Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Defined Benefit Income Streams) Bill 2015, which is before us today in the House. I just want to talk very quickly about process and how we got to be here today. It appears that the government's new approach is to bring piece-by-piece legislation before the House, denying us the opportunity as a country and as a community to debate retirement income.

What frustrates me about the government's approach when it comes to retirement income is that they refuse to look at all retirement income. They have a bit of a track record on this. Before the election, the now government said—and we all know the promise; what the Prime Minister said when he was the Leader of the Opposition, time and time again—there would be no cuts to pensions. But then, after the election, they did something very similar. What the government also said when they were in opposition prior to the last election was that there would be no changes to super. When we talk about retirement income, about what our older Australians live on, we cannot consider one without the other. What frustrates me about the government's process in this entire debate is this piece-by-piece coming forward and that it is not a genuine attempt to have a conversation about what a fair retirement income is.

They have broken promises on super—just to focus on those for a moment. One of the first things that they did when they got elected was that they scrapped the low-income co-contribution. This enabled people who were on a low income to contribute more to their super. As a government that claim to be the best friend of super, they have scrapped something that would have helped to ensure that low-income earners were not reliant on a pension or a part-pension when they retired.

What the government also did after they got elected was that they froze the increases to the compulsory super guarantee. They froze them, again denying workers, particularly low-paid workers, the opportunity to earn more in their super during their working life so that they would not be reliant upon a pension when they retired. They would not be reliant on a part-pension when they retired because they would have earned more in their super through the increasing of the compulsory guarantee.

Another decision that the government made in terms of retirement income when they first got elected was that they reversed the decisions to make those on a very high super account pay some tax. They reversed that decision, and now they are ruling out even talking about it. It is just not fair that in today's age we are not talking about retirement income. We are not talking about what a fair rate of retirement income is and trying to do what we can in terms of government policy to get to that point.

Let us just remember where this debate first started. In 1992, the Labor government at the time introduced the compulsory super guarantee. That allowed working people for the first time to put away money for their retirement. Coming to that point where we have a decent retirement income is going to take a generation. It will take a generation for people my age, from when we first started working, to have a working life of retirement income that is enough for us to retire on.

There needs to be some kind of logical acceptance. Until we get to a stage where the 30-somethings are retiring and have a working lifetime of super to retire on, there is going to have to be a part-pension and pension rate. There is going to be the need to pull together a comprehensive government policy that takes into account where people are in the transition towards superannuation and being able to live on superannuation. We need to draw a line and say, 'This is a fair retirement income,' and work towards helping as many people get to that point as possible. This is what has been missing in this debate to date, and it is disappointing that this legislation is coming before us piece by piece.

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