Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I can understand. I can understand why they don't want to hear this about farmers when we've got people on this side of the House who are sticking up for farmers each and every day. That's exactly what we're doing.

So why would you want to do this? Why bring this bill in, apart from it just being a tax grab? I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to kill off all the self-managed super funds—kill them off and make it all too hard for them—so you can have all of big business unionised so you can clip the ticket and get your money as it goes. That's a little cash cow that those opposite have been milking for a very, very long time. But you don't want to worry about self-managed super funds, like people on this side of the House who get out of bed and make a difference every day. No, let's look at putting it all back into big business and then unionisation! We see that all the time, whereas, on this side of the House, we're always supporting small business because they are the backbone of the nation. They're the ones that have to take the risk and get out of bed in the morning and actually make sure things happen.

What happened to the idea in Australia of a fair go? That's what we need to do—have a fair go. This is certainly not a fair go. Someone further down the track, which is what's happening here, can at the stroke of a pen change all the rules. I've got three children. They're coming through and they're looking at this and going: 'Gee, I may as well go overseas and take it easier. Why should I be saving my money for my retirement when we're going to get the absolute life taxed out of it?' It makes no sense whatsoever. So I encourage those opposite to have a good look at this, particularly schedules 1-3. In the rest of the schedule, there's some stuff that is not too bad. That's the schedule—that's actually what the bill is. You probably haven't actually read the leg, but have a good look at that. It's schedules 1-3 that are certainly—the others have got a couple of whiskers on them, but 1-3 is an absolutely shocking area.

Government members interjecting—

Thank you for your help! Thank you very much for your help. Just to go over it one more time, let's make sure that we fully understand how bad this bill is. You need to put it back on the drawing board. This bill will do absolutely nothing. The only thing it will do is undermine the integrity of the superannuation system, the system that was absolutely designed so you could save money for your retirement so you don't become a burden on the system. Once you then start changing legislation willy-nilly, whenever you feel like it, after those opposite promised that they wouldn't do it—at least Mr Shorten had the guts to run for election with it and say, 'Well, I'm going to make these changes.' Of course, the public didn't want to do that, and that's why Mr Shorten is not sitting there. But, no, this current sneaky Prime Minister—what did he do? He decided, 'Oh, I'll get in and tell a few little porky pies, and then I'll just slip this through and then just see how we go.'

This is bad legislation. It's bad for farmers. It's bad for the graziers. For young people, it instils no confidence. I don't think young people have got confidence in this government anyway, and rightly so. That lack of confidence is very well founded. But please get behind this. Make sure you vote against it. Come on, fellas. You can do it. Vote against it. Stand up to your party. That's it.

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