Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It's great to see so many messages coming back from the Senate as the government's legislative agenda continues to move forward steadfastly. I will make particular note of the reforms we have made in Protecting Your Super under the banner of Protecting Your Super, which has passed the House and the Senate. It will move to executive council next week. From that point, three million Australians' super accounts with over $6 billion currently inactive, not being used, tucked away in super funds across the country, most of them having insurance fees paid out of them, will be taken through to the ATO, and the ATO within a month will reunite it with active accounts.

This is all about standing up for Australians. Three million Australians have benefited because of the work we have done. In a week-and-a-half's time, once executive council has signed off, for those under 25 or accounts under $6,000, will have accounts capped at three per cent. For all those in superannuation funds, exit fees other than buy-sell spreads will be banned. This is one of the major reforms of superannuation in the last decade in terms of protecting vulnerable younger Australians, especially in preparing for their retirement. There is more work to be done.

The government made it very clear in the Senate when we excised the insurance and super component from the bill that we were not walking away from insurance and super. We were not walking away from that component of the bill. Any number of actuarial studies, including those by Michael Rice, have shown that, if insurance was managed appropriately and properly and on an opt-in basis, people would be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for their retirement. We are not walking away from that component.

Furthermore, in messages from the Senate we have seen other areas of the government's legislative agenda being returned—in this case, the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 5) Bill 2018. This government will continue to produce and progress its agenda strongly in the House and in the Senate. If these four messages from the Senate say anything, they speak to the government getting on with the job of protecting Australians, of legislating in the best interests of Australians and of governing strongly.

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