Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Cormann, you understand finance and how things work. People go to their financial planners and they speak to their accountants. Some of them do not need to—they are very sophisticated, especially very high-income Australians. We are asking for a review in about nine months time. People will anticipate this legislation. They will make changes to their financial planning well before then. They will not make the changes after the bill has kicked in when they have changes to their contribution caps; they will make changes prior to that. So I think a review is very reasonable, but we would be happy to amend it to 2018, if you felt that that was more reasonable. Either way, we would like to see a review into these matters.

I am disappointed that Senator Xenophon and the Nick Xenophon Team have not supported this amendment or Labor's amendments to this superannuation bill. What we discussed in committee and what has been a theme certainly for the Greens here today—and I note the same for Labor—is that this is an opportunity to go a little bit further. This is an opportunity to reduce perverse tax incentives that are allowing wealthy Australians to use superannuation as a tax avoidance vehicle. We are not asking much. I would like to have seen the amendments go a lot further and I would like to have seen the superannuation system be made a lot more progressive with significant reform that would have raised a lot more revenue for this counter and made it a lot fairer.

I suspect that the Nick Xenophon Team have been asked not to vote for these amendments because they might actually pass and we might have the numbers to amend this bill and send it back to the House. Those are just my own thoughts on the matter. Nevertheless, I do not think Senator Xenophon's case for not voting for Labor's amendments or the Greens' amendment is very strong at all. We have an opportunity to raise more revenue here, which would take pressure off backpackers, off wine producers and off other low-income Australians, who the government is intent on taking money off all the time. We can actually take some money off wealthy Australians here, raise revenue and have some real reform, and I think the amendments being put up by Labor are quite reasonable and help make this system just a little bit fairer. I just wanted to get that on record.

Question negatived.

Bills reported without amendment; report adopted.