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

I was saying before the debate was interrupted that the Labor Party will strongly oppose the Treasury Laws Amendment (Reducing Pressure on Housing Affordability Measures No. 1) Bill because it represents a fundamental undermining of Australia's superannuation system. It is in breach of the government's own proposed superannuation objective and it will make housing affordability worse, not better, by pushing up demand and overinflating prices, through people accessing their superannuation, and, for those strong reasons, the Labor Party will oppose this bill.

There are also matters of technical difficulty with this bill, which the government has failed to explain. For example, we are told by the government that it is only voluntary contributions that can be accessed under this scheme. But what the government hasn't explained is how those voluntary contributions will be kept separate in superannuation, particularly in the perhaps unlikely but certainly not unthinkable and unfortunate event—it has happened in relatively recent history—that superannuation accounts shrink in a downturn, that people actually have less money in their account. Which part of that account would be able to be accessed? What was voluntary? What was compulsory? How would it be separated? At the very least, it introduces another significant layer of complexity to our superannuation system, which would best be avoided. There is no policy case for this approach. There's no evidence to support it. On the contrary, many commentators have pointed out the folly of the government's approach here.

The government is also being incompetent in its implementation. You might be shocked to learn this, Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz, but I follow the Treasurer on Facebook. He's a Facebook friend of mine and, for my sins, I see what he has to say on Facebook. I noticed on 1 July that he was out there spruiking that this scheme was wonderful, that it was available and that young people should access it. It might not have escaped you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but today is 17 October and we are debating now a scheme that he was spruiking back on 1 July. It was not the law of the land when he was on Facebook encouraging people to be taking advantage of it. In fact, the ATO said in response to a media inquiry, 'We urge caution for people in making their arrangements based on legislation which has not passed either house of the parliament.' At that stage it hadn't been introduced. So the Treasurer has some explaining to do as to why he was out there misleading people, encouraging people to access a scheme which, at that point, did not exist and may well never exist. It may well not pass the parliament. I dare say it will be pass this House, but it will not necessarily pass the other house because it will not get our support. We will certainly be talking to the crossbenchers about why we believe they should be opposing it. Then I hope that the Treasurer might go back and delete his little 1 July Facebook post encouraging people to participate in a scheme which did not exist then and might not exist going forward. That is typical of the Treasurer—all talk. He is out there operating his spin machine but not engaging in the policy work and the substance.

The second measure in the bill is about contributing the proceeds of downsizing to superannuation. I will say at the outset that there is a legitimate policy issue here at its heart. Enabling people—and we are talking overwhelmingly about older Australians here—to more easily downsize their home is something that is a legitimate area for governments to examine. Older people who have raised a family—a large family, potentially—in a large house and no longer have the family on their hands don't necessarily want the big backyard and big house to maintain but feel they will be penalised if they do downsize. Of course, that is housing stock which could be available. I will make it very, very clear that no older Australian should feel under any obligation or pressure to downsize if they are comfortable in their community and happy to stay in their family home. Of course that not only is their perfect right but should be celebrated. Their continuing ability to live in that house should be celebrated. But if they would downsize if it weren't for the interaction of downsizing with government policy then that is something governments can examine. We in office had a pilot program to look at this. The government abolished that. Now they are coming back late to the party, as is often the case in this policy space of the Treasury portfolio. They are coming very late to the party, saying, 'We think there might be a problem here.'

A former Minister for Mental Health and Ageing is at the table. He was intimately involved in dealing in a very considered way with Labor's policy approach. Labor looked at the interaction of downsizing with the pension. Labor looked at people on low and middle incomes who might consider the need to downsize. The government have taken a different approach. They are concentrating on the superannuation side of things, proposing to allow people aged 65 or over to make a non-concessional contribution of up to $300,000 from the process of selling their home. These contributions would be exempt from the age test, work test and the $1.6 million balance test for non-concessional contributions. This measure would overwhelmingly impact on people at the highest end of the spectrum when it comes to savings, not people who are concerned about the interaction with the age pension.

I do freely acknowledge this is a complex policy area and one on which we should be proceeding carefully. But it is a legitimate area for governments to examine. The government's proposal is not one that we think is the best way forward. I must say that this isn't our primary reason for opposing this legislation. Indeed, if the government wanted to split it out, we would engage in good faith with them and consider how a downsizing measure could best be progressed. We don't think the government's model here is the right one, but we do acknowledge that there are legitimate things for the government of the day to be examining when it comes to downsizing.

I do note that we asked the Treasurer some questions on notice about this measure. We found that the Treasurer did not have an estimate of how many households would be expected to downsize as a result of the measure, or the assumed increase in the effective supply of housing that the measure was expected to generate. I'm not sure how the government can make many claims about reducing pressure on housing affordability, as it does in the title of this bill. But, as I said, if we were in a position where the bill was defeated and the government wanted to come back and talk to the opposition about downsizing measures, we would entertain those discussions and the government's proposed response and consider the best way forward.

But what we make very clear is our strong and strident opposition to undermining superannuation. What we will fight in this House and the other house is this government's repeated attempts to unpick and unwind the hard-fought advances in retirement incomes that have been achieved overwhelmingly, universally, by this side of the House on the introduction of compulsory universal superannuation in the 1990s. What we will oppose are measures dressed up as housing affordability measures that will make the situation worse. I move:

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

“The House declines to give the bill and related bill a second reading as:

(1) the First Home Super Saver Scheme will do nothing to address housing affordability but will instead work to undermine Australia’s world class superannuation system; and

(2) any housing affordability package that does not include reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax is a sham”.

It is a sham, and this policy is a joke. The government has a damp squib of a so-called housing affordability package, which is a grab-bag of ill-thought-out ideas, thought bubbles and half-baked proposals. It is an attempted alibi for real reform to negative gearing and capital gains tax, which that side of the House is incapable of delivering and which this side of the House, if we win the next election, will do. I can feel the member for Port Adelaide champing at the bit to second my second reading amendment, which I commend to the House.

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