John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm glad Senator O'Neill has raised the issue of superannuation. It's been very interesting, the royal commission, hasn't it, Senator O'Neill, when we look at superannuation there? Of course, we're well aware that, if Labor had put the terms of reference forward for the royal commission, superannuation would not have been included—you could bet on that.

There are questions to be asked about superannuation and who's earning what and what they're going to retire on. Senator O'Neill might answer a question for me, when I asked why, years ago, in 2007, Australian Super donated $27½ thousand to the Australian Workers' Union. It is quite amazing. Who were the directors of Australian Super then? You wouldn't believe it, Madam Deputy President: Senator Cameron was a director! And it goes on. Who was another director? Former Labor minister Greg Combet!

Senator McAllister interjecting—

You've picked the next one. I'm getting to it; you'll just have to be patient, Senator McAllister. And another director was? Mr Bill Shorten! So the superannuation fund donates $27½ thousand to the Australian Workers' Union and they list it as 'a donation', in 2007, to the Australian Workers' Union. What did they do shortly afterwards? The Australian Workers' Union donated $25,000 to where? To the election campaign fund of one Mr Bill Shorten. Of course, 10 years later, in 2017, the AWU changed it from 'a donation' to 'other'. So if we want to talk about superannuation and how much money is left, Senator McAllister, I'm glad we've got it in the terms of reference in the royal commission—which you never would have done.

Talking of working women, I want to see them earn more super and have a better retirement as well. But one person we should be thanking is this minister sitting in front of me for his change to day care subsidies and allowances. When it peaked out at $7,000, when half of the women went to work what was the story? They were working for taxation and for child care, and for nothing else; they were working for, basically, nothing. So isn't it great that Minister Birmingham did that? And congratulations to him on his promotion to trade minister.

As to the question from Senator Wong—well, if Senator Wong's going to keep Senator Keneally on the back bench, she's going to have to do better than that, because I know Senator Keneally. As I said, she's not used to riding down at the back of the bus; she wants to be up the front of the bus—in fact, she wants to be driving the bus. So if Senator Wong wants to keep those divisions from behind her away, she's going to have to do much, much better than that.

It's quite amazing that the coalition has a proud record of introducing real, tangible measures to help women save for their retirement, including the low-income superannuation tax offset, which benefits around 1.9 million women by over $500 million. Do those opposite give any praise for that? Of course not. Levelling the playing field by scrapping restrictions on who can make personal deduction contributions benefits 800,000 Australians, including those women working in roles without access to formal salary sacrifice arrangements. Catch-up concessional contributions will benefit 230,000 Australians, including those women with interrupted work patterns or irregular income, such as farmers and carers.

Of course, we know what Labor will do. It will simply hike taxes. We know there are $200 billion worth of taxes planned if it were to win the next election—an extra $200 billion on the Australian people. That's what Labor has done all its life—spend, spend, spend; tax, tax, tax; borrow, borrow, borrow; and run up government debt. It doesn't matter whether it is at state level. It doesn't matter whether it is at federal level. Labor has a history of building debt, big time. Its then Treasurer, Mr Wayne Swan, was going to have the budget in the black years ago. As I've said in this place before, black print at the bottom of a budget is something Labor simply does not understand.

Under the coalition, there are more women working than ever before and more women working full-time than ever before. Working women, of course, are getting superannuation. What we've got to do is get the snouts out of the trough of the superannuation. The royal commission has made it very clear that there are institutions out there that are simply robbing and ripping off people's superannuation, and hence their retirement fund is so much lower. I hope the royal commission makes some serious recommendations about superannuation, about seeing that not only the women but the male workers as well have a much better retirement fund, because that's what it's for. The coalition has done a good job on benefiting working women. I commend, as I said, the day care support now, which is a real incentive for women to work and to work longer, not only to earn their wage and benefit their family but to earn superannuation as well.