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

I have received a letter from the honourable the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The government's failure to plan for a fair and sustainable retirement for all Australians.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australian pensioners be warned: Mr Abbott and the Liberal government are after your part pension and decreasing your pension. Nine times in the last election campaign—not once, not twice, but nine times—Mr Abbott, in his pursuit of the votes of Australians, said: 'There will be no cuts, no changes, to pensions.' He made that perfectly clear—no cuts and no changes to pensions. Mr Abbott looked the pensioners of Australia in the face and he lied to them. He said that he will not change pensions and he absolutely has. The trickiness of the Prime Minister knows no bounds. What he says, to rationalise getting out of his broken promise, is that the changes to pensions will occur on 1 January 2017. Using logic which only the government can be famous for, they say that a lie legislated now is not a lie if the pensioners start losing on 1 January 2017.

Australians know when they have been misled. The government is failing the present and future retirees of Australia, and I can say without any fear of contradiction that Labor will vote against Tony Abbott's new round of cuts to the pension. We will vote against these cuts because 330,000 low- and modest-income pensioner households will lose out. Ninety thousand people will be thrown off their pensions entirely, and what these legislative bullies on the other side say to justify it is: 'Sure, we are flogging 330,000 people. But we are going to make a modest increase to some.' He is effectively daring Labor by taking people on modest incomes hostage and saying his government will not increase their pensions at all unless Labor agrees to support his electoral dishonesty and his broken promises. We will not do that.

We then hear what this government is now world-famous for: when you disagree with this government or when this government wants to justify breaking its promise, it starts attacking you. We heard this fellow, the Prime Minister, get up in question time and say, 'We don't want millionaires to be getting the pension.' He knows as well as I do, and every one of those people sitting opposite should know—although it would not surprise me if some do not know, but we all know not to believe Tony Abbott at least—that he is looking at someone's asset base. But what he does not look at is the income stream from that asset base. He is saying that a person's asset base should be looked at and then he denigrates them. Today, in that shameless, bullying style of this government, he has said that 330,000 people deserve to be taken off the part or full pension and deserve to have their money lost because they are millionaires. The implication is somehow that they are all millionaires.

I will tell you who these people are that they are taking the money from. Let me go through the actual case studies. Facts will always trump the propaganda opposite. These are not millionaires. A single pensioner who owns her own home and is earning less than $25,000 from interest and earnings on superannuation would lose $8,200. This woman will lose almost a quarter of her entire household income. Labor cannot vote for a measure when we understand the misery and the consequences of the measure. She has $25,000 in income. She will lose $8,200. No wonder the government members look surprised. They do not know what they are doing. If they do know what they are doing, that is even worse.

Let me give another real-world cameo. It is not one of Tony's millionaires, who he is so quick to denigrate. These are 330,000 pensioners. A couple who own their own home draw down $45,000 together on their superannuation. They have worked hard to build that. They will lose their entire part pension of $11,400 per year. This government is going to take one dollar in every five. These are the real-world examples. I have more. There is Graham Ratcliffe, who gave us the details for a question. He says: 'Surely, you must agree there is something wrong with a system when a couple with $400,000 in assets invested at an average of three per cent per annum plus almost the full age pension will have an income of $43,766 but a couple with up to $800,000 in assets invested at the same three per cent plus a very small pension will only have an income of $24,566.'

It might be that each can live on that certain amount of money. But why is it that under this government they have created a binary situation? If you believe these fiscal bandits opposite—the enemies of the pensioner—what they say is that there are only two types of Australians. There are people who have very little money who get the age pension and people who have a bit more money and have a modest income stream and get the pension. In the Prime Minister's false binary that he loves to create of the goodies and the baddies, there are the really poor and then there are the modestly poor. But what he does not talk about is another group of Australians: Tony's multimillionaires. On superannuation they can—listen to this, Assistant Treasurer—use a cameo and distort and just lie about what I said. But that is what it is; we have little expectation of this person.

What we are proposing on superannuation is as straightforward as this—listen carefully, Josh; listen carefully, son—if you earn more than $75,000 a year, instead of getting a 45 per cent tax concession you only get a 30 per cent tax concession. What we are proposing is helping the budget bottom line over the next 10 years by $14 billion. I will give you another cameo in terms of who gets affected. There are 475 Australians with superannuation balances in excess of $10 million. That is a lot of money. Courtesy of this government, if they wanted to have a five per cent return, which is an average return on a superannuation fund, they get half a million dollars tax free. But they want to take the part pension from some of these other people and push them under or near $20,000 in total income per year.

This is a government who says there are only two sets of people: really poor pensioners and modestly poor pensioners. The government is inviting Australia and this parliament to choose between the two of them. We reject this false choice. Instead, we speak to the 700,000 people who are planning retirement in the next few years. There are people at work between the ages of 50 and 65 who will be 700,000 potential retirees who stand to lose the pension altogether. When this government casually says that we will have a war between the really poor pensioners and the modestly poor pensioners, it is not just 330,000 victims they are proposing. This government is coming after the pensions of people who have not yet retired. This is the consequence of the change.

We now have a generation of baby boomers who have been working hard and who are approaching retirement. They are doing the best they can to save superannuation, doing the best they can to try and prepare to have some asset in retirement. In the next 10 years this government is going to slug literally millions of Australians and affect their access to the pension. This government is vandalising the pension. The pension and the people who currently receive it are not on high annual incomes, they are not rich people and they deserve security in their old age. Yet the government will not go after the Costello-Howard loopholes whereby basically they said that any amount of money in superannuation can be tax-free. But they are going after pensioners on much more modest sets of incomes.

A person who has $½ million listed as their assets puts something aside for everyday emergencies. They have their car, they have their furniture. They might have $400,000 in term deposits. It sounds a lot to this mob opposite. Well, actually they know it is not a lot. But when you look at the annual income the person gets in the intersection with what they are doing with the pension changes, those opposite are wreaking great havoc on hundreds of thousands of people who were told at the last election that this would not happen. And as much as the government members may bow their heads and find something terribly interesting in the latest government press release, the latest contribution from George Brandis to anything—whatever they are reading—I would say this: we will fight for the pensioners.

Last year we stopped you with your pension cuts. Remember last year? For a year, this government bullied Labor. They harassed us. They said that the opposition was not telling the truth on the pension index. But we won. We stopped you cutting the pension, and we will fight you again. We will warn every part-pensioner in Australia: you cannot trust the Liberal government with your retirement.

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

We have clearly struck a chord: the Leader of the Opposition, who calls superannuation a legalised tax haven, insulting millions of Australians with 14 million superannuation accounts, $2 trillion of funds under management which grew from $300 billion in just 1997 and which will go to $9 trillion by 2040. The Leader of the Opposition is extremely sensitive today to the fact that we have read back to him the words of a doorstop he held less than two weeks ago. He was so impressed with his own words, and I am going to read them again. On 3 June the Leader of the Opposition held a doorstop. When asked by a journalist, 'What is Labor's policy on superannuation?', he said: 'If you've got $2 million in superannuation and you're in retirement and you're earning an income of $100,000, we are proposing you pay a reduction in the tax concession.'

Well, that is not Labor's policy, because I have their press release here from 22 April this year, where he actually said that Labor's policy is to put a tax on earnings above $75,000, not $100,000, and on balances above $1.5 million, not $2 million. The Leader of the Opposition has no standing in this place on superannuation, because he does not even know his own policy. He was thinking back to 2013, when he put out a press release with his best friend back then, the member for Lilley, saying that the tax on super that Labor proposed was on earnings above $100,000. Now we know that it was above $75,000. In its press release on 22 April this year, Labor had the audacity to say that it is only going to affect some 170,000 Australians. David Leyonhjelm had the Parliamentary Budget Office do the same sort of modelling for the same proposal, because the Labor Party would not release the modelling.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What did they find?

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

I am asked by the member for Bass a very telling question: what did they find? What did the Parliamentary Budget Office find? It found that Labor's proposals for two increases in taxes, on contributions and on earnings, would affect 425,000-plus people. Now, Labor has refused to index the threshold, which means that more and more people will go into those thresholds and more and more people will pay additional tax. The question is, why has Labor done this? Do they not like superannuation? Paul Keating did put the idea first on superannuation, and we supported him. But why has Labor done it? It is clear that Labor has done it in a desperate grab for cash to fill its budget black hole. Superannuation is the budget pinata: strap on the blindfold, grab a big stick and take a whack at people's hard-earned savings in super. It is the budget pinata, because you know that Labor's budget black hole is some $58.6 billion of measures that they are not supporting, including measures that the member for McMahon, sitting opposite, took to the last election as Labor's Treasurer and is now refusing to support in this parliament. Shame on Labor.

So, $58.6 billion is this budget black hole, which only grew when the Leader of the Opposition got up here on budget night and spent $220 million a minute. They have no way of balancing the books. In fact, the member for McMahon knows how to balance the books. While they were in government he put out a note to his electorate about the surplus they were to deliver. He was very proud of the budget surplus that would never eventuate. That is Labor's shortcut to surplus.

We have to do the hard yards. We have to do the long, hard yards to get to surplus, and we are doing that by prudent economic management. But what we will not do when it comes to superannuation is what Labor did: promise no changes and then introduce a whole lot of changes. We went to the last election saying we would make no adverse, unexpected changes to super in this term, and we will keep that commitment. Kevin Rudd went to the 2007 election and said he would not change superannuation one jot, one tittle. And what happened? There were 12 adverse changes, including to contributions, including to earnings, including to the self-managed super fund levy, going up under Labor, when we came up with self-managed super funds in 1999, under John Howard. And now one million Australians, like many of my colleagues know—members of their own electorate—put their hard-earned savings in their self-managed super funds. They are the people who were hit by Labor's additional taxes on superannuation. Those opposite were addicted to tax—wrongly, for the Australian people.

To digress, as Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism—and you could say the problem with Labor—is that eventually you run out of other people's money. And that is the problem. They ran out of other people's money, and now they want to raid superannuation, even though the member for McMahon rushed out a press release in 2013 and said in the headline, 'We will make no changes for five years to superannuation'. That lasted all of 48 hours. Now we are in 2015 and the member for McMahon is supporting the member for Fraser, who is supporting the member for Watson, who is supporting the member for Maribyrnong—all increasing two taxes on super which, we know from the Parliamentary Budget Office, will hit at least 425,000 Australians.

That is a shameful record. But another problem that Labor has is pensions, with a sustainable retirement income, and the member for Jagajaga knows this all too well. As the member for Cook said in this place today, 'Superannuation is the hard-earned retirement savings of Australians and a pension is a welfare payment from one taxpayer to a pensioner.' And the more people save for super, the less they rely on the taxpayer for the pension.

The Prime Minister said today that we want to take people with $1 million-plus off the pension so that we can have a sustainable pension over the long term. The member for Jagajaga may not be aware that pension is the largest single budget item.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

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

The member for Jagajaga will get an opportunity.

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

If the member for Jagajaga would stop interrupting, she may like to know that the pension is the largest single budget item—some 10 per cent—more than $40 billion and growing at six per cent per annum. We in this place have said that we will ensure the pension is sustainable over time, reducing the burden on the taxpayer. How are we doing that? We are changing the taper rate and the assets-free threshold and are ensuring that some people who are currently getting a part pension will no longer get a part pension. But some people who are needy, some 50,000, who are getting the part pension will now get the full pension and 170,000 Australians who are on the pension will get an extra $30 a fortnight. Why is the Labor Party and the member for Jagajaga against low-income and low-asset-holding Australians getting an extra $30 a fortnight under us?

We have seen Labor's hopeless record on the pension and on superannuation—let me just add a third. That is the unclaimed moneys regime whereby Labor changed the years, from seven years to three years. Another desperate cash grab. And do not think that this does not hurt older, senior Australians. Because I will tell you a story, which was in The Daily Telegraph, of 82-year-old Maura Stanford, who went to her local bank to take out money from a 'rainy day' fund to pay a tradesman. When she went to get the money, it was not there. What had happened? Was it targeted by a scammer? No. It was targeted by the now Leader of the Opposition and the Labor Party.

The problem with the Labor Party is that they do not value, they do not understand and they do not trust Australians to save for their own retirement, to reduce pressure on the pension.

The final thing I want to mention is the reason why we are committed to superannuation, a sustainable pension and to saving people's money that is unclaimed is that we have an ageing population. We will have 40,000 centenarians in Australia over the next 40 years, compared to just 122 in 1974. The number of people over the age of 65 in Australia by 2055 will have doubled and the ratio of working Australians to retired Australians will go from 4.5 to 2.7. The coalition are better prepared to look after the senior citizens of Australia.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians should be very, very clear: Tony Abbott is coming after your pension. Whether you are a part pensioner living in the electorate of Banks, Braddon or Lindsay, each and every one of you now know that Tony Abbott is coming after your pension. If you are now on an age pension, if you are going to be on an age pension in the future, each and every one of you should know that this Liberal government and each and every one of these Liberal members of parliament are after your pension. That is exactly what they are doing.

People who are planning now for their retirement, people who are saving hard—all of them need to know that this Liberal government is after their retirement savings. That is exactly what each and every one of you opposite is doing. People who are now aged between 50 and 60, who are planning their retirement need to know that this Liberal government will make sure that their savings are attacked. That is what each of you opposite are doing and it is what all of you are going to be voting for.

Independent analysis in the last few weeks has shown that half of all new retirees will be impacted hard by these cuts to the pension. That is exactly what this is all about: these are cuts to the pension. All these hardworking Australians, who have saved for their retirement, will lose out if Tony Abbott gets his way.

All of us on this side of the parliament know—of course, you all try to block it out—that Tony Abbott said time and time again before the election that there would be no changes to pensions, no changes at all. Of course, as soon as he had the chance in last year's budget, he pushed through—and all of you voted for it—a cut to indexation of the pension of $80 a week. That is what you were prepared to take off pensioners. Of course, pensioners will never forget what you did, what you tried to do and they will never forget that each and every one of us campaigned for the last year to defeat that measure and we have defeated it. But of course pensioners know that, when Tony Abbott sees a pensioner, he cannot help himself.

Last budget he tried to cut indexation; this budget he has dreamt up a new way of cutting the pension. This year it will affect 330,000 part pensioners. Of course, you never hear them mention the people who are going to lose. You did not hear that from anybody in question time today, whether it be the minister, the Prime Minister or from the Assistant Treasurer just now. They do not want to mention the 330,000 part pensioners, who live in the electorates of Lindsay, Bass, Braddon and all those seats that are full of part pensioners, who are all going to lose. You go out there and tell those part pensioners that you are going to cut their retirement savings, because that is exactly what you are going to do. We also know that you have not forgotten about the other change that you announced last year: to make every single Australian work until they are 70. None of us has forgotten that, but all of you want to make sure that Australians have to work until we are 70. Shame on each and every one of you!

Pensioners have been calling and writing to us over the last few weeks since the budget, saying, 'We can only hope that Labor will do everything in their power to protect pensioners.' And we will. We will do exactly that. The Australian pensioners know that we are their friend and that we will support them—unlike all of those people opposite. What we also know is that the reality for part pensioners is going to mean a very, very substantial cut. I would be very keen to hear the nature of the exchange when you knock on a door in Penrith and tell a part pensioner that, as a result of this legislation, you want to take $8,000— (Time expired)

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The proposition that has been put before the House this afternoon by the Labor Party is that there has apparently been a failure: firstly, to plan; secondly, for fair and sustainable retirement; and, thirdly, for all Australians. Labor is comprehensively wrong on all three of these points. First of all, we absolutely do have a plan. We have a plan designed to deal with the fact that the retirement income system—the age pension—costs $43 billion a year, and that cost is increasing. If it is to continue to be afforded, we need to have a plan to deal with it. We do have a plan on this side of the House—unlike this empty, weak rabble opposition that is consistently standing forward, standing up and engaging in cheap populist jibes. The former proud Labor Party has descended to this! None of you are descendants of Hawke and Keating. You are an embarrassment to the former proud Labor Party.

On this side of the House we have a clear plan to deal with a serious public policy issue: sustaining the provision of the age pension so it is always there for those who need it. Indeed, with the measures announced in this budget, those with no or few assets will see their pension rising, on average, by $30 a fortnight from 1 January. And yes, those with significant assets are facing an incremental tightening of the assets test. It is true that a couple with a house and assets of $1.15 million will now see a reduction in the assets test to $823,000. We recognise that this is an impost on a relatively small group of people, but this is about making sure that the overall system is sustainable, and we have a fair plan to do it.

Secondly, the issue before the House is whether the plan is fair and sustainable. With a $43 billion age pension system, we need that to be sustainable. We need to continue to be able to pay for the age pension system. We need to make sure that the pension will always be there for those who need it—the neediest, the vulnerable, those who get to the stage of life where they rely on the age pension and do not have other assets to rely upon. What could be a more cruel and irresponsible hoax from any major political party than to not ensure that the pension system is sustainable so that those who need it, when they get to their retirement age, have the pension system available to them? From the other side of the chamber, what do we hear from the once proud party of Hawke and Keating? What we hear is: 'Don't worry about there being deficit after deficit. We won't even turn our mind to it. We won't even worry about how things are to be afforded, because apparently that is the domain of a responsible political party. We are not going to worry about that.' That is essentially the argument that we are getting from this once proud, once economically responsible political party that is engaging in the cruel hoax of pretending that everything can be afforded, that there is no need to worry about it.

As serious advocates of policy know, we have in this country a welfare system where a key principle is that we target it to people who are in need, and that is an absolutely critical principle of the changes that we have announced in this budget. We are asked: how is this fair? Fairness is critical. It is critical that we encourage people to save for their retirement through the superannuation system so that they can build up the biggest possible balance and they can rely upon their own resources to the maximum extent possible. There is nothing fair about changing the rules on the taxation of super when people have been accruing savings throughout their working life. All of a sudden the Labor Party wants to increase the tax on superannuation so that if your income from superannuation is above $75,000 you are going to be facing new unexpected taxes. We reject that. It is not a fair approach.

The third principle is an approach for all Australians, and the right approach for all Australians is a retirement income system that meets the needs of all. For those who are in a position to save to provide for themselves and build up significant assets, the superannuation system is there for them to rely upon. For those without significant resources, we always need to have the pension system there. It would be a cruel hoax to pretend that we can continue to afford it without the responsible measures that we are introducing.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All day we have seen the contortions, the twists and the turns of this government as they justify their illogical position that the part pensioners of Australia have too much, but people with more than $1½ million in their superannuation account have too little. We have just seen a low point from the member for Bradfield, who says the superannuation or retirement income system should suit all. It should suit all—unless you have got less than $37,000 in income, and then we are going to take your tax concessions away from you, because they are not a priority for this government. You see the member for Bradfield railing against changes to taxation and superannuation—he came into the chamber and he voted to abolish the tax concessions if you dare to have less than $37,000 in your annual income, as every member opposite did. How dare they claim to be defenders of superannuation and tax when they have ripped off Australia's low income earners when it comes to their tax concessions!

They have no credibility and they have no right to claim to be the defenders of superannuation or tax. And they certainly have no right to claim to be friends of Australia's pensioners. They dare claim that they have a fair plan for retirement income. Well, they have exactly the opposite. They seem to think that it is just fine that 500 people with superannuation balances in excess of $10 million should pay zero tax on their earnings. If they earn more than $10 million, they can pay no tax yet those opposite are coming after Australia's part pensioners. Australia's part pensioners are going to come after them as well, I would suggest, particularly when they have heard this debate.

We have heard a lot from the Liberal and National parties today about what they really think. We have seen the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Social Services say that the pension is welfare. The pension is now welfare.

Mr Hutchinson interjecting—

We saw our old friend the member for Lyons interjecting during the debate saying Australia's part pensioners should draw down on their assets. Well send out a letter to your constituents and tell them that. Why do you not do a mail-out and tell them that? Tell them that is what you really think, that they should draw down on their assets. Our old friend, the member for Bradfield had an interesting announcement to make to Australia's pensioners that he is going to 'incrementally tighten' their benefits to the tune of $8,000 a year. That is some 'incremental tightening' from the government.

What those opposite really want to do is go after anybody with a low or middle income and leave alone anybody with a high income. The evidence has been very clear. We have seen the Murray report saying that the taxation superannuation concessions are not fit for purpose and should be dealt with. We saw the government's own Commission of Audit, which recommended a GP tax and $100,000 university degrees. Even the Commission of Audit said superannuation and tax concessions should be dealt with but this government will not do it because this government does not have the guts or the courage to take it on.

We see the government engaging in a scare campaign about superannuation. The Labor Party has the courage to say it is unfair and unsustainable to continue to see 38 per cent of Australia's tax concessions on superannuation go to the top 10 per cent of incomes while this government goes after Australia's part pensioners. We have seen this government launch a scare campaign. It is time for some facts. Under Labor's proposal, 94 per cent of people with superannuation balances in retirement would not affected by these changes. Ninety per cent of the revenue raised from our policy would be from the wealthiest superannuation funds with balances of more than $2 million. And the vast majority of balances affected will be in excess of $1½ million. In fact, 97 per cent of the revenue from our policy would be raised from the wealthiest superannuation funds with balances of more than $1.5 million.

And some more facts: this government said to Australia's low-income earners who dared earn less than $37,000, that they do not deserve a tax concession on your superannuation, that they will take it away. Not only did they say it but they did it. They trousered the tax concession for Australia's cleaners, they trousered the tax concession for Australia's low-income earners, they took it away from them, they abolished it and they got rid of it. They trousered it because that is what they want to do, because that is what their values tell them is okay. That is what they think is all right because at their heart they do not like people who dare to work hard and earn a low income. The Treasurer lectures people and says get a better job, get a job that raises more money and that is how you can buy a house. Well, that is what these Liberal and National values tell us and they are values that should be rejected. (Time expired)

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I tell you what pensioners do know. Pensioners know that Australia can never afford to go back to what we saw under the previous Labor government. They know in their heart of hearts that we cannot go back to the waste and mismanagement of six years of Labor. After 2007, there was money in the bank, there were surpluses in front and what did they do? They trashed it. They left this incoming government with $123 billion of combined deficits peaking at $667 billion of debt if we did nothing. That is the story and Australian pensioners, who have saved for their retirement, very well know that.

Labor's record in government was that they took $9 billion out of superannuation. Remember what they said? Let's quote Kevin Rudd: 'Not one jot, not one tittle.' The member for McMahon said we will not touch it for five years. And then we had the Leader of the Opposition today say $2 million for those earning $100,000. But it was wrong. The policy is actually for those with assets of $1.5 million or who earn $75,000 a year. What Australians know is when it comes to superannuation, you cannot trust Labor. These people are the budget smugglers. The member for McMahon talked about the $37,000 threshold. Guess where that was coming from? That was the mining tax. Do you remember that one? How much did it raise? That was going to save us, if you remember.

I am a little bit confused after listening to the Leader of the Opposition's contribution this morning because Labor claim this ground on superannuation. It was them who invented it. But how is it that the taxpayers of Australia are willing to save for their retirement, concessions are paid on the way in and then those opposite say they should not spend it in their retirement. I just do not get it. You have got to rely entirely on your earnings and you cannot touch your capital. When I went to school, you could not take it with you. You cannot take it with you, the last time I looked.

Bill may well be into estate planning—I am not sure. But this is not about passing it on to the next generation. The concessions that you get when you are contributing to superannuation are designed to be spent in your retirement. That is how the whole system works. But government knows best on the other side. This is the Labor Party. They know much better how to spend other people's money. Well, we do not agree. We think that is a false premise. We believe that superannuation is not a piggybank for governments when they get into trouble—like when the previous government took $9 billion out of the savings of Australians.

Labor will tax your superannuation: make no mistake. And the record speaks for itself. Pensions are a safety net. I know it is difficult. Power prices are going up and water bills are going up. It is particularly difficult for those people in my electorate who are on the singles or couples pension. They are going to be better off, not only from the things we have delivered over the last 18 months. Singles are $56 better off a fortnight and couples are $78 better off a fortnight. The pension has already gone up. And guess what? We got rid of the carbon tax. That is worth $550 a year, on average, to every household in Australia. Under these reforms, the lowest earning pensioners, those with the least amounts of assets, will receive an extra $30 a fortnight. How on earth can I stand here and listen to the Labor Party be so hypocritical about their position on this?

We had a budget reply speech a couple of weeks ago. There is a $58.6 billion black hole. I like to refer to it as $220 a minute of unfunded commitments that were made by the Leader of the Opposition. Labor seems transfixed on part pensioners. They are a very small component of pensioners. If they draw down, the most those part pensioners will need to draw down on that capital is 1.9 per cent, to maintain that level of 1.9 per cent. A modest number of pensioners will be affected by that. You cannot trust Labor when it comes to your super.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the pensioners of Australia, I say that there is a very simple way to tell if this Prime Minister is lying to you: his lips are moving. No more and no fewer than nine times in the last election campaign, the Prime Minister of Australia said to the pensioners of Australia, 'There will be no change to the pension.' Now we know, from day one, whether it is the former pensions minister or the current pensions minister, they have been working away behind the scenes to cut the pensions of Australians.

Were it not for the hard work of member for Jagajaga, for the hard work of my colleagues on this side of the House, that original cut to the pension would have gone through this place. We are proud that we stopped that first pension cut, and we pay tribute to the member for Jagajaga for that effort. That is the good news, that we stopped that. The bad news is that they are back.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They had a plan B.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They had a plan B in their drawer, as the member for Port Adelaide has just reminded us. What the pensioners of Australia need to understand is that all the members over there are voting for the following: a cut to almost 330,000 low-income pensioner households, and more than 90,000 pensioners off the pension entirely.

Government members interjecting—

All of them that are chirping up now are voting for that change. An independent analysis shows that these cuts will affect half of all new retirees within 20 years. In my community I have 11,803 pensioners who will be hit by these brutal cuts. One constituent, who contacts me frequently about the pension assets test, expects to lose $150 a week from his part pension. That is nearly $8,000 a year.

In question time we got a real sense of what those opposite really think about the pensioners of Australia. We got it from the Prime Minister and we got it from Minister Morrison. When the mask slipped, when cuddly Minister Morrison disappeared, we got from Morrison and from Abbott the same thing—that the pensioners of Australia are some kind of welfare bludgers. We got this sense that pensioners who worked all their life, retired workers, are somehow lying around as lazy bludgers in our community. We reject that characterisation. We reject this re-run of their lifters and leaners rhetoric that went so badly for them last time.

The Prime Minister and the Minister for Social Services describe Labor as the welfare party for standing up for pensioners in our community. We are the party who stand up for people who work all their lives. We are the party who stand up for people who put their kids through school and university, who paid their taxes, who deserve some dignity in retirement—the retirees and veterans in this community, the people who deserve our support in this place. They will get it from us. They will never ever get it from you.

On this side of the House, from the member for Jagajaga all the way down, every member understands one thing: if you attack the pensioners of Australia, you attack Middle Australia itself. We say to the government that if you are fair dinkum about improving the budget bottom line, if you are fair dinkum about making the retirement income system in this country better, then take the member for McMahon's advice—we have done the work for you. We have got a plan on superannuation; we have put it on the table, and we said 'take it'.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could put it through tomorrow.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could put it through this parliament tomorrow, as the member for McMahon says. If you are fair dinkum about fixing retirement incomes in this country then we have done the work for you. If you are not, if you want to keep defending a small number of people with a huge amount of super over the interests of 330,000 pensioners in Middle Australia, write to them all. Write to everyone in Australia. Write to the people in your electorates and tell them that your preference is to cut the pensions of 330,000 people, rather than fix the superannuation of a small amount of people.

We have got a very simple message for those opposite: get your hands out of the trouser pockets of the pensioners of this country; get your hands out of their handbags. Do not pocket the pension. Make sensible changes to the retirement income system in this country so that a small number of the wealthiest super accounts are fixed and so that we do not smash the retirement incomes of 330,000 good people, who have done the right thing their whole lives. They have paid their taxes, they have raised their kids, they have put them through school and uni—they deserve, and they will get from us, the respect and the dignity that they have earned in this community.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance. For those that are listening today by radio or online, and for the small number in the gallery, let us put a few fundamental pieces to this puzzle in place—very important pieces, I have to say. Do the people on the other side realise—I am sure that they do—that, as a result of their efforts, their 'fiscal efforts', if you could call them that, over seven years, we are now borrowing $100 million every day just to fill the gap between revenue and expenditure?

We will have a $36 billion deficit this year. We are paying $1 billion every month in interest. We have an ageing population. We are living longer. And those people opposite want to put their heads in the sand and make believe that there is nothing going on, nothing to be seen here; we need to do nothing; we can continue to do what we are doing.

I will tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I heard an intervention over there earlier to the members for Bass and Lyons and me that asked: why don't we tell Tasmanians that? Well, actually we have. I give the people of Tasmania in our electorates more credit than those opposite give. I actually believe that, deep down, the people of my electorate—and I am sure in Bass and Lyons—understand the enormous task that we are facing.

We have two choices here. We can take the Leader of the Opposition and the Labor alternative government's plan, and that is to live by this philosophy that really we are in the business of estate planning and that hardworking taxpayers across Australia should fund into part pensions the inheritance of many. That is where we are heading: the idea that I should accumulate funds and live entirely off the interest and maybe a part pension and not even contemplate for one moment that I may have to draw down on my capital to see my days through. No. We are growing a culture in this country that suggests that the hardworking taxpayers should continue to contribute to my lifestyle to the day they put me in the box so that my kids can be rich. That is wrong. That is wrong, and it should be called what it is. It is not about estate planning. It is not about that at all.

In 1971—

Mrs Elliot interjecting—

Mr Conroy interjecting—

Just listen; you might learn something. In 1971, when I was 11, if I walked down the main street of my town, I would meet seven people aged between 15 and 64 before I met a person aged over 65. Today, I will meet fewer than five people who are aged between 15 and 64 before I meet someone aged over 65. It might be interesting to note that, in not too many decades, I could walk down that same street and I will meet fewer than three people who are aged between 15 and 64 before I meet someone aged 65.

Now, I have another term for people aged between 15 and 64. In my upbringing, I think we call them workers—taxpayers. I will just put the sums in place for those opposite. The reality here is that right now—for those listening to this and watching today—eight out of every 10 individual taxpayers in this country are stepping up for the welfare bill in this country. Eight out of every 10 individual taxpayers in this country are paying the welfare bill.

If you think that that can go on, well, knock yourself out. You take that vision, that plan, to the Australian people. I will tell you what has happened in the last 10 hours or so. As of yesterday, The Australian reported from very good sources that the Greens and the Australian Labor Party were going to support this. They woke up. They woke up this morning; Bill went out in his pyjamas, picked up his Australian, and there was the Newspoll: Mr Twenty-Eight Per Cent. That is what this is about. It is another diversion, and it is all about him. (Time expired)

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too am pleased to rise and speak on the government's failure to plan for a fair and sustainable retirement for all Australians, because we constantly see bad decisions from a bad government. That is all we ever hear from them. Labor will fight the Abbott government's second attempt to cut the pension for hundreds of thousands of pensioners.

The fact is that this Liberal-National government continues to recklessly attack the standard of living of older Australians. It does that by cutting their pensions, by slashing their services and by increasing taxes. The fact is that this government has failed the present and the future retirees of Australia as well. But those pensioners and older working Australians should be very clear about one thing, and that is that the Liberal and National parties are coming after your pensions. That is a fact. For those living in regional and rural Australia, it is the National Party that are coming after your pensions. That is my very clear message today; make no mistake about it. To all those people living in country Australia: the National Party are coming after your pensions. I note that there are none of them in the chamber right now. No wonder. It is absolutely terrible that they are voting for this measure. It will impact people in regional areas quite severely.

As we know, the government tried to cut pensions last year, and they are trying to cut them again this year. If they get re-elected, they will keep trying to cut them. That is what they do. The fact is that they just cannot be trusted when it comes to pensions. These unfair and cruel cuts that the government have been making have indeed been devastating to the nation and devastating to older Australians, particularly those older Australians who live in regional areas, such as those in my electorate of Richmond.

Locals in my area have every right to feel betrayed by this government and particularly betrayed, as I have said, by the National Party. This government really only has two things at its core: broken promises and unfairness. That is it: broken promises and unfairness. We see it time and time again. Of course, in its first budget, the government launched an unprecedented attack on the pension, particularly with its cuts to the indexation for pensions. It was one of the most savage attacks that we have ever seen. It would have seen every single pensioner in this country left worse off. Within 10 years, the cut would have amounted to $80 per week. In my electorate, there are 20,520 people on the age pension who would have had their pension cut by this cruel Liberal-National government.

Of course, before the election, we had the now Prime Minister promising that there would be no change to pensions. He said, 'No changes, no cuts.' He said on SBS News:

No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

In my area, we had all the National Party running around. They were all campaigning there on the North Coast of New South Wales. What were they telling everybody? 'No cuts to pensions.' And what did they do? We all know that the Prime Minister's promise, the Liberal Party's promise and the National Party's promise stand for nothing, and we know they cannot be trusted. Make no mistake about it: they will do it again. They will lie again. They will run around and tell everybody the same thing again.

But, in relation to those cruel cuts from last year's budget, pensioners made their voices heard. We in the Labor Party proudly stood with them to fight this government in terms of those cuts. We stood with them and we won in terms of those changes because we made it very clear that these were cruel and unfair changes. But then we get to this year's budget and what did they do? They continued their very unfair attack on pensioners. Labor will vote against the government's new round of cuts to the pensions. We will vote against this government's cuts to the almost 330,000 low-income pensioner households and the government's plans to throw more than 90,000 pensioners off the pension entirely.

These threats to pensions continue because the Prime Minister and his colleagues on that side of the House are out of touch. They just do not understand. They just do not get it, so they keep these attacks up on our pensioners. If you are on a pension now, be careful because the Liberals and the Nationals are coming after you.

With these changes, some single pensioners will be $8,000 worth off because of this measure. Some couple pensioners will be $14,000 worse off. More than 230,000 pensioners will on average be $130 a fortnight worse off—that is $3,380 per year. As I said, more than 90,000 pensioners will lose their pension altogether. So these are some very extreme cuts that will really impact right across the country.

In my area, I have been approached by so many pensioners very concerned as to how these cuts to their pensions will impact them. Make no mistake about it, Labor will fight this measure. As we fought it in last year's budget, we will fight it in this year's budget. We will stand with the pensioners once again and we will fight this right up until the election.

This government have lied consistently to the people of Australia. They said there will be no changes to pensions, but they have made changes to the pensions in last year's budget and in this year's budget. I say to people in rural and regional Australia, you cannot trust the National Party, particularly when it comes to your pensions. Many of our pensioners live in rural and regional Australia. We will keep fighting the government. We will fight them every day until the next election. Make no mistake about it, they lied before the election, they lied in relation to last year's budget and they will lie again.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Be careful using those terms. In this debate, you have to be careful how you use that term, please.

Mr Conroy interjecting—

Member for Charlton, you are not in your seat.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was still a factual statement.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you want to stay in the chamber, you will treat the chair with a bit more respect than that, member for Charlton.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think we have seen so much confected outrage on the other side of the chamber for quite some time. The member for McMahon was yelling and screaming with such hysteria and getting so read in the face, I had to tune in my television set because I thought there was something wrong with the reception. Honestly, what we are seeing from the opposition is the utmost in hypocrisy. They have utterly lost their way. The fact that the Labor Party have just reversed its position after earlier deciding it would vote for these measures, and will now not vote for these measures, just shows what a mess the Labor Party are in. If you want to know about integrity, if you want to know about trust, turn onto the ABC tonight and watch The Killing Season and you will understand with greater depth and clarity why the Australian people rejected the Labor Party.

The government are proposing changes to the age pension which are measured, responsible and fair. These changes will see more than 170,000 pensioners with modest assets have their pensions increased by just over $30 a fortnight—that is an increase. The Labor Party will block an increase for pensioners who most need the government's help. And around 50,000 part-pensioners will now qualify for a full pension under the new rules. More than 90 per cent of Australia's age pensioners and others who receive pension-linked payments will either be better off or have no change to their arrangements under these new proposals.

Some members opposite know deep in their hearts that these are reforms that should be supported by the Labor Party. These changes are about looking after those who most need our help with compassion, equity and fairness—a fundamental obligation of government. But this is not the party of old. In opposing our changes, Labor are showing Australians that it has lost its way. As we heard earlier in the debate, Labor are making the Greens look utterly responsible in relation to these measures. Labor would rather look after millionaire part-pensioners than the most needy in our society.

Who are we talking about? Couples who own their own home with additional assets of less than $451,000 will get a higher pension. Couples who do not own their own home but have assets of up to $699,000 will also, under our measures, be better off. So it is incredible that Labor are opting to look after the part-pensioners with assets of well over $1 million and yet deny pensioners who most need our help with this pension increase. The member for Rankin has called these part-pensioners low-income earners. Why are Labor forgetting those who most need our help? With these measures, we are helping those who most need our help.

I want to reflect on what our government has delivered since we were elected. Since the election, the single pension is up by $52 a fortnight and the couple pension has increased by $78 a fortnight. We have abolished the carbon tax—a noose around the neck of every pensioner, imposed by the Labor Party—a saving for every household of on average $550 each year. Importantly, pensioners have kept the carbon tax compensation, which is $14 per fortnight for singles and $21.20 for couples. What we are seeing is a Labor Party which are very good at imposing taxes on Australians. Our government are focused on helping everyday Australians get ahead and save for their retirement. What we are seeing from members opposite, whenever they run out of money, is a planned raid on the superannuation accounts of Australians to fill Labor's black hole, a black hole created by their reckless spending.

I was delighted to host the foreign minister in Grovedale last week for a community morning tea. I can assure you, Deputy Speaker, we were talking about our government's focus on national security, on economic security, on job creation, on a fairer pension and on protecting superannuation. I can tell members opposite that people in my electorate are genuinely concerned about Labor's plans to raid their superannuation accounts. We will make sure that the accounts of Australians are protected and we will work very hard to look after those who most need our help.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for this debate has expired.