Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion moved by the member for Wakefield. It is interesting to note that the government’s definition of adequacy is a percentage by which the government extracts from the pay of workers a sum on a mandatory basis. This government demonstrates through its actions in the economy and through its great big new tax on mining that Labor does not understand how superannuation adequacy depends on a strong and stable economy. Around 9.3 per cent of all superannuation accounts are invested in the Australian resources sector and since the great big new tax on mining was leaked to the media on 13 April over $20 billion has been stripped from mining investments of superannuation funds.

This is a fact that the Rudd Labor government has been deliberately misleading the public on. On Friday the Treasurer came clean. He provided advice to Senator Ludwig that because of the great big new tax on mining, Labor’s great big new tax, there was a need to waste $38 million of taxpayers’ money on a propaganda campaign. The advice was:

… the tax reforms involve changes to the value of some capital assets, they impact on financial markets.

This contradicts the Prime Minister who told the House only on Thursday that the opposition and those in the private sector were ‘wrong, wrong, wrong’ for suggesting that Labor’s mining tax had any effect on financial markets and on superannuation balances. The member for Wakefield’s motion talks about the government’s approach to superannuation. This Labor government’s approach is to mislead and ignore any advice that contradicts their agenda unless and until it suits their purpose.

To consider Labor’s approach to superannuation generally, I can refer to comments by the head of the government’s review into superannuation, Mr Jeremy Cooper, who was reported in the media today as saying:

When you’re forced … to buy a product which is simultaneously complex and boring, it’s quite a rational thing to shrug your shoulders and walk away until you really need to pay attention.

The government’s approach to superannuation has not been about asking workers and retirees to pay attention. If there is nothing to engage workers in their superannuation savings and encourage them to actively participate in their retirement, workers will still shrug their shoulders and walk away from engaging in super—a very important concept. The government would also be aware that the public are not even paying attention to their superannuation policy.

But superannuants are paying attention to Labor’s great big new tax on mining. They are paying attention to how this tax is hurting their superannuation balances right here, right now—not in 2012 or 2014 or 2019, but here and now. Whilst both sides of the House want to increase the adequacy of superannuation levels, Labor has taken a very paternalistic approach. The government is not considering whether employees actually want to contribute an additional amount to their super balances. Instead, it is slugging businesses an additional three per cent on their payroll to pay for this increase. The former minister for superannuation, Senator Sherry, recognised this point when he promised before the 2007 election:

We won’t be increasing the nine per cent superannuation guarantee for a number of reasons. I have said time and time again at many conferences to many people in the financial services sector, privately and publicly, that nine per cent is enough from the employer. It would be unfair to increase that nine per cent any further and we won’t not be doing it.

‘We won’t be doing it,’ were the words of the then the minister.

This also follows the Prime Minister’s comment before the election—and a lot of things have changed since ‘before the election’, I must say. On Radio 4BC the Prime Minister said that the government would not change superannuation laws, ‘not one jot, one tittle’. Well, with this track record, how can the public believe one word of what this government says about superannuation?

The member’s motion is only Labor’s spin in an area of policy that has been marked by just about more backflips and more misrepresentations than any other issue in which this government has failed. As the Treasurer has now admitted, it is the economy and superannuation balances that are paying the costs for this government’s approach. The cost is neither adequate nor equitable, and the coalition does not support this motion.

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