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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that under the government's policies a wealthy retiree couple will get a cash bonus from dividend imputation despite the fact that they have $2.9 million in super, have $290,000 worth of Australian shares, draw $120,000 a year in super income and receive $17,500 a year of dividend income and pay no tax? How is it fair that they will get a cash bonus from the government of $7,500?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question, and of course the honourable member is the one who has now announced a pensioners guarantee. It's designed, he says, to protect pensioners. But who is he protecting them from? He's protecting them from his own leader. The shadow Treasurer is flinging himself into the breach to protect pensioners from the policy that he designed himself, which he said again and again was carefully calibrated, well targeted and well designed. Oh, yes, this economic genius understood exactly what he was doing. This was not an unintended consequence, but he did think they could get away with it. They did think they could get away with it.

They've gone out there and they've said today that no pensioner will be affected. They've said that no pensioner will be affected—completely and utterly untrue. It is totally untrue, because anyone who becomes a pensioner not years from now, not five years from now but tomorrow, after 28 March, will be liable for the cash grab from their self-managed superannuation fund—really. So they have gone out there and they have said they're protecting pensioners, but only pensioners who don't have self-managed super funds or become pensioners after 28 March. It is just another example of a shambolic policy on the run from an economic team that has one bungle after another.

And, of course, there's no justice there. They say how unfair it is for people to get the cash benefit of a franking credit. But a big company or a wealthy investor can use that franking credit to reduce their tax liability on other income. That apparently is fair. That's fair, but people on low incomes are not able to do so. This is a combination of avarice, malevolence and incompetence, classic Labor, going after the savings of people that should be supported and respected, not fleeced.