Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It would be tempting and easy to look at the debate on this bill as one about people who are wealthy. In the talking points that the government has provided, they have sought to narrow that number to 80,000 affected individuals. Australians who are struggling right now—the average wage is $95,000, and the median wage is $65,000—would probably say, 'What has this got to do with the average Australian?' It has everything to do with the average Australian, particularly younger Australians.

Younger Australians are taken for granted by this government. They bank them electorally and perhaps have some competition with other parties. But young Australians are being sold short. We saw that they are being sold short on the issue of ballooning debt. You just have to go to the Intergenerational report on page 144 to see that, for every person in this nation, there was government spending in 2023 dollars of $25,000—$25,000 per person in Australia was spent by those who make decisions in this place. When you think about the average wage of $95,000 or the median wage, which is directly in the middle, of $65,000, that is a huge proportion of wages—average and median wages—being spent on federal government spending.

But, on the graph on page 144 of the Intergenerational report, it notes that in 40 years time, a generation away in 2063, that spending will hit $40,000. That uses 2023 numbers. So, assuming there are no increases in productivity—and that's a fair assumption with this government—assuming that that is the case, if the average wage is $95,000 and the median wage is $65,000, if we're to have ballooning government spending at that level, that is totally unsustainable.

Then, on the issue of housing—we will have an MPI today on housing, and we will have more to say on that—young Australians were looking to this government to provide hope that they can, like generations that have come before them, own their own piece of Australia, that they can build a better life for themselves, a life where, if they choose, they can raise children and enjoy grandchildren in generations to come. That aspiration is now at risk, and we saw in an article today in the newspaper that, looking at Sydney house prices, to save for a 20 per cent deposit is looking at 46 years for those on the average wage. It is 21 years in Melbourne. That's going to cause young people just to give up. That would be a rational decision.

So this decision, this proposal, on superannuation also affects young people. Young people are quite financially literate, and that's one of the good things about social media. I've spoken to many young people in high school or at university who are learning about the great benefits of compound returns. The flip side of that is the horrible losses that can come for people with compound debt, and that is borne out particularly in credit card debt. The key issue with this bill, in addition to the broken promise and taxing on unrealised capital gains, is the lack of indexing. Three million dollars may seem like a lot of money now, but without indexing that will affect much more than 80,000 people. In fact, it will affect two million people. For young Australians who are putting money away in their superannuation, by the time they come to be at this relevant stage of their lives, if that is not indexed, which it's not, then $3 million won't be what it is today. More and more young people will be caught up in it, in the same way that more and more young people are finding themselves moving through the various tax brackets through bracket creep. It has been described quite properly as a thief in the night. It's a thief in the night because it's not one that is discussed openly. People think that they have a particular bracket. They think that this won't apply to them, but, bit by bit, in compound losses, this will ultimately affect them, and it's done in a dishonest way.

At the heart of this proposal is dishonesty. When people are planning for their retirement—and their superannuation, in particular—the most important thing you want to know is certainty. Is there certainty in the tax rates, the rules and the systems, particularly for an investment that will be realised many decades later? The government, in their desperation to be sitting in the government benches, made that commitment not to change superannuation. They made that commitment. This isn't the first promise that has been broken by this government. We'll have an election at some stage, maybe at the end of this year or early next year, and Australians will quite correctly look at the Prime Minister and say, 'Are the promises you are making in this election going to be like what you said on super, on energy and on a wide variety of matters, which you then walked away from?' That is a fair question and one that has not been properly answered by the government.

There will be other speakers coming after me who will speak about the particular issue of taxing on unrealised capital gains. That affects probably farmers and those in regional communities or running small businesses more than any other. It is a huge change to the way superannuation is taxed, particularly for those that manage their own self-managed super fund.

This is another broken promise. It particularly affects young Australians. For the taxes on unrealised gains, that is quite an insidious change to our tax system for superannuation assets and will affect those in regional communities and on farms more than any other.

(Quorum formed)

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