Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering Better Financial Outcomes and Other Measures) Bill 2024, and I want to start by saying that it is becoming a habit of this government to put to the parliament bills that cover a variety of dispersed topics, to cram them into one Treasury laws amendment bill and then expect the parliament to just whack it through. It is not the best way of engaging with others in this place on the detail of these bills. And it is certainly not the best way of ensuring that members of the community, stakeholders and impacted industry groups can have their concerns heard and responded to.

We have here today a bill that does a whole lot of things in relation to giving advice on super, and we just heard Senator Hume talk a bit about that. Then there is a discrete section of the bill that talks about establishing a new location tax offset for the film industry—totally different industries, totally different topics, totally different stakeholders. And the government has tried to just whack it all in together because they are slow to get moving on a whole bunch of promises that they have made.

In relation to the super elements of this bill and the government's newly rushed and circulated amendments for financial advice to be paid out of clients' superannuation balances, I just want to make it clear we haven't had time to consider these amendments. They have been rushed into the parliament this morning. There's been a deal done with the Dutton coalition. It's all being done under the cover of the chaos that this government is currently in. The coalition, for months and months now, have played block, block, block and said, 'No, no, no,' on all government activities. Then, all of a sudden, when the government's in crisis and there's a lot of political mess going on for the Albanese government, the Liberal Party decide to flick some things through, hoping that nobody notices. You can see what happened here. When the coalition teams up with the Labor Party, you get rushed legislation, rushed amendments and bad outcomes for people.

Senators in this place, particularly in the Greens and on the crossbench, haven't had time to consider these amendments. But apparently it doesn't matter because the two-party system will deliver the numbers and they can whack it on through. They like the rush and the guillotine when it suits them. We've heard for weeks the crying out, squealing and whining from the coalition about the parliament being efficient and passing legislation. They've been squealing about the use of guillotines. But, when it suits them, they get on and do it. That's what we have seen here today.

Senators other than those in the Liberal Party—I don't even think the National Party was consulted on these—have had no time to consult on and scrutinise these amendments adequately. But, at first blush, we have concerns. We think that these changes could re-ignite some of the problems that the banking royal commission tried to stamp out. The government's amendment—let's be clear—is removing any reference to the financial advice having to relate to members' interest in a super fund. They are also striking out the provisions that ensure financial advisers can't price-gouge their clients. What? Why would you scrap that unless you're doing the bidding of the big end of town, thanks to the Liberal Party? We haven't had time to be convinced that this won't lead to a situation where financial advisers can spruik to a potential client something like: 'I can give you a range of financial advice relating to negative gearing, a new investment property, superannuation or where you put your savings. But the best part is you don't have to pay for it. We can just charge the fee to your super account.' This the is type of insidious, dishonest, tricky behaviour that the banking royal commission called out and said needed to be cleaned up.

But, of course, the government is in a state of desperation today to get a whole lot of bills through a guillotine, so they falter, they fold and they bow to the pressure of the Liberal Party. Let's make it clear: the Liberal Party are never going to be acting in the best interests of people when it comes to superannuation. They hate superannuation. They don't like it. It's in their blood not to like the super system. So any chance they get to wreck it or undermine it they will take. Here we have the government rolling out the red carpet this morning.

For regular, everyday people, super balances are out of sight and out of mind. Financial advisers can then charge excessive fees with less scrutiny than if their client was paying for it out of their pocket. They've tried these tricks before. We've seen the manipulation of people that happens by financial advisers and financial institutions. They pick on vulnerable people. They can make more of a margin on their advice. At the end of the day, it is the individual customer, the holder of that superannuation account, who suffers. It's so un-Labor. You are a Labor government and you're just undermining your own superannuation system. Get a spine! We'll be voting against these amendments, but it won't matter in this place because you've done a deal with the Dutton coalition to undermine super and to undermine regular people and their retirement savings.

In relation to the other part of the bill that the Greens have—