Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to note the Abbott government's failure to tackle superannuation inequality and housing affordability. No-one could have missed the Treasurer's thought bubble that suddenly superannuation could be a source of funds for people to take out to buy a home. Out it went, spun out on the airwaves, without any backing, consideration, modelling, reports—anything. It was just spun out there as another thought bubble. What it demonstrates is that the coalition does not have a clear idea of what superannuation is intended to do, nor has it got any real grasp of the issue of housing affordability. That was shown here in the Senate a few minutes ago when we had the ridiculous proposition put before us that the principal reason for housing affordability issues is the failure to free up cheap land on the edge of cities. I am distracted, because that is the most ridiculous proposition. Everybody knows that the poorest people are forced to the furthest edges of the cities, where there is no public transport and no services. They drive the oldest and least efficient cars. They end up in hot boxes on the edges of cities and in poverty traps. That is not the way that you are going to change the issues of housing affordability. But I am going to allow my colleague Senator Ludlam to speak more on that.

I want to speak to the issue of the government's failure to tackle inequality in our current superannuation system. Superannuation in Australia is meant to be a way of delivering a comfortable retirement for everyone and taking pressure in the long term off the age pension, enabling people to save for their retirement. It is not meant to be a tax haven for the wealthy, and that is what it has become—a tax haven for the wealthy. That is why the Greens have put forward a more than reasonable proposition that says it is not reasonable that you put money into superannuation and it is taxed at a flat 15 per cent. How is that fair, if people can load up their superannuation at 15 per cent when they would be paying 47c if they were in that tax bracket? They get away with a 32c in every dollar windfall gain, knowing when they turn 60 they can take it out tax-free. It is a way of using the superannuation system as a tax haven. What we have said is: let's get serious about raising revenue. Let's get serious about removing the tax breaks that are skewed very heavily in favour of high-income earners and start caring for lower-income workers.

We had it looked at by the Parliamentary Budget Office and quite clearly you can raise more than $10 billion—$10.16 billion would be raised over four years—if you brought in a progressive superannuation proposal. For people earning up to $100,000 nothing would change, so it affects those on high incomes. It goes back to the principle that superannuation is about saving for your retirement. Yet what have we seen in here? We have seen the government maintain the inefficient and unfair system, and also move to abolish—which is just disgraceful—the low income super contribution. These are people who earn less than $37,000 a year. They have to have money going into superannuation. It goes in and it is taxed. That is just wrong. They are paying disproportionately more and that is why there was a low-income super contribution of $500 which the government put into super accounts so that you do not lose around $27,000 in expected retirement savings—because that is effectively what happens to people who earn less than $37,000 if you take away that low-income supplement. But the government was mean enough to say to people who earn less than $37,000: 'You pay; the rest can use it as a tax haven.'

That is why we should adopt this policy. It is $10.16 billion. It is there for the taking in this year's budget, and I urge the government to do that and ditch this nonsense idea that you can continue to use superannuation as a tax haven and a way of accessing money for housing. That is not what it is designed to do. (Time expired)