Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the chamber’s courtesy. The Parliamentary Superannuation Amendment (Removal of Excessive Super) Bill 2009 looks at the parliamentary super for politicians that were elected prior to 2004. The community was quite concerned in the lead-up to the 2004 election about how the superannuation entitlements of politicians were way out of kilter with the general community. In actual fact, it was acknowledged by Mr Latham, who was the leader of the Labor Party at the time. He said that ‘these schemes are well outside the community standard in Australia’ and that it is a ‘major source of public dissatisfaction’. Mr John Howard, the Prime Minister at the time, also made some statements. He said, ‘There is a community perception that this super is too generous.’

They are statements that are in the report that has been tabled today. What happened was that they stood there and said, ‘We’ll fix this for all the new people who come in.’ That was good; I have no complaints there. I am certainly not asking for any more benefits. I think politicians are well paid. But the cheek was that both the coalition government of the day and Labor knew they could have closed this scheme down for themselves, but they did not have the guts to actually do it. They decided to do it for everybody that was new. Knowing the community was outraged about the super entitlements of politicians, knowing that the entitlements were way over the top, they decided to come up with an agreement that it was for new people but not for the existing people in the scheme. They knew quite clearly that they could close that existing scheme down. There are over a hundred politicians still on that scheme. The scheme is out of line with community expectations. It is out of line with community standards and it is a pity that this report says that they are going to do nothing about it.

I make it quite clear that Family First believes that the super entitlements should be changed for all. I recommend that the community have a bit of a look at this report and see how statements made back in 2004 only apply going forward when quite clearly they could have applied to all those politicians who were on the scheme prior to 2004. It is a scheme which is out of line with community standards and expectations and it allows the rort to continue for quite some time for those parliamentarians elected prior to 2004.