Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to condemn the Abbott government for ripping billions of dollars away from the superannuation savings of millions of Australians. In a sneaky backroom deal yesterday with absolutely no warning, the government delayed increasing superannuation to 12 per cent—currently the case—from 2019 to 2034. This means nearly nine million Australians will have significantly lower superannuation savings when they retire. This is in stark contrast to Labor's plan that was increasing retirement savings for millions of Australians.

This is also a massive broken promise. Before the election, Tony Abbott promised:

Our clear, categoric commitment to the Australian people is that we are not going to make unexpected, adverse changes to superannuation.

Well, this is an adverse and unexpected change and it is against the interests of many working Australians. This will have an adverse consequence for the retirement of millions of Australians.

Tony Abbott misled the Australian people when he said he would not touch their superannuation and he misled the Australian people when he said he would not do background deals. Because of this dishonest, scheming Prime Minister, Australians will have $128 billion less in their superannuation by 2025. The government should be ashamed of their actions to date and need to reverse this poor decision.