Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will not be supporting the Parliamentary Superannuation Amendment Bill 2006, although I have some support for the arguments that Senator Murray has just been putting. If we were pursuing legislation which was to give Australians in the workplace generally a 15 per cent contribution from their employers to their superannuation, we would be very comfortable with this legislation. But we are not dealing with that. We are dealing with a rise in the top-up coming from taxpayers to the superannuation scheme of people elected to this parliament after 2004 from nine per cent to 15 per cent.

There are two things I need to make clear. The Greens have always and will consistently oppose the 69 per cent top-up for members of parliament elected before 2004. We think that is—and I think the whole body politic made the changes two or three years ago because it was—quite clearly absurd and outrageous and needing to be drawn into line. After action by Mark Latham, the then leader of the Labor Party, for a nine per cent top-up—which was consistent with that for the rest of Australian workplaces—the Prime Minister, in the run to the last election, made it very clear to Australian voters that he thought nine per cent was a good scheme. I am quoting the Prime Minister in using the word ‘good’.

This is effectively a broken promise because the Prime Minister is now, without reference to the electorate, almost doubling the contribution coming from the electorate to the scheme of new MPs. I would be taking a very different view to this again if all members of parliament, including those elected before 2004, myself included, were to be reduced to a 15 per cent or a nine per cent top-up. But we are not dealing with that. There has been restiveness within the government’s ranks, particularly among new members, about the inexcusable disparity in the two schemes and, to settle that down a bit, we are now getting a 15 per cent rate through this legislation.

I believe the process is wrong. It is unfair and it is not honest; it is not what the electorate expected in 2004. If this were being put to the electorate next year, when the Prime Minister next went to election, that would be a different matter. Far from that, the bill was brought into this place on the last day of sitting and the cut-off was abolished this morning, by vote of the Senate. We are debating this this afternoon and the bill will presumably go through today—no committee, no public input, none of the usual consideration, but a bolt to get this legislation through.

Let us look at the need to amend the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme and the Defence superannuation scheme so that same-sex couples get a proper benefit from their superannuation scheme. There has been an anomaly which has prejudiced thousands of Australians and continues to do so. It would be fixed by a piece of legislation brought in here by Senator Spindler, I think, in 1995 and which the Senate was dealing with last Thursday afternoon, 11 years down the line.

Here is a gross inequity for thousands of members of the public, and the government has effectively talked it out. It has done nothing about it. We have had 11 years to fix a real injustice in the Commonwealth superannuation schemes—there are actually three of them—with Mr Howard, effectively, blocking that all the way down the line. But, when it comes to a little bit of restiveness among his own backbench, he can get this piece of legislation in here, knock off the proper process for an inquiry about it and get it in the Senate all within 36 hours—11 years with no action on an injustice to thousands of Australians to this within 36 hours.