Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. I rise to speak on this bill to make a few comments from the perspective of the Greens. I appreciate the briefing we had yesterday from a group of public servants who attempted to illuminate the complexity that is before us, but it was a very short presentation—less than 35 minutes—and it illuminated a number of elements in this bill that illustrate its complexity. So I rise to express and reinforce the concerns that my friend Senator Hanson-Young has put before us.

This is a very rushed consideration of a complex question. It's one of the first bills that I've had the opportunity as a new senator to deal with. I'm surprised that we didn't have before us an analysis that showed, as they suggested, there would be some people who benefited from this bill but others who would be disadvantaged. The general analysis about how those numbers would fall and what the characteristics were, of people affected, weren't put before us. So I am surprised that the analysis was thin and inadequate for the complexity of the matter in front of us.

Superannuation is complex. The schemes that we are dealing with, several of them, are complex. So I am resisting the notion that this is an urgent question which doesn't allow consideration of the proper facts, the full facts, before us. We don't have adequate information about the bill. We don't know who will be benefited and who will not, who will be disadvantaged, and we need that full analysis for the consideration of bills in this place and certainly on this issue. So a rushed process, lacking a fulsome briefing, is problematic. Secondly, it's not clear to me why this needs to be rushed through with such urgency. What's the reason? We haven't had a full explanation, and I think that setting a precedent for the urgent and very quick consideration of this matter is a mistake.

We've been here in this parliament, in this sitting, for a week and a half. To find ourselves suddenly dealing with this, at this pace, is a mistake—an issue that's been around, certainly in the court, for over two years, we heard yesterday. That's long enough for us to have had a proper briefing around it, and it hasn't arrived. The bill is retrospective for 30 years. That's a long time. And it's a real concern to us that that will create some retrospectivity and a precedent around an important piece of legislation, one that we still don't understand the negative or unforeseen implications of. The bill, it seems, will overturn, possibly, a court outcome in a case that's not yet been concluded. It's important that government doesn't interfere with the courts and that we have a deliberate and clear separation of powers in what we're doing.

We understand, here, in the Greens, the importance of superannuation. It's a really important issue that affects the lives of so many Australians, and we care about making sure that system works properly, especially in this case, and works well for the hardworking public servants, over many decades, as this bill would affect them. So we're unable to support this bill, given that Labor haven't given us enough information about how it would affect people, especially our public servants.

We want to ensure that those who do all of the work in the public sector, with their commitment to service, are not inadvertently disadvantaged through the rapid progress of a bill that's not well understood, even in this place. Our public sector has been cut to the bone. We have to make sure everything we do rewards and supports and protects public servants, increases their pay and conditions, and does no harm.