Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister agree with the statement made yesterday by her chief whip, Mr Fitzgibbon, that 'aspirational Australia is sick and tired of constant changes to superannuation and the uncertainty that brings'? Does the Prime Minister agree with those comments from her colleague? If so, will she make a commitment, as the coalition has done, to make no unexpected adverse changes to superannuation?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course I share the chief whip's concern about aspirational Australians. Of course I share his concern and the concern of the Labor team about Australians around the nation. Consequently, I share their very deep concern that their superannuation, the superannuation of lowest income Australians, is to be cut by the Leader of the Opposition.

It seems to me that the political trick here needs to be made transparent to the Australian people. What the Leader of the Opposition has done, in a sea of platitudes and slogans where he does not announce policies, does not make available savings and does not make available costings, is to decide to sharpen up on one cut. I think when you do that it really says something about your values.

So in a circumstance where he will not be clear, where he is trying to fudge it, trying to get away from any detail on jobs and health and education and infrastructure, he sharpens up on one cut and that one cut is to the superannuation of 3.6 million of our lowest-income Australians—and 2.1 million of them are women. These are the ones on the chopping block for the Leader of the Opposition. He wants them to be disadvantaged. He has announced that crystal clear. Then, to try and cover up the fact that he is hitting these low-income Australians—2.1 million of them are low-income earning women, probably part-time income earners, balancing work and family life—he then some time later issues the mealy words that there will not be further changes. When you have already hacked into 3.6 million Australians, I am not surprised you would then say no further changes—the evil work has already been announced.

From the point of the view of the government, let me be very clear: we have always believed in superannuation. When the Leader of the Opposition was describing it as a con, when the Liberal Party was campaigning against it as something that would destroy the economy, we believed in it. We delivered it because it is good for working Australians and it is good for the nation. The way in which it has been good for the nation has been incredibly transparent during the global financial crisis. Having done that good work for the nation, in government we are adding to it with a change from nine to 12 per cent. We will never join with you in hitting the 3.6 million lowest-income Australians. We will never join with you in targeting 2.1 million working women. They may be the kind of targets the Leader of the Opposition aims at but, for us, we believe in benefiting working women and in benefiting working Australians. (Time expired)