Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

There are incessant interjections from Senator Cormann and Senator Abetz who, with respect, should have been paying more attention to this when they were in government. Perhaps some of those who are making representations on this issue now were at the time, probably understandably, distracted by other elements of the simpler super package such as the $1 million contributions. Perhaps they were focused on that rather than on the penalty regime, on which most of them, to my recollection, were silent.

In terms of the critique of Senator Shorten I can assure the Senate that Senator Shorten is well and truly focused on his responsibilities as Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation. Indeed, he announced just prior to Christmas the most significant and widespread reforms of the operation to our superannuation system in this country since the introduction of compulsion. Senator Shorten, I can assure the chamber and those in the public listening, is well and truly focused on implementation of major reform, which he announced, that will see, amongst other things, the introduction of MySuper and SuperStream, which are essential reforms that will bring down the cost of operation of our system. It is estimated they will bring down the costs of aggregate fees in the system by approximately 40 per cent. For example, there is the proposed use of the TFN number as an identifier to minimise the multiple accounts we have in this country. There are 33 million accounts for about 12 million people in the workforce. There are over four million lost accounts. Minister Shorten is well and truly focused on implementing what is a comprehensive set of reforms that will make the operation of the superannuation system much more efficient and reduce those fees and charges. He is also focused on the future of financial advice and the very contentious issue of commission based selling of product in our financial system.