Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Service Providers and Other Governance Measures) Bill 2013 and related bills. The handling of superannuation policy and legislation by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments has been nothing short of disgraceful. As I travel around Australia and speak to Australians saving for their retirement—Australians working hard, trying to do the right thing to get themselves in a position to be able to look after their own needs in retirement so that they do not have to be a burden on the public purse by having to rely on the aged pension—they invariably complain to me about the constant chopping and changing and the constant chaos in the way this Labor government has approached superannuation laws. Remember, in the lead-up to the 2007 election the then opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, said that there would be no change to superannuation—not one jot, not one tittle, he said.

But since then, between then Prime Minister Rudd and current Prime Minister Gillard, they have imposed almost $9 billion of additional taxes on people's retirement savings—almost $9 billion of additional taxes to plug their budget black hole, which is coming straight out of people's retirement savings. They promised no change but of course this dishonest government immediately, in its first budget, slashed concessional contribution caps from $100,000 for people over 50, over time, to just $25,000. And right now concessional contribution caps across the board are down to $25,000—which means in practice that any Australian who wants to save more than $25,000 towards their retirement has to pay top marginal tax on that 46½ per cent. Why would anyone agree to lock more than $25,000 a year into their superannuation if they have to pay more tax than they might have to pay on their take-home pay?

So, we have had the increased taxes because this is a government that has fundamentally mismanaged the budget. They have spent $220 billion more than they have raised in revenue, even though they have benefited from the best terms of trade in 140 years, because they spent too much. And people across Australia—doing the right thing, working hard, saving for their retirement—have been asked to pay the price. But increased taxes were not enough. The government also had to impose massive regulatory change without going through proper process, without trying to test the cost-benefit equation and without making sure that the additional cost that is ultimately imposed on people saving for their retirement delivers a proportionate benefit. Conservative estimates across the industry are that the increased red tape imposed by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments will cost about $1½ billion just to implement and many hundreds of millions of dollars in additional compliance costs year in year out, which will come straight out of people's retirement savings and superannuation accounts.

And here we are: for the last three years the government has said, 'We're going to legislate the regulatory framework for those Australians who do not make active choices in relation to their superannuation'—legislate the consumer protection framework for those Australians who find themselves in default super arrangements—'we're going to call it MySuper, and it's going to come into effect on 1 July 2013.' Guess what? 1 July 2013 is less than a week away. And here we are dealing with the fourth tranche of the so-called MySuper bills in relation to legislation that is supposed to come into effect and be implemented in less than a week from now, and major businesses across Australia that are looking after people's retirement savings are expected to comply from day one.

It is incompetence writ large, but that is what we have become used to with this government. Over the last three years particularly, under the leadership of the current Prime Minister and with the current minister for superannuation, this government has been chaotic, dysfunctional, divided and fundamentally incompetent. People across Australia are on the receiving end of all of that dysfunction, division and incompetence. Not only do people have to pay more tax when they were promised no change and no increases in tax, they also have to pay higher fees as a result of all of the chopping and changing and the additional red tape that the government has imposed without going through a proper cost-benefit analysis or proper regulatory impact assessments.

Because of the truncated nature of the way in which this legislation has been dealt with—because of the government's running so hard into the wind—businesses across Australia are exposed to higher costs than they would have been if the government had handled this legislation competently and professionally. We have a minister for superannuation who is so distracted from his portfolio that he cannot possibly focus on what needs to be done to ensure a proper and orderly process. If Minister Shorten were as focused on his superannuation portfolio as he is on his other extracurricular activities, he would have done much better for people across Australia saving for their retirement.

In 2007, people were promised no change, but the government slashed concessional contribution caps from $100,000 down to $25,000 and progressively slashed the superannuation co-contribution benefits for low-income earners from $1,500 for every $1,000 saved down to just $500 for every $1,000 saved—saving about $3.3 billion in the process at the expense of low-income earners. In the lead-up to the 2010 election we had another pre-election lie from this government. We now have, in this bill, another broken promise from a Gillard Labor government which clearly cannot be trusted. In the lead-up to the last election, we were told that the concessional contribution cap for people over 50 with super balances of less than half a million dollars would be increased to $50,000 from 1 July 2013. Actually, it was initially to be from 1 July 2012, but that was deferred. Now, instead of getting an increase to $50,000 for people over 50, as promised, we are getting an increase to just $35,000 for people over 60 from 1 July 2013—not to $50,000 but just to $35,000.