Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. At the risk of causing a myocardial infarction in some of my colleagues, I will keep my comments a little more brief and come straight to the point. This is a government that has attacked the social contract on so many issues but, on this one—just like a broken clock—they have it right. A broken clock gets it right sometimes. We need to get a fairer pension system and this is a small step towards doing that. It ensures that people of more modest means get an increase in their pensions and it means that people with assets of $1.1 million over and above the family home get less. I do not think that is a bad thing. I think that is fair and reasonable. It is consistent with our position in 2007. It is consistent with where a number of groups—like the Australian Council of Social Services, Uniting Care and the Council on the Ageing—believe we need to get to. It is consistent with where half of the Labor Party's shadow cabinet are at. It is why the Greens have supported it.

We have supported it because the policy measure stands on its own two feet. In addition to it, we have delivered on a review into what it means to live a decent retirement, something we think is critically important. Should a future government decide to tackle some of those bigger issues around what it means to live a decent retirement—superannuation, tax concessions and age discrimination—we will have a blueprint for them ready to go. I just hope that those people standing in opposition to this bill, should they get the opportunity to reverse these changes, reverse it. But guess what? They won't—because their words are hollow.