money, so that you can see it and better guide it, rather than the Labor Party trying to guide it. So I am deeply disappointed, but not surprised, that the Labor Party would choose to oppose this bill because it is what we see from them time and time again. They are on the side of a protection racket for their union mates.

Members on this side of the chamber are on the side of Australians and making sure that they have a secure retirement through control and transparency of their retirement funds. It should be a no-brainer that we would all want Australians to have a secure retirement. This side of the chamber wants them to be able to better plan their retirement and enjoy their retirement in the best possible way. That means having more money in your superannuation. To do this, we need a superannuation scheme. We on this side of the chamber support superannuation very strongly, but we want it to be efficient. We want it to work for Australians. We want it to work for those who are investing their money in it, not work for the vested interests that are set up by the Labor Party. We know that the Labor Party think that the retirement savings of Australians is their cash cow. This is their opportunity to spend it how they want. We saw that at the last election when they were so eager to put the retiree tax on Australians, when they were so eager to put $387 billion worth of taxes on all Australians. The Labor Party think that they know how to spend your money better than you do. We don't.

The facts of what is contained in this bill will provide some very important safeguards and transparency measures for all Australians. When superannuation accounts are automatically opened when employees start a new job or they change jobs—as they often do when they start and they're building their careers and not thinking as eagerly about their retirement savings and growing their retirement savings as people at the end of their careers are—they're holding several accounts. Along with those several accounts, they're getting several sets of premiums and several sets of fees. This bill will stop that. This bill will ensure that your fund travels with you from job to job.

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