Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is an amazing use of words—Senator Gallagher tells us that Labor took a policy to the election but they have been willing to revise it since the election. Apparently it is okay to do that, but if the government of the day uses its expertise and a review is undertaken by the leadership—with the strength and the reasoning of the Prime Minister and indeed the Treasurer—that somehow seems to be discordant and it is disgraceful, et cetera. I will add my name to that review. I was very vocal during and after the election campaign, and I could be vocal because the difference between the two sides of politics is that our side, without fear of losing our seat or being kicked out of the parliament, can bring views forward to our colleagues on the cabinet bench. Heaven forbid if somebody does that on the other side.

As Senator Macdonald well knows, we have added expertise. For example, there is the member for Forde, Mr Bert Van Manen. What was Bert's role for many years prior to his coming into the parliament? He was a financial adviser. With people with the expertise of the member for Forde, with the inclusiveness of the Treasurer and his assistant minister, and through the process of wide consultation around this country that the Treasurer participated in, including coming to my home city of Perth, we have arrived at a final position which, as the finance minister has said—contrary to the assertions of Senators Gallagher and McAllister—will save the budget some $670 million over the forward estimates. Even more important than that, because of our inclusiveness, because we went to the industry, because we listened to our constituents, many of whom do not vote for the coalition, we were able to give feedback, provide a measured response and arrive at an excellent system. Senator Gallagher said no cap—but the cap of $1.6 million per person in a couple is still there. For those of you listening, if you have enough, it is $1.6 million for the husband and for the wife. That cap continues, and it is now $100,000 of nonconcessional contributions a year, except that if your grandma dies and leaves you $300,000 you can put the $300,000 into the super scheme under 65 but of course you cannot put any more in for the next two years.

When I learnt what the leader of the Labor Party was suggesting I thought that it was fairly logical—it was a bit unusual for Mr Shorten, but nevertheless—so I made it my business again to investigate the issue with those with expertise in the superannuation industry. I said, 'Why is the Leader of the Opposition's policy not the way to go?' They said, 'Well, the concept of it would have been all right, Chris, except for the fact that it is unworkable.' Why is it unworkable? I was told there are two reasons. It is not my field, but I listened carefully. The first reason is simply the fact that people have more than one superannuation scheme, so, in retirement, they might want to draw from different schemes. As I understand it, under the Leader of the Opposition's process, if you earn more than $70,000 or $80,000 in income from your investments you will be taxed at 15c in the dollar. Unfortunately, that system is not practicable and cannot work realistically, because if someone is drawing from different funds it would be administratively difficult, if not impossible, to calculate from which fund the various income or revenue came and to then decide whether that is to be taxed or not. The second reason, which was again given to me perfectly reasonably, is that the funds are managed within pools, not necessarily in the name of only an individual. Therefore, at tax calculation time, under what would have been Mr Shorten's scheme, the administrative burden would have been far more difficult.

But look what we have now: a scenario that is workable and fair and that has been delayed for people coming back into the workforce, including women on lower incomes coming back into the workforce. All of that has been delayed until 2018. This is a fine example of the coalition doing its best work collaboratively under strong leadership. Look at the rabble on the other side.