Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It was announced by the minister responsible for superannuation and had the same duration as the shadow minister for transport's policy pronouncement on the aviation industry. So we are entitled to have some doubt about what the shelf life of this policy will be as well.

I make the point that this is advanced as a policy to deal with a problem, and the problem is the superannuation pay gap. If we in this place try and make superannuation the solution to every public policy failure that we are confronted with, it will become the answer to nothing. Every time we have a public policy challenge in this country, it seems that some people say, 'Why don't we make superannuation pay for that?' It is as daft on this proposition as it is when it has been rolled out for every other policy challenge that we confront as a nation. This is not to say that there is not an issue that has been identified. Families who have got a newborn baby coming into the world are confronted with additional expenses. They are—having brought a few into the world myself, we acknowledge that families are confronted with additional expenses. There are other public policy challenges.

We were speaking about the proposition to make women pay for domestic violence services through their own superannuation. We have made a historic investment in domestic violence services, which was announced in the last week. That is the proper way you deal with these issues. You don't try to make one policy and one solution—particularly superannuation—the answer to every other public policy failure that you are confronted with. If you treat superannuation like an ATM that you draw down on whenever you have a problem in any other area of public policy, you get the same sort of investment returns that you get at an ATM. You'll be getting one or two per cent on your superannuation balance per annum instead of the eight or 10 per cent in superannuation funds that you get at the moment. There's a basic structural region for that: if you invest over the long term, you get long-term returns and healthier returns over the long-term; but if you've got something in a cash-on-demand account, you get cash-on-demand sorts of returns. The policy is a bad one and it should be rejected.

I congratulate the Minister for Women and the Minister for Social Services and the Treasurer for all the work they've done, and all those—women in particular, but not just those—in our party who have advanced this. In the 30 seconds I have available, I pay tribute to my dear friend and now deceased senator Linda White, who campaigned for this initiative for well over a decade. Were she in the Senate as this legislation is being passed, it would be one of the proudest days of her career. I commend her for the tremendous work that she did in advancing this great cause.

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