Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It has been flagged by various members of the opposition that there would be a clawback—including Ms King and Ms Kearney. The Treasury never recommended a clawback. With a clawback today, 99 per cent of the businesses that would be hit would be small businesses. In my state, these are the same businesses that have been smashed by lockdowns. They have just come out of three months of lockdowns—and the opposition parties want to hit them with a clawback, a retrospective tax. They were all eligible. So when you measure JobKeeper in terms of the quantum and type of businesses that were eligible, and what they received in terms of dollars, more than 90 per cent were small businesses. So, when you talk about clawback, you are talking about small businesses. Isn't it amazing: you want to have a debate about the economic policies that got the country through the pandemic and, at the end of it, you want to claw back from small businesses. I think it's bizarre.

The other scheme that was also very successful—which I know annoys the Labor Party no end—was the early release of super. It was very, very successful. It was about allowing Australians to have access to their own money at a time of huge economic shock. Interestingly, at the time, the only people who were against giving Australians access to their own money were of course the super funds, which Labor went along with. We had the greatest economic shock in 100 years and we were opening the Treasury and almost maxing out the nation's credit card. But the Labor Party says, 'We're not going to touch the super funds'—even though they've got $3 trillion in a government pension scheme. I think that was a successful policy. I personally would like to see some sort of permanent scheme put in place so people could access their own money, because I tell you what: I think that homeownership's pretty important to a lot of people, and low-income people, in particular, can't get a first home because they have to funnel 10 per cent into the super funds, which, of course, pay huge donations to the unions, which in turn fund the Labor Party.

So I'm sick of coming into this place and hearing all these allegations about corruption and donations. The biggest political donors in the country are the unions and the super funds. They funnel tens of millions of dollars each year into the political coffers of those opposite. It's shameful, and I really suggest that you think carefully about your long-term policy agenda, because it's not really in the interests of workers to have their money sent off to these funds, which charge high fees and basically spend all their money on political advertisements with Mr Combet's face on them and on running dodgy outfits.