David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, some very good points. For three years I listened to those opposite talking about the importance of accountability. It is fascinating then that one of the Labor Party's first acts is to start working on reducing transparency and accountability for super funds. The Your Future, Your Super legislation introduced by the coalition government was vitally important and was widely welcomed for increasing transparency so that everyday Australians would be empowered with respect to their retirement savings. Now the Labor Party are disempowering everyday Australians and giving the power back to the $3 trillion industry super fund sector. Now it might be my view—and we'll have to wait for the returns—but I'm pretty sure that we'll find that they were some of the biggest donors to the Labor Party campaign. Labor truly are the party of vested interests.

It is really an embarrassment for the government that, while we were experiencing a third wave of COVID-19, instead of directing the Treasury to look at how government could support Australians, the Labor Party was directing the Treasury to look at how it could support industry super funds get away with poor performance and mismanagement—and, also, continue to pocket their millions of dollars in donations. And now, just this week, we've heard that the government plans to remove the ABCC's powers to an absolute minimum, all so that unions such as the CFMMEU can get away with bullying, sexist and thuggish behaviour. Industry groups and business have widely condemned this move, as it only seeks to disempower actual workers in the construction industry. What happened to the Prime Minister's promise, I ask you, to work with business and industry groups to increase productivity? It's only week one of parliament, and that has already gone out the window.

Continuing the theme of transparency and accountability: Mr Albanese has made another backflip on national cabinet secrecy, opting to continue to prevent the release of documents related to meetings of the Prime Minister and state and territory leaders despite being such a harsh critic of the practice while he was in opposition. Mr Albanese confirmed that he would not be ending the practice despite his accusation that Prime Minister Morrison was obsessed with secrecy while Prime Minister. So it is also interesting to see that Mr Albanese has not fulfilled his promise of including local government in those meetings of national cabinet.

What is most amusing is that the Labor Party campaigned on accountability, yet you only have to look at what they do and not at what they say because the two could not be further apart. This government has shown that their interests lie in standing up for their political puppetmasters and not for everyday Australians. They have shown absolutely no interest in trying to improve the lives of Australians beyond chanting a mere slogan, and Australians are beginning to pay for their mistakes. Australians need to look at what the government do and not at what they say because, after only such a short time in government, they have shown that their actions do not follow their words.