Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Madam Speaker. We have seen on 14 occasions the nation's greatest fairytale teller, telling fairytales which will harm Australians. What is it about the meaning of the word 'adverse' that this Prime Minister does not understand? Why is it that he speaks weasel language, not the English language? And why doesn't he understand why we believe this is a despicable attack? Of course, there are members of the government who sneer at this debate. Why wouldn't they? They are on much better superannuation than the almost nine million Australians whom they are holding back. And they should not shake their heads. If you do not know how real people earn their income, you are not fit to be here.

We know it is a con job. The government said that they would defer the increase to 10 per cent for two years. That is all they said. But since then we have seen a rushed, botched job where they have now said, 'We will delay it for six years.'

The government either deliberately seek to harm the less well-off in this community or, at the very least, are clueless about how people other than themselves live. They have said, 'This is a good thing for the Australian worker.' We heard this Prime Minister say, 'There's no adverse harm,' with his trademark smirk and shrug of his shoulders. 'What does it matter?' What we know about this Prime Minister is that he would rather put the interests of fewer than 10 mining companies ahead of almost nine million Australians. Those are your priorities, Mr Prime Minister. You have never seen the big end of town that you would not help and you have never met anyone less well-off whom you would help through policies and superannuation. The Liberal Party has got form on superannuation. Some of the historians of the Liberal Party can shake their heads—

Mr Robb interjecting—

The minister for trade! In 1992 they voted against mandating compulsory superannuation. When John Howard ran for power in 1996, he said, 'You can trust us to lift super to 15 per cent,' matching Keating's promise. Then, after 1996, these disgraceful recidivists, these people who have no clue about superannuation except their own accounts, reversed that and said, 'We're not increasing it.' So for many years superannuation was stuck at nine per cent. Then Labor, again, in the last term of office, moved superannuation in incremental amounts to 12 per cent. The coalition voted against it then. But when they got near the election these recidivists, these fairytale tellers of political lies then said—

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