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

My question is to the Treasurer. Last year, the Treasurer said:

The Government has made it crystal clear that we have no interest in increasing taxes on superannuation either now or in the future.

Does the Treasurer stand by this remark? Will the Treasurer rule out making changes to superannuation which reduce the retirement incomes of low- and middle-income Australians?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for the question. If he was paying attention to my earlier answer, he would have noted that, after the change of leadership last year, the Prime Minister put the full review of retirement incomes back on the table. That was the new policy setting of the government. The new policy setting of the government is to look at what the purpose of superannuation is and run that rule over every aspect of how superannuation arrangements are devised to ensure that people who are risk of being on a pension or on a part pension are the focus of where those incentives must go.

What we are doing is ensuring that superannuation is fit for purpose—just like we ensured that the pension would be fit for purpose. Those opposite opposed the savings measures and opposed the measures that made the pension more sustainable. We will wait to see—once the government has finalised its views on this matter and these are announced, at the latest, in the budget—whether they are prepared to support the second phase of our retirement incomes review.

What we know on this side is that we have been dealing with these issues sensibly and methodically. We have not run out there with a sort of grab bag of policies—the headline-grabbing stuff that the member for McMahon has done. As the minister for immigration has just reminded us, the member for McMahon is the architect of increasing capital gains tax by 50 per cent on investment in this country. He is the architect of a policy which is not just dealing with existing housing, as we learnt in this House when we last met, but going to say that, if you want to invest in a commercial building, you cannot negative gear that either; if you want to invest in shares and you are going to use those practices, you cannot do that—and, indeed, in some cases, in distributions from partnerships and sole trader arrangements; and the capital gains tax changes apply not just to property but right across the full bore of assets that are subject to capital gains tax. This is the architect of a tax and a tax change that are going to punish investment at a time, in the transitioning of our economy, when investment is the key thing we need.

That is why those opposite cannot be trusted to manage the transitioning of our economy which is going to continue to deliver great prosperity for Australians. They cannot be trusted. They have learnt nothing in their time in opposition from their disasters in government—absolutely nothing. As a result, those on this side of the House, I think, can look forward to the budget with great promise because that budget will focus on investment and on supporting Australians who are out there working, saving and investing every day, and making that transition happen.