Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Another day in the Senate, another attack on Australia's superannuation system from Senator Bragg. Senator Bragg has been offering up some pretty out-there ideas for Australians to raid their super and to dismantle our world-leading superannuation system in this country. The senator's ideas are risky, they are getting increasingly weird and they are wacky.

The first idea was to somehow help young Australians buy a home by raiding their super. That's where everyone takes $50,000 out of their super and puts it into the housing market. What does that do? It pushes house prices up. Everybody knows that. What else does it do? It reduces your retirement savings. It does both of those things without building a single home. That is, on its own, a pretty weird idea. But what we have next from Senator Bragg in his efforts to dismantle our superannuation system is an even more weird and wacky proposal, which is to use your super as collateral for a house. That's a proposal that risks your super and your home at the same time if you fall behind on your mortgage payments.

These ideas are risky to Australians. They are risky when it comes to the housing market and they are risky when it comes to the retirement of Australians. These are not genuine efforts to get Australians into their first homes. What they are is genuine efforts to dismantle Australia's superannuation system. All of this of course started with the Liberal's COVID early release scheme. It was early release of people's hard-earned superannuation, and it was a complete failure that led to massive amounts of regret. Research shows that people who took out $20,000 during the pandemic will retire with $120,000 less in today's terms when they come to their retirement. That's $120,000 gone. Because lessons have not been learnt on that side of the chamber, they think raiding your super to buy a house is a solution. The reality is it won't help a single person. It will push house prices up, it will reduce your retirement savings and it won't build a single house.

We think that Australians should be able to buy a house and that they should be able to retire with some dignity and security in their retirement as well, founded on a strong superannuation balance. That's why we've expanded the Home Guarantee Scheme. One-third of first home buyers have bought their first home using the expanded Home Guarantee Scheme. That is a way to help people get into their first home. We on this side of the chamber want to help people even more. That's why we have our Help to Buy bills before the chamber to support 40,000 Australians to get into their first home with as little as a two per cent deposit. But what we know is that the coalition have teamed up with the Greens to block 40,000 Australians from getting access to help to buy their first home.

We believe in homeownership and we believe in strong retirement savings and that is why we are building up Australia's world-leading superannuation system. Don't let Senator Bragg and the Liberals talk down our superannuation system. This is a world-leading system. It is the envy of the world. It is delivering retirements to Australians that mean for the first time they don't need to rely just on the aged pension but can retire with some dignity and security. It is a proud Labor legacy and it is one that we are building on. We are building on it with superannuation on paid parental leave to help close the gender pay gap even further.

We stopped the freeze on the superannuation guarantee to enhance people's retirement savings more. And we are going to make sure that superannuation is paid on payday to end the wage theft of people 's superannuation savings. Superannuation is a world-leading system, one Australians can depend on, and we will always build on and improve Australia's superannuation system.