Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll take the interjection. For a person who's worked in the sector, you've never understood the value of the superannuation system. No matter how much the minister protests, the government's core objective is undermining universality, undermining the scale of the system and wrecking the value that it's created for ordinary workers and their families and the Australian economy.

Senator Hume interjecting—

You can shake your head, but you are a chief enabler of wrecking one of the great achievements in the Australian economy. It's a Labor achievement. I know you lot hate it. I know you lot hate the ordinary, decent trade union officials and members who established the system. It is a Labor achievement. It is a union achievement. It's an achievement that's been delivered in cooperation and great partnership with a generation of employers and employer representatives. It's delivered good things for the Australian economy and ordinary working people. At every little step of the way, at every opportunity to undermine it and to pander to some of the most extremist elements that have attached themselves to your once-great political party, you've done anything to wreck the system. What we actually need is a fair dinkum commitment to superannuation, a fair dinkum commitment to dealing with the inequities that present themselves, and we need a government that's actually on the side of decent Australians—that's actually on the side of good employers, not on the side of ratbags and crooks and shonks.

Industry Super Australia estimates that $5.9 billion worth of superannuation is stolen every year. The tax office estimates about half that: $2.8 billion of superannuation is stolen every year. This amnesty, which goes back an extraordinary 26 years, will only recover, the estimates say, $230 million.