Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The government's Murray review found that 38 per cent of superannuation tax concessions go to the top 10 per cent of income earners. The cost of superannuation concessions will soon outstrip the age pension and, as reported today, the chair of the Murray review has said that the failure to reform our superannuation system will leave it more vulnerable. Prime Minister, why is the government stubbornly refusing to reform superannuation tax concessions?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We do not support burdening the retirees of Australia with new taxes. That is our position. We made it very clear prior to the last election that there would be no adverse changes to superannuation in this term of parliament and that is a commitment we have abundantly kept. We have no plans for further taxes on superannuation beyond this term of parliament because we do not believe that the people's savings are a piggy bank to be raided by government whenever it is in trouble. But Labor do. Labor think that your savings are their piggy bank to be raided whenever they are in trouble. I am delighted that the opposition persists in asking questions about superannuation because it enables me to say again and again that we, the coalition—the Liberal and National parties—believe that superannuation is your money. But the opposition, the Labor Party, believe that superannuation is the government's money. How wrong can they be? It is becoming clearer and clearer as this parliament lengthens out that Labor cannot be trusted with your money, that Labor want to put your money in their pocket.

We know what the Leader of the Opposition was like, we know what Labor were like—Labor promised, going into the 2007 election, that they would not touch superannuation 'not one jot, not one tittle,' and then there were 12 changes. Members opposite made 12 separate changes to superannuation when they were in government and they ripped $9 billion out of the people's savings. Then of course there was the special achievement of the Leader of the Opposition: if you had not touched your bank account for three years it was not yours anymore, it was his. That was the 'trouser tax'—he put his clammy hands into your pockets to take out your savings just because you had left it untouched for three years and he wanted it. It is absolutely crystal clear what would happen if members opposite were ever to get back into government: the carbon tax would come back, the people smugglers would come back, the value of your house would go down—because hasn't he been trying to talk down the economy for the last few days? And your superannuation is going to be raided again and again to try to get a Labor government out of trouble. Like everything about this opposition, it just does not add up.