Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to follow the member for McEwen. As usual, the contribution from those opposite adds absolutely nothing substantive to the debate on the issue we are seeking to discuss. I remind the member for McEwen that when super was introduced it was actually a trade-off for wage increases. So every increase in the superannuation guarantee has an impact on future wage increases. As we stand here, after six years of your government, with the damage that you did to household budgets through the carbon tax and any of the other tax increases that you presided over, is it any wonder that people find life and their budgets very difficult at this point in time? Increasing SG contributions at this time and further impacting on the capacity of people to meet their day-to-day budget requirements is a long stretch.

It is also interesting to note that when those opposite were in government they reduced the concessional contribution limit from $50,000 to $25,000. They wax lyrical about supporting workers and wanting people to save for their retirement, yet one of the things they did quite early in their government, back in 2009, was to actually reduce the capacity of people to put money into super, where they had the ability to put money into super. They halved that capacity for people. Labor's solution to anything is only ever to increase taxes and spending.

The member for McEwen also touched on increasing the retirement age, or the age for accessing the age pension, to age 70. What he did not say was that the preservation age for super is actually 60—that has not changed. Maybe the member for McEwen might like to take some time to get his facts right.

If the member for McEwen and those opposite are so interested in the capacity of people to manage their own superannuation, they might support some of the changes that we are proposing, particularly in terms of the ability for people to choose the fund that they so wish and not to be tied up in union funds under EBAs.

Let me talk about a Western Australian truck driver, Paul Bracegirdle, a member of the TWU. He wanted to choose his own superannuation fund, yet he was prevented from doing so because his super fund was the TWU super fund, which was mandated in the EBA. If you really want to support workers and their choice of super, and their capacity to manage their own superannuation funds, how about you allow people the capacity to choose their own super fund, irrespective of what is in their EBA? How about you allow that and give people true choice and mobility for their super funds?

How about you support the corporate governance changes to superannuation funds? I remind the member for McEwen that they actually apply to all super funds and not just to industry super funds. Additionally, Member for McEwen, they were a recommendation out of the Cooper review, which your government commissioned. You introduced all of these other changes out of the Cooper review, but, strangely, you did not touch the corporate governance ones, which may affect some industry funds. Why not?

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