Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Rex Patrick for that question. As I've indicated, the government remains committed to that important part of the reform, but we had to recognise that today it wasn't possible to reach a sufficient consensus with the majority of people in the Senate. The alternative would have been to get nothing or to allow Labor to cannibalise our bill in a way that would have made it unworkable. So what we've decided to do is to secure passage of the cap on fees for low-value accounts today, to secure passage of the abolition of exit fees today, to secure passage of the more efficient consolidation of super accounts today and to ensure that all of these reforms are in place from 1 July 2019. We will continue to pursue the remaining aspect of this reform in relation to default insurance, but in the end you have to be pragmatic in politics and get the best possible outcome when you can and keep working to improve on that further.