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

Steady on! Don't push the envelope, Member for Rankin! But what we see instead is the government, in a bloody-minded fashion, just attempting to ram through legislation to get an objective for superannuation. I do not think the minister was in the House when I said that she, in good faith, reached out to the Labor Party. I commended her for it. I do not blame her for the current situation. She was trying. I was trying. We just needed a bit more time. The budget and the election intervened, and we could not reach agreement. But we should attempt to now. I had already outlined previously a proposed objective for superannuation, but I was not wedded to those particular words. We were not being obstructionist about it. We could have changed those words, and that is what the minister and I were discussing; we were getting very close, but, alas, the Treasurer decided to come in over the top, to intervene and stop those discussions, in effect, by announcing his own legislation. Well, that is not legislation that we would support in this House or the other, and I dare say that that will be the subject of some debate in the other house.

As I conclude my remarks, I move the following second reading amendment which has been circulated in my name:

That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes:

(1) the Budget is under threat due to this Government’s poor economic leadership, which is hitting the pay packets of Australians and risking our triple-A credit rating;

(2) the Opposition has been leading the debate on reforming superannuation tax concessions for over a year;

(3) while the Government’s superannuation package goes some way to reforming these concessions, they could go further;

(4) the Opposition has outlined a clear position for sustainable and fairer super tax concessions that includes:

(a) lowering the High Income Superannuation Contribution threshold to $200,000;

(b) lowering the annual non-concessional contributions cap to $75,000;

(c) opposing the introduction of catch-up concessional contributions; and

(d) opposing the changes to tax deductibility for personal superannuation contributions; and

(5) the Opposition’s position on the super package would improve the budget by $1.4 billion over the forward estimates and $18.9 billion over the medium-term".

I hope the government can support that second reading amendment in good faith, as they have supported good, well-drafted second reading amendments in the past. This is a very good one.

That would see bipartisanship reach new levels when it comes to superannuation—because the government has moved in this debate. They have moved to accept our argument that tax concessions could be better targeted—not just by dealing with them at the top end but by dealing with them at the bottom as well, for low-income earners. And the government expects praise for that. Well, only to a certain degree, because what they have done is to reinstitute something that they abolished. They inherited a low-income superannuation contribution. They abolished the low-income superannuation contribution, against the votes and complaints and objections of this side of the House. We said: 'Why would you abolish the one tax concession for low-income earners in superannuation—the only bit of support that low-income earners get to build their retirement? Why would you abolish that?' This government was adamant that it had to go. They rammed it through the parliament with the support of the then Palmer United Party. And, before that abolition has even been implemented, they bring it back through this measure. Well, we are glad that they saw the error of their ways. They took decisive action, and changed the name from the 'low-income superannuation contribution' to the 'low-income offset'. I mean, that is a massive change! But everything else is effectively the same.

So we support the better targeting of superannuation tax concessions. We say it could be done better. We say it could go further. That is what our amendments will seek to do. At the end of the day, we will facilitate passage of the legislation because that is the right thing: to provide the certainty that the sector needs. It is the right thing to do to provide at least some budget repair, even though there could be more. And we will continue to lead the debate on superannuation, as this side of the House has done under the leadership of the member for Maribyrnong since April 2015. We will continue to provide that leadership. We will continue to prosecute the case. And, I dare say, we will continue to win those arguments.

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