Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Senate will now consider the proposal from Senator Hume:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for Prime Minister Albanese to not break his promise to Australians when he said on 2 May 2022, "we've said we have no intention on making any super changes", by committing to not hitting Australians with more taxes on their super, and to rule out any new taxes on the family home, negatively geared assets, trusts and retirees' incomes."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Hume, I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for Prime Minister Albanese to not break his promise to Australians when he said on 2 May 2022, "we've said we have no intention on making any super changes", by committing to not hitting Australians with more taxes on their super, and to rule out any new taxes on the family home, negatively geared assets, trusts and retirees' incomes.

In the last two weeks, we have seen this Labor government break faith with the Australian people with unprecedented candour and shamelessness. Prime Minister Albanese doesn't take his past promises to the Australian people as rules. He doesn't even take them as guidelines. How else can you characterise a prime minister who looked Australians in the eye and said, 'We've said we have no intention of making any super changes', then skipped, strode, wombled into the Prime Minister's courtyard and announced that super taxes will be doubled.

It's not just the Prime Minister who thinks commitments to the Australian people are simply campaign tactics to be discarded once you make it onto the blue carpet and into the ministerial limo. Labor's Treasurer had the gall to say to the Australian people in April 2022, 'We've made it very clear that we don't have any proposals for tax increases.' There's a pretty obvious reason Labor wasn't upfront about this before the election: because they knew Australians would not vote for it.

The more Australians learn about this super tax, the more we can see how shifty this Labor government has been. First of all, they said it would impact about 80,000 Australians. Now we know—we learnt in question time today—that 10 per cent of Australians are going to be impacted by this super tax, and, unlike the super transfer balance cap, Labor ruled out indexing the $3 million cap.

Here, Labor are making a massive mistake. A lot of people I know don't have $3 million in their super account. Actually, I don't know anyone that has $3 million in their super account, but I know lots of people who do want to have $3 million in their super account. I spent last week driving from Cairns down to Townsville, going along talking to people. People are pretty angry about this. No-one I spoke to has $3 million in their super account, and they probably never will, but they say to the people who do: 'Good on you. You worked hard for it. Good on you, mate. Get out there. I'm pretty happy for you.'

Labor are saying to people out there who've worked hard, 'We're going to tax you.' But the people out there are also concerned that Labor have broken this promise. What other promises are they going to break? They know that Labor will decrease the threshold. If the threshold is set at $3 million, at the next budget it will be $2½ million. Then it will be $2 million and suddenly all of your super accounts will fall into Labor's trap.

This comes to the central tenet of why we are so upset at Labor's breaking of this election promise: because we're on the side of Australians and their money. It is their money. Labor think that people's super accounts are money that Labor can go and raid. Labor can be like one of those little bugs that gets into electronic systems and goes in there and empties our people's super accounts. I say: shame on Labor for what you are going to do to the confidence in Australia's financial services system.

There are so many questions that need to be answered about this proposal. How will it deal with unrealised capital gains? How will real assets be valued? How exactly does this impact defined-benefit schemes? The Prime Minister is on one. How will valuation increases be calculated? Labor is quite happy to mislead the Australian people, willingly break election promises and make false statements prior to the election in pursuit of electoral success and then doesn't even have the decency to be transparent with the Australian people.

We should have expected this from the Treasurer. We know that Dr Chalmers did his PhD on Paul Keating, the guy who said: 'Australia, we have to have a recession. Come on. This is the recession we had to have.' We can see where this government's going, can't we, ladies and gentlemen? We can see where this government is heading. Now Dr Chalmers's new super tax hike is alongside his idol Paul Keating's l-a-w law tax hikes in the pantheon of historic broken promises by Labor treasurers. I'm sure the Treasurer's proud of being in such distinguished company as Paul Keating, who sent so many people bankrupt. So much hardship was caused by him and what he did to the Australian economy, and now we see Labor with their secret taxes that they didn't want to tell the Australian people about before the election. They are coming out and going after people's super accounts. Shame on Labor. (Time expired)

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take a great deal of delight in getting up and speaking on this. In the last few weeks we've heard Dutton—sorry, the opposition leader—saying that he's the campaigner for the middle class and the working class, but actually what he's a campaigner for is the billionaires. We've seen the Liberal Party change. We saw Howard's battlers. Now we have Dutton's battlers, the billionaires. Dutton's billionaires need to be looked after. Those billionaires who have squirrelled away $543 million in superannuation, with concessions, have to be looked after. So Dutton's billionaires can be looked after.

The reason we're in the position where we need to make fair and equitable changes to the concessions that are paid—and there will still be concessions for those billionaires, those millionaires and those people in the community with $100,000 or $50,000, and we'll still have proper incentives to make sure that superannuation continues in this economy—is that what's quite clearly happened is that we have a situation where we have a trillion dollars worth of debt and we have to work out how to balance the books, and the people who can assist in that balancing of the books are the ones who also receive benefit. This is about a progressive approach to tax and properly protecting those people in superannuation, which was set up to make sure that there's a proper amount of money for people to retire on. It's also about making sure that those concessions are for those people that superannuation was initially geared up for.

What we've seen from the Liberal Party is that this isn't just about Dutton's billionaires. This is about an attack on super, because we all know they hate superannuation. They actually hate the whole concept of superannuation. They hate poorer people receiving super. The ones complaining about the billionaires and those people with more than $3 million in their super still getting a tax concession but paying a fairer level of tax are the same people who deferred increases to the superannuation guarantee for struggling working-class and middle-class people in this country. They're the ones who, over the 10 years of the previous government, stood by and saw young people missing out on the multiplier of that minimum increase in superannuation. They're the same people who have made sure that the amount of money that people can take home at the end of the day is not the same amount of money they need to take home to meet the foreshadowed increases as a matter of intergenerational change for both working-class and middle-class people in this country.

We clearly have to make a decision. If we are going to fix the trillion dollars worth of debt and have the money and resources to put into aged care and those areas of our society where we need price relief, including energy, we need to make the right decisions in the right policy areas. We have Dutton's billionaires on one side. Howard's battlers are now deserted, if those opposite were ever actually on their side. We know the reality of that. Those opposite were never really on their side. They were never Howard's battlers. They were people being used, like the Trump battlers. Those opposite were trying to use and abuse people by giving mixed policy directions. But at least Howard pretended he was representing a broad cross-section of the community. At least he had the capacity to pretend he was representing the vast majority of Australians, unlike Dutton, the opposition leader, with the sort of approach he's taken on this question about superannuation.

But what's really striking is the number of economists, academics, and—my goodness: I never thought I'd be agreeing on this aspect—even the CEO of the NAB saying it's a fair thing. But don't worry—person after person after person from the opposite side gets up and says: 'Our billionaires need to be protected! Let's all stand together! Let's make sure those billionaires get the sort of protection they deserve!' (Time expired)

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Won't someone please think of the multimillionaire superannuants! Who is going to go in to bat for these battlers, who are going to go from one high-class grade of champagne down to the next level, from one brand of luxury car down to the next brand of luxury car? Who in this place is going to think of these multimillionaire battlers? That's right: the Liberal-National party. It is emblematic of the malaise in Australian politics that this extremely modest proposal—an extreme fiddling of the margins by the Labor Party—is getting this level of attention from the Liberal-National party. I'll tell you what, Australians are sick and tired of a political system that caters to the interests of the wealthy elite in this country while too many people are struggling to put food on the table.

Even under Labor's minimalistic plan, multimillionaires will be able to pay a lower marginal tax rate on their superannuation earnings than someone who is on the average wage. That just goes to show you how far the Labor Party has fallen from its origins. That's why the Australian Greens have put forward a proposal to tax more people twice as hard as Labor and for it to cut in earlier than Labor's proposal. That will ensure that the wealthiest Australians pay closer to their fair share of tax and help the government fund measures that will genuinely help with the cost-of-living crisis and genuinely help lift people out of poverty. Our plan would raise about $55 billion over the next decade, which could be used to help lift people out of poverty by increasing social security payments or doubling rent assistance. Labor is proposing to fiddle at the margins on superannuation tax concessions while proceeding with the stage 3 tax cuts for the wealthy. That is just a money-go-round scheme for the rich, and it is robbing Peter to pay Peter.

People with $1.9 million or more in their superannuation funds do not need assistance from the taxpaying public. It's time for the government to prioritise the needs of all Australians and invest in measures that will actually benefit the many, not just the few. I urge the Labor Party to accept the Greens's constructive suggestion to remove all tax concessions from super funds that have balances of more than $1.9 million from 1 July this year. That would make Australia a fairer place. (Time expired)

Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nine months—nine short months in power for this Labor government—is all it took them to start raiding the retirement funds of hardworking Australians. Their official position has seamlessly moved from 'no changes to super' to 'a conversation around super' and now a doubling of your tax rate. Don't worry: it's going to impact only a small percentage of Australians. But for how long? How long is that going to last? Probably not very long. It is typical Labor class warfare—another broken promise. But are you surprised?

I can just imagine retirees grinding their teeth at the very concept of super Jim's proposal. Treasurer Jim Chalmers clearly sees himself as a modern-day Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the—not the poor, no; giving to himself, giving to the federal government. Our nation is trapped in a cycle of debt and deficit for which both sides of government are responsible. It appears to be politically inconvenient for any government to attempt to balance the budget or repay our debt. Do you know what? They are as bad as each other. I guess everyone here loves their political career just a bit too much.

Whatever happened to courage? What happened to the greater good? The Australian people are hurting. Their budgets are being smashed by unchecked inflation, and they're cutting costs wherever they can. Forget eating out, forget family holidays; a mortgage comes first. Our Treasurer must emulate the actions of the Australian people: tighten your fiscal belt and produce a lean budget that is suitable for tough times. Raiding superannuation like a thief in the night is not the answer. It is not.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

r SCARR (—) (): At the heart of the motion that we're discussing this afternoon is a broken promise. Those on the other side of the chamber can get up in this place and accuse those of us sitting on the other side of various nefarious things, but it was their Prime Minister who gave a guarantee to the Australian people before the election that there would be no changes to the superannuation system. That's what we're debating here—a broken promise. When we reflect on how the public perceives us, as politicians, as representatives in this place, all of us, collectively, got a little bit hurt when the Prime Minister broke an ironclad promise. This is what our Prime Minister said on 2 May 2022, less than 12 months ago:

We've said we have no intention to make any super changes.

That's not qualified. It's not, 'We'll consider it; we'll look at the budget position.' Everyone knew what the budget position was before the last federal election; in fact, it has improved through the forecasts. The Prime Minister made an ironclad guarantee—'We've said we have no intention to make any super changes'—and he's broken his promise. The Australian people have a legitimate right to expect that, when we say before an election that we're going to do something—whichever party we're from—we'll do it, and that if we say we're not going to do something we won't go ahead and do it anyway. That is the fundamental issue that we're debating here today, and the people of Australia will reflect upon it. They will reflect upon the fact that an ironclad guarantee was given less than 12 months ago and now a promise has been broken.

They will also reflect upon how this has been done. Questions were asked today of the finance minister, and I note she took a number of them on notice, as she's entitled to do. I read the Treasury's five-page 'Better targeted superannuation concessions' paper. From the way I read it, it's quite clear that unrealised capital gains will be treated and taxed as if they're earnings. This is a problem in terms of people's superannuation funds. Let me tell you why. Say, for example, you had a share in BHP—and there would be many, many superannuation funds with shares in BHP. On 30 June 2008, the share price of BHP was $43.76. On 30 June 2012, it was $31.45. The next year it was $35.90. We're talking about year on year capital increases; according to Treasury's guidance, any increase in the value of those shares, even if you haven't disposed of them, will be taxed. That is clearly inappropriate for superannuation funds, where you want to maintain the assets and stability over a cycle. It is clearly inappropriate.

It baffles me how the Treasury could come up with this. The reason they give is that they think it's going to be easier for superannuation funds to administer, but I don't understand how anyone who has any working knowledge of what long-term investment strategies mean in practice could promote an idea where people are going to be liquidating their assets in the short term to fund tax liabilities. It doesn't make any sense. I call upon the finance minister to liaise with the Treasurer and the Treasury department and consult with them on this, because it does not make sense. It particularly doesn't make sense for our farming communities, where many farming families put the family property into a self-managed super fund. At times of drought, the value of the farm goes through the floor. When we have good seasons, beef prices are high, wheat prices are high, and the value of the fund goes up. But if that value is unrealised, it should not be taxed. That is a simple proposition. I call upon those opposite to reflect deeply on that, because it would be a travesty if that system were introduced.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

POLLEY () (): While this motion from Senator Hume is so predictable, it's extraordinary to see that the Liberal Party of Australia, that gave the Australian people $1 trillion of national debt, wants to borrow even more money to subsidise people with more than $3 million in their superannuation accounts. But that's the Liberal Party of Australia today, a political party with all the wrong priorities.

As a government we have to make tough decisions, and we have to make decisions to help pay down the almost trillion dollars of debt left by the Morrison Liberal government. This is a practical change that will improve the budget bottom line by $2 billion a year. Let's not forget that the average Australian worker will have $120,000, on average, in their superannuation account, but they're the people those opposite don't care about. They want them to continue with their superannuation at that low level, and they're worried about that percentage of people who have over $3 million. Even above that $3 million, they will get a taxation that is still lower than they would pay normally. So it is still a concessional rate of taxation that they're going to be asked to pay.

If those opposite want to come in here and fight for a person that has $400 million in their superannuation, then let's have the fight at the next election, because these changes will not come into effect until after the next election. But I really think that somebody who has $400 million in their superannuation account can pay more tax—and should be paying more tax—than someone who has $120,000 in their superannuation account. These changes will only affect about 80,000 people or 0.5 per cent of Australians. This is new policy, which does not take effect until after the next federal election.

The increase, the tax on superannuation earnings, to 30 per cent for superannuation balances over $3 million means that for the 99.5 per cent of Australians who have a superannuation balance under $3 million there will be no change in their circumstances. No matter how desperate those opposite are to run a scare campaign, the reality is that Australians can see through those on the opposition benches, because they saw through them at the last election.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to ensuring that the superannuation system is protected but sustainable. This change would ensure that the system is fairer for all Australians. So, I put to those opposite, if you don't agree with this change you'll need to nominate where the money will come from instead. The last time those opposite were in government they came after Medicare and sent debt letters to pensioners. They rorted grants and schemes here.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a lie, an absolute lie. Lie, lie, lie!

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Polley, could you resume your seat. I am willing to put up with a little bit of banter across the chamber, but when it descends into yelling, no matter how passionately you might feel about the views you're putting, Senator Hughes, it's not appropriate. It would be best for the chamber if Senator Polley was allowed to continue her remarks with people listening, in agreement or in disagreement, it doesn't matter, just listening. Senator Polley, you have the call.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last time they were in government, they came after Medicare. We know they sent debt into overdrive. We also know they sent out debt letters to pensioners and other people who owed nothing to the government—absolutely nothing! Do we want to go on about the rorts of the other schemes they were involved in? Do we want to try and whitewash what robodebt was really all about? The ministers giving evidence to the royal commission can't seem to recall very much, but the Australian people recall. The Australian people recall that the Morrison government was known and will go down in history as the most rorting government we have seen since Federation. Mr Stuart Robert gave evidence last week and said that cabinet solidarity trumps the ministerial standards. What a joke he is! And those people come into this place bleating about a change in superannuation that will affect 0.5 per cent of the Australian population. You are an absolute joke! You want to try and rewrite history— (Time expired)

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I really want to talk about Labor's broken promise around superannuation. But I feel like we need to correct a few things on the record with regard to Medicare and who has actually taken the knife to it. We know that it's those opposite who decided to remove mental health access for Australians, particularly as we continue to recover from COVID. So, while we know they break promises, we know they can't tell the truth either. This is a series of lies to the Australian people that started before the election with the now Prime Minister saying there would be no changes to superannuation. Then, of course, Dr Chalmers, as he pumped out his essay over the summer, decided that there wouldn't be any major changes to superannuation, that it's something we might consider or have a conversation about.

As the kite flew higher again, Prime Minister Albanese was out there denying there would be changes to superannuation. But, at this stage of the game, they realised all too late that the kite flying hadn't worked. They quickly raced through a cabinet decision that we've learnt today isn't going to impact the 0.5 per cent of Australians that was bleated so loudly from those opposite, but that, in effect, it is actually 10 per cent of Australians who are going to see their superannuation impacted. Not that we're ever shown any modelling. In fact, you'll go back through the safeguard mechanism inquiry and learn that we don't actually do modelling under this government anymore. But there is no indexation to this $3 million. We know what houses cost 20 years ago versus what they cost today. We know what inflation is as of this very moment. We know what's happening with the CPI. We know that $3 million today will not be the same as $3 million in 20 or 30 years time.

For every Australian out there embarking on their career, starting their working life now, by the time they get to retirement age in 40 or 50 years, they very well may have $3 million plus in superannuation. As this will not be indexed, we know that Labor will continue to come for their money. We need to remember that this is the Australian people's money. It's not the great ABBA fan Stephen Jones's money. 'Honey honey, nearly kills me'—that's how he refers to your money. He can't wait to dip his fingers in your honey and spend all that wonderful superannuation that everyday Australians work so hard for and put away for retirement.

We also learned today that questions couldn't be answered on whether or not those Australians who will be impacted, who have invested in their superannuation under long-term rules that have been in place encouraging Australians to put more away for their retirement, can make alternate arrangements without penalty. Those opposite don't have the details of their own policy. We don't know.

We could also see introduced into this country, potentially for the first time anywhere—I think I heard a rumour of an African country that wasn't going too well when they tried it—a tax on unrealised profits. That means if you invest in commercial property or other sorts of properties or into shares or into anything that you may invest in for your self-managed super fund—the purpose of investment is for that to increase in value—you will now be slugged with twice the rate of tax for an unrealised asset. That will mean you may have to sell the very property or investment that you had invested in, that you had put money into and worked hard to achieve. You may have to liquidate that to pay a tax bill. How is that ensuring Australians are able to retire in a way that they work so hard to do so? It's absolutely outrageous and, quite frankly, it's un-Australian.

We've just heard from a number of those opposite that it's going to happen after the election. They're not taking it to the election; it's just being implemented after the election. If you're being honest and if you're being upfront with the Australian people, take it to an election. Take it to an election with details. Tell them how much money you want to take. Tell them when negative gearing is next. Tell them when they will be paying tax on their family home. Take it to an election and be honest with the Australian people.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the urgency motion be agreed to.