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

Let us talk about education funding as a percentage of GDP. I invite the member for Kooyong to comment on what this report says about education funding as a percentage of GDP. He should tell us what it says, because it is not a pretty story. We know that this government has one way of dealing with demographic change, and that is to make people work longer and to give them less in retirement. That is their only answer. But of course there are better answers than that. Thirty-two years ago today in Australia, a new government was elected: the Hawke Labor government.

What a contrast: the Hawke Labor government with their Prime Minister and their Treasurer who knew that we should invest in the future, who knew how to deliver economic reform, who knew how to make the case for economic reform, who knew how to take the Australian people with them on economic reform, who did not lecture them about lifters and leaners and who said to the Australian people, 'You know what? You deserve a first-class retirement income system, and we'll give it to you. We'll give you a universal superannuation system, which means that every Australian worker should be able to save for retirement through that system.' It is a system that Labor built against the opposition of the Liberal and National parties at every stage. Let us not hear about bipartisanship from the Liberal and National parties, who opposed Medicare all the way, who opposed superannuation all the way, at every stage, and who said they would destroy Medicare.

The now Prime Minister, who sat up there somewhere, presumably, as an opposition backbencher, said superannuation was the biggest con job in Australian history. Now that he is the Prime Minister of Australia he uses his office as an opportunity to wreck superannuation, to stop an increase in the superannuation guarantee, to take away a tax concession from low-income workers. And he is doing that in this week of all weeks. Let us take a moment to think about what that means. Australia's low-income workers—3.2 million Australians, two-thirds of whom are women—benefited from the low-income superannuation contribution. We know that, on average, Australian females will retire with $92,000 less in the superannuation account and we know that we should do something about it as a parliament and as a nation, because Australian women deserve better. Those Australian women working hard right across the country, many of them here in this building, in factories, schools and workplaces right across the country, deserve better in Australia than to retire with $92,000 less for their retirement. They deserve some help to save for their retirement through the low-income superannuation contribution. They deserve a bit of support from their government, not to be arrogantly lectured to about being leaners, when they are not; not to be told that they are takers and not makers, when they are not; not to be told that Australia cannot afford to keep them with a decent age pension or that they should work in the hospitals and the schools and the factories until they are 70, because they should not. They should be able to retire in dignity at a decent age, not at the highest pension age in the developed world, which is what this Treasurer, this government and this Prime Minister want to give them. And the Prime Minister lectures them about it. Disgracefully, the Prime Minister uses this document to sell his policies to make Australians work longer than anybody else in the world and to give them an inadequate pension. What a disgrace!

There is a better way than that. We can use the Intergenerational report to have a proper conversation with the Australian people—that will be the Labor way. When we are in office we will keep the Intergenerational report, but it will be prepared independently of government, by the Parliamentary Budget Office, because the Australian people deserve a proper conversation. If we are in office we will not hide from scrutiny and we will not mind an independent conversation. If we do not like what the Parliamentary Budget Office does, we will not seek to drive it out of office, which is what this government does with independent statutory office holders it does not like. That is how this government treats independent scrutiny. That is how this government handles public debate. It bullies independent statutory office holders. We will have a different approach. We will have an approach that not only embraces an Intergenerational report and a proper conversation about Australia's future and opportunities but invests in the future, invests in Australian retirement incomes and uses the great strength of the Australian financial system and its financial sector to give every working Australian a decent retirement and the chance of a dignified retirement, regardless of whether they are cleaner, a carpenter, a policeman, a bricklayer or a member of parliament. Every Australian deserves to have a dignified retirement. Every Australian deserves the chance not to be entirely reliant on the full age pension. Our changes would have added $500 billion to Australia's retirement income system. Their changes take it away. As they do that, they lecture the Australian people, saying that they are not working hard enough, that they need to work longer and that their age pension is too generous. Guess what? The age pension is not too generous and Australians should not work longer than anybody else in the world, and it is only the government that thinks it.

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