Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I was saying earlier that this policy is bad for Australians. It's not going to be good for young people, and it does change the goalposts. Now more than ever, in a cost-of-living crisis, it's never been more important to ensure our superannuation schemes remain focused on those they are designed to bring security to. The Albanese Labor government promised two years ago that life would be easier, and they went to an election on a promise of trust around that. This government went to the 2022 election with the claim that they wouldn't touch superannuation. On the night of the election, the Prime Minister said, 'We can protect universal superannuation.' Again, in February 2023, after the election, the Prime Minister promised 'no major changes to superannuation'. These are big changes to superannuation, whichever way you look at it. I'll continue to explain. The problem that I have here is that the Prime Minister did say there would be no changes to superannuation, and it is a matter of trust, because there are a number of election commitments that the Albanese government has broken—things that the Prime Minister said before the election he wouldn't do and then, after the election, has done. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions and Other Measures) Bill 2023 is one such broken promise.

We saw Julia Gillard, when she was Prime Minister, make that broken promise about the carbon tax. I'm sure there have been prime ministers on my own side that have paid the price, because it does come down to trust. If you say something to the Australian people and then you go back on that, clearly, that's a big issue, and people no longer trust you. Your word should be your bond. That's what this current Prime Minister has said a number of times: 'My word is my bond.' But then he's broken promises deliberately. One, of course, is on superannuation—this one right here. Another broken promise, of course, was about electricity pricing, when he said there would be a $275 reduction. We heard today in question time about a small business, a gym, in the member for Lindsay's electorate, where the bill had gone from $12,000 annually to $27,000 annually. That is a broken promise. I know that, in my own electorate of Petrie, people's bills have continually gone up and up. Then, of course, there was a promise about stage 3 tax cuts, and this is highly relevant because it does go to trust. The Prime Minister, as well as other members of the government—senior members on the front bench—said lots of times that stage 3 tax cuts were here to stay and that they were rock solid and guaranteed: 'My word is my bond'. It was not that they would be changed a little bit or changed in some way but that they would be unchanged: 'You can vote for us at the 2022 election—unchanged.' Of course, we know the government has changed that as well. There are three clear examples of broken promises.

Further in relation to this bill, in relation to the changes that the government is making—which they said they wouldn't—let's be clear: it is a doubling of taxation on quite a few Australians' retirement savings. And why? This government obviously dislikes, I would say, anyone who it doesn't think votes its way or who doesn't have super in a super fund that it wants. This will primarily affect people who run self-managed super funds. There's nothing the matter with running a self-managed super fund. A lot of people do it. My wife and I ran one before I came into this place. I certainly don't have this much in super. But the point I would make is that it is a changing of the goalposts. Ultimately small-business people and farmers are the ones who will be affected disproportionately, and I'll go on to explain why.

In Australia, under the Albanese Labor government, with the support of the Greens party in the Senate, with this change people like some public servants who are on defined benefits, judges and perhaps the Prime Minister, who came into this place in 1996 and will receive a parliamentary pension, get different treatment for their superannuation than a farmer or a small-business person, or perhaps a new politician—someone who was elected after 2004. So, when the Prime Minister makes these changes and he listens to the Treasurer and says, 'Look, I think we should break this promise, for this reason,' this change doesn't really impact him, because he gets a parliamentary pension for the rest of his life when he retires. I think that's an important point to make.

Let's be clear about what this means. Labor's divisional 296 tax is an unindexed wealth tax. It's a tax on aspiration, and as many as two million Australian people may face these taxes as they approach retirement. Some of these people have a lot of money in super—millions of dollars in super. Of course, we have another bill before the House in relation to super and what it means, and that's changed over time. I said earlier that when superannuation was brought in it was meant to ensure that people could save for their retirement, and the welfare bill that we see in the budget, which is well over a third of the federal budget now and probably growing each year, would reduce as Australians and particularly younger Australians in their 20s would have enough money in their superannuation that there's no way that if they retired at 67, or even 62 or 71 or whatever age they decided to retire, that they would need to go on an Australian government pension.

These changes will affect young people as well. I think of my own son, who's in the Australian Army. He's 21 years of age, and he's on an average wage. In 40 years time, when he's 61, he will be caught up in this tax—no doubt about it—because what is the threshold that the Albanese Labor government is imposing here, $3 million, going to be worth in 40 years time? We've seen just in the last two years how quickly, with inflation, rents have been impacted. For someone who had $100,000 in the bank at the 2022 election, do you think $100,000 in the bank two years later is still worth $100,000? No. It would probably buy you $87,000 worth of goods at the time, because the cost of everything has gone up. Inflation has gone up. And you're imposing on young people—people in their 20s, teenagers, younger people who are about to vote in the next election—a tax that is not indexed and that will severely impact them.

This is poor policy, and it changes the goalposts. Someone's used the example of these people who have saved for decades in some cases, or maybe even over the last 20 years, or since super came in or when the Howard government ended, in 2007 I think it was—17 years ago. That was a time when you could put a lot more money into super. Those changes have stopped. You know you can put only $27½ thousand into super this financial year to receive a discounted rate of some 15 per cent or whatever it is—not like the old days, right?

The people who do have a lot of money there, because they got it there years ago, will not be around forever. They're all getting older. They're retiring or about to retire. They're going to die off. But this government wants to whack 'em—and for what? A couple of extra billion dollars. Maybe the government, since the election two years ago, shouldn't have put in another $315 billion in spending over the forward estimates. They could have restrained that a bit, especially in this inflationary environment, and they wouldn't have needed to break their promises on this superannuation bill and on the stage 3 tax cuts.

The Prime Minister isn't good with the figures. We know that. We saw that at the last election when he was asked about the unemployment rate and he was asked about interest rates. Recently, on this bill, he said, 'Oh, it'll impact one in 200 people,' yet the finance minister, in the other place, said it will impact one in 10 people. Which one is it? Is it one in 10 or is it one in 200? And if the government can't explain this bill, how can Australians understand it?

We want all Australians to understand what their superannuation is. There are policies that the former government put in place—this government, to their credit, have kept them—like the First Home Super Saver Scheme, that actually puts more money into super. Super funds receive more money from the First Home Super Saver Scheme because it encourages young people—who are perhaps in their first job after finishing university, they might be on 60 grand a year—to salary sacrifice into their super. And rather than paying 30 per cent tax from 1 July, they'll only be hit with 15 per cent tax. They can then pull that back out for their first home. The super funds win because it teaches young Australians about salary sacrifice. The younger people win because it helps them get a deposit for their home a lot quicker. It's good policy, and I congratulate the government on keeping that, even though those opposite voted against it when we brought it in.

As far as the Albanese Labor government is concerned, and according to Treasury's own case studies, this policy will double the taxes on retirement savings on an average earning—we're going down the pathway in this country where it will basically increase taxes from 15 per cent to 30 per cent after they said 'no changes'.

This is a tax on hardworking Australians as well. As I said before, a regime that proposes a different approach for a farmer in the member for Forrest's electorate or a small-business owner in the member for Moreton's electorate than the approach for a public servant, a judge on a defined benefit or a federal politician elected before 2004 is not good policy. We know it will primarily hurt people who want to run self-managed super funds because they would tend to have more in there. It may hurt some people in industry and retail funds as well, but the government shouldn't be trying to target one group of people. If you make a promise, stick to it. You're meant to govern for all Australians. You're crowing about a $9 billion surplus, even though next year it goes to $43 billion in deficit—

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