Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Superannuation (Objective) Bill 2023. The stated purpose of this bill is to legislate the statutory objective of Australia's superannuation system. In principle, this is supported. It has as its proposed objective to preserve savings to deliver income for a dignified retirement, alongside government support in an equitable and sustainable way. Again, in principle that is supported. However, as with anything to do with this government, we need to look at the devil in the detail and we also need to look at the promises this government has already broken in relation to superannuation.

Before I head into that territory, I think after almost 30 years of compulsory superannuation, bringing this bill before the House is an opportunity for us to revisit the fundamentals of superannuation in Australia. I also intend to highlight the way that various superannuation funds have unfortunately, in many instances, jumped into bed with the union movement. This is not in the interests of their members. With more than $3.4 trillion in funds under management, more than Australia's annual GDP, our superannuation system is a key institution in our economy. With that institutional weight comes an institutional responsibility. To understand superannuation today to enact legislation, its intended role in Australia's retirement income system should be considered.

Australia's retirement income system has traditionally been viewed as having three main components, parts or pillars. Firstly, there's the social security means tested age pension. Secondly, there are the compulsory superannuation contributions, and, thirdly, there are additional private savings. Each pillar interacts with and influences the others. For example, superannuation is counted in the assets test for the age pension for persons who have reached pension age. In addition, income from superannuation is included in the income test for the age pension. In that way, these three pillars all interconnect.

The superannuation guarantee was introduced in 1992. At that time the legislation did not include a statement about the objective, but the then Treasurer said:

The levy … will provide a coherent and equitable framework in which retirement incomes objectives can be progressed. It will ensure that, by the beginning of the next century, virtually all employees will be accumulating substantial superannuation savings to help fund their retirement income.

Former Treasurer and Prime Minister Paul Keating described the means tested age pension as a 'basic anti-destitution payment' designed merely to alleviate poverty rather than provide income maintenance for its recipients in the years prior to and at the time the compulsory superannuation was introduced. In his 1991-92 budget speech, John Kerin stressed that the super guarantee's purpose was to 'ensure that all Australians have a secure income in retirement'.

When the legislation was introduced in April 1992, John Dawkins called the superannuation guarantee the foundation for income security and higher standards of living in retirement for future generations of retirees. And I've been present in this House today, where I've heard the member for Ryan and the member for Bruce make a number of quite outstanding—ridiculous, with respect—comments in relation to the coalition's apparent objection to compulsory superannuation. We absolutely support compulsory superannuation. We support in any way the right of Australians to save for their own retirement and to look after themselves in their retirement. So I think that both the member for Ryan and the member for Bruce, with respect, need to look a bit more carefully at the coalition's attitude towards Australians saving for their own retirement.

But we come now to some of the work that the Albanese Labor government has done in relation to changing superannuation for Australians. At the last election the ALP policy on the National Reconstruction Fund said that it will allocate $15 billion to partner with the private sector, including superannuation funds, to support investments which demonstrate they'll grow the economy and increase employment. Particularly, the government—the then opposition—referred to opportunities to invest in energy and housing. But superannuation is Australians' money. It's the savings of Australian workers. It's not there to be used to prop up already exorbitant government spending. It's not there when the government cannot work out sensible policies on energy and housing. The government should not be having access to Australian workers' money in this way. It is in fact using members' funds, the superannuation savings from Australia, to fund its own spending. This was never the intention when the legislation was introduced way back in 1992. And it's quite curious, therefore, when the government said it wants to use some of the superannuation money for housing, that it will not adopt the coalition's sensible policy of allowing first-home buyers to use their superannuation as collateral for a deposit to assist them into home ownership.

So the government will allow Australians, through superannuation and at the discretion of those funds, to invest in other people's housing; but it won't allow Australians to use their own money to invest in their own housing. That's unbelievable.

It was never envisaged in those early days of compulsory superannuation that it would be used to plug revenue gaps or to become an alternative source of government spending. That was never the intention, and it should not be the intention today. But this is what we are seeing here with the Labor government's new taxes on superannuation, which I'm about to come to, and its intention to facilitate the super funds to utilise members' funds to pay for energy, housing projects and anything else that the Labor government decides to dream up.

In Australian superannuation schemes, the investor has to accept compulsion in return for the superannuation benefits that belong to the individual. But, again, these are private savings, and this is a crucial part of the superannuation. Because at the end of the day it is fundamental: superannuation belongs to Australians. It is Australian workers' money. It's not the government's. It's not the Prime Minister's. It's not the Treasurer's. Superannuation is Australians' money. It's not a piggy bank to be spent or taxed to fill budget holes. In recent years, the objectives and purposes of the superannuation system have been examined on several occasions. On none of those occasions, whether it be the 2014 financial system inquiry or the 2020 retirement income review, did it say that superannuation should be used to simply prop up government spending or to plug a budget black hole whenever the government feels like it.

Overall, the coalition support a legislated objective, provided that the objective does not stray from superannuation's primary purpose. An emphasis on supporting retirement incomes for Australia is the driving force of the coalition's thinking on the next priorities for superannuation, but Australians themselves should be making their own decisions about their super. These should not be decisions that are being made by government whenever it simply wants to move some money into another pet project.

I turn now to some of Labor's broken promises on super. In 2022 at the election the government claimed they wanted to end the superannuation wars. A year ago, almost to the day, we instead had the government reignite those wars. Only in the last few months have we seen what those changes really look like: a doubling of taxation on Australians' retirement savings and a new un-indexed annual tax on unrealised capital gains—that's right; unrealised capital gains. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer went to the election promising no changes to superannuation but, in February 2023, have since broken that promise by introducing a new superannuation tax on unrealised capital gains. This is a world-first wealth tax that will hurt, mostly, farmers and family businesses. It's forcing Australians to pay tax on profits on income that has not been realised. The government's failure to index their new superannuation tax means that up to two million young Australians earning average wages today will face a wealth tax, according to analysis of Treasury modelling published in the Australian. Superannuation belongs to Australians. It is a long-term saving strategy. Australians make decisions on their superannuation based on election promises. These election promises have been broken—more broken election promises.

I turn now to one last issue that the government has not addressed in any of its changes to superannuation: the link between many super funds and unions. Particularly, I commend the work of Senator Andrew Bragg in the other place to highlight, for example, the AEC data from 2021-22, where super funds paid $10 million to unions in political payments. No wonder the government has been silent on this issue. Since 2006 super funds have spent more than $115 million on the trade unions. The CFMEU banked $4.47 million in 2021-22 and $35 million overall. Super funds are retirement homes for Labor politicians, but they are also current cash cows for the unions and Labor. These payments should not occur. They are not in the best interests of the members. They are not in the best interests of Australians.

If we are looking at legislating an objective to superannuation, there are a number of other issues that this government should also be taking up, which include not using Australians' superannuation money to fund their own projects, and they should be calling for a proper investigation into the link between the union movement and many of these superannuation funds. With over $3 trillion in these superannuation funds—$3 trillion of Australians' hard earned money—this is now urgent.

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