Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer. Will the Assistant Treasurer update the House on how the government's budget is bringing certainty to Australians with superannuation, and are there any alternatives to this approach?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wright for his question and acknowledge his strong commitment to protecting the savings of all Australians in super. Australia's pool of superannuation savings is the fourth largest in the world. In 1997, it was $300 billion, today it is $1.9 trillion and it will grow to $9 trillion by 2040. David Murray's financial systems inquiry has called superannuation a substitute or a supplement to the age pension. That is why we on this side of the House have made a commitment to no adverse or unexpected changes to super.

I am asked: am I aware of any alternatives? I am aware of an alternative, and it is taxes on super coming from those opposite. Who could forget that famous quote in 2007 by Kevin Rudd on the eve of the election when he said he would not make one change—not one jot, one tittle—to superannuation? What we saw was 12 adverse changes to superannuation—$9 billion of additional taxes on super. So ashamed and so embarrassed was the member for McMahon about the Labor Party's performance on super that he rushed out, as Treasurer, a press release on 31 July 2013 titled 'Five year freeze on superannuation changes'.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Five years?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Five years, Treasurer:

The Rudd Labor Government will make no major changes to superannuation tax policy for five-year periods…

It is less than two years, and now Labor is proposing two additional taxes to super, including on earnings above $75,000, which has been described by the Self-Managed Super Fund Owners Alliance as 'knee-jerk fiddling' and has been editorialised by our leading newspapers as 'piecemeal' and 'opportunistic'. As the Prime Minister has said, the Leader of the Opposition cannot be trusted with bank accounts, cannot be trusted to deliver a surplus—because he promises and it never eventuates—and cannot be trusted with people's superannuation savings.

But, if all of those taxes on people's super are not enough, he adds insult to injury, because just the other day the Leader of the Opposition described the superannuation of the 14 million Australians with superannuation accounts as a 'legalised tax haven'. The former Prime Minister—

Government members interjecting—

The rorters! The former Prime Minister Paul Keating described superannuation as an appropriate vehicle for retirement planning by ordinary Australians.

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gorton has had a good run. One more and he's out.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Paul Keating, when he looks at the Leader of the Opposition's position on super, would be rolling in his Zegna suit.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I ask that further question be placed on the Notice Paper.