Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Wong is interjecting that we are delivering for the banks. Guess what—this is not about the banks at all. I know that is what the Labor Party is trying to suggest. This is about mums and dads across Australia saving for their retirement and wanting to ensure that the fees they pay out of their retirement savings are as low as possible. This is about making sure that we have the proper balance between consumer protections while making sure that access to high-quality advice remains affordable.

What we did in the wake of the Storm Financial collapse a few years ago was to have a bipartisan inquiry. That bipartisan inquiry came up with bipartisan recommendations for change, which the coalition supported then and still supports now. But of course the previous Labor government, with Mr Shorten as the then Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, decided to go further. It decided to provide clear advantages to industry super funds across Australia at the expense of mums and dads saving for their retirement.

This regulation, of course, which came into effect on 1 July 2014, has been before the Senate twice before. The Senate has voted in support of these regulations twice. Here today is the third time in four months that the Senate has been asked to vote on this. Of course that is because over the last four months David Whiteley, from Industry Super Australia, has been out there coordinating a campaign, making it look as if there is a level of consumer concern. He has been coordinating a campaign as the union leader for union funds. He has been running a dishonest campaign as the union leader for union funds, and the Labor Party is the political arm of the commercial interests of the union movement in here, in this chamber.

What is happening here today is quite reckless. It is quite irresponsible. Whatever you think about it, this is not the way to deal with this. Whatever you think about the legislation in substance, the regulation has been the law of the land for four months. You gave notice at seven o'clock last night that you wanted to get rid of those regulations today. There is actually no need to deal with this today. You know. Senator Moore talked about a transparent process to deal with these issues. Well, guess what? If you were genuine in that, if you were honest about that, you would know that this can be dealt with by 27 November, next week, so we actually could let this lie on the table and continue the conversation. Instead, what you are doing is that you are putting a gun to the government's head and you are putting a gun to the head of the financial services industry, quite recklessly and quite irresponsibly. If this regulation is disallowed today, it will be gone. That will have massive ramifications.

Opposition senators interjecting—

Well, you might cheer about this, but once you realise what the implications are in the marketplace you will have another thought about it, because there are a whole range of technical problems with your FoFA changes. There are problems that even Mr Bowen previously acknowledged—problems, for example, in the way grandfathering arrangements operated, which destroyed competition. If this goes up today, the cost of advice for consumers will go up. People across Australia saving for their retirement will have to spend more of their retirement savings on financial advice. Competition will go down. The Labor commercial interests in union funds will of course be improved. If this were fair dinkum, you would let this debate play out until 27 November, next week, which is when you know is the deadline— (Time expired)