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

My question is to the Prime Minister. On average, Australian women retire with 40 per cent less in their superannuation. That's approximately $113,000 less. Many single women retire into poverty. Will the Prime Minister therefore support Labor's plan to invest $400 million to strengthen the Australian superannuation system, boost women's super and help Australian women plan for a secure and independent financial future?

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

I thank the member for his question, and the government will consider all options in this area. But I do want to point out that, when superannuation reforms were taken through this parliament when I was Treasurer, I was disappointed that the opposition didn't support important measures that would have assisted women with catch-up contributions in their superannuation. That was part of the package where we introduced the low-income superannuation tax offset, and that benefits around 1.9 million women by over $500 million. There was the levelling of the playing field by scrapping restrictions—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will pause for a second. The members for Fenner, Griffith and Hotham are already interjecting loudly, as they've done in recent days. They'll cease interjecting. Members on both sides will listen to the answer. The Prime Minister has the call.

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

There was the levelling of the playing field by scrapping restrictions on those who can make personal deduction contributions. That benefited some 800,000 Australians, including those women working in roles without access to formal salary-sacrificing arrangements. One of the real changes that is occurring across our economy is the start-up of new home-based businesses, which many women, particularly in family roles, are taking on around the country. Our government has ensured that they can get access to the same superannuation tax concessions as anyone else out there working in a normal wage and salary earning job, and we have legislated to do that. These were part of the major changes that we introduced.

On top of that, there were the catch-up concessional contributions. They will benefit some 230,000 Australians, and the Labor Party opposed that. Where you had women who had gone out of the workforce for a period of time and they were in a position to try to make catch-up contributions in the future, to catch up when they went back to work, the Labor Party said no. They said, 'We don't want them to do that.' Fortunately, we've been able to pursue that through the parliament. We've got around two million women who hold a low balance, with inactive accounts, and that will be protected from erosion through the excessive fees and inappropriate insurance arrangements that we are getting rid of as a government. They're the measures that we're pursuing, which I announced in this year's budget. Around 1.6 million who are still contributing to low-balance accounts will see hundreds of millions of dollars worth of savings from those measures. And 1.3 million women will have their retirement savings boosted by around $2.5 billion, thanks to being proactively reunited with their lost, low and inactive balances.

So, as a government, we've been acting on these issues. That's why we've seen the gender pay gap, for example, on women's issues and women in the workforce, fall from 17.2 per cent when we came to government to 14.5 per cent. Under the previous Labor government, who always talks a big game on this, the gender pay gap went from 15.5 per cent up to 17.2 per cent. Don't listen to what Labor promise you; you can rely on what our government has done and will continue to do.