Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, his heart just isn't in it anymore. The member for Whitlam—endlessly entertaining but rarely informative—can't even speak for his full 30-minute allocation.

Ms Swanson interjecting—

Yes, indeed, the member for Paterson is right. I should be careful what I wish for. Another 15 minutes of the member for Whitlam would indeed be stretching the friendship. But that's the thing about the member for Whitlam. He's kindly given me five minutes. I won't even need that long—but I see the whip informing me that I will need exactly that long, so I will go for at least five minutes.

The fact of the matter is that the problem for the Labor Party is that they're always putting donors before Australian workers. The member for Whitlam is the greatest shill for industry super funds that this place has ever seen. It is beyond reproach. We have a bill before this parliament—the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Amendment (APRA Industry Funding) Bill 2020—that does the radical thing of ensuring that the retirement savings of Australian workers are secure. That is what this does, but he still wants to amend the legislation. Ask yourself why. What it is that the Labor Party wants to hide? What is it that their donors in the industry super space are so scared of APRA finding out about?

We don't need to ask that question for too long, because what we found, when this government had the radical approach of saying Australian workers should be entitled to their savings during a pandemic and an economic meltdown, was that all these industry funds went to the Australian government and said: 'Well, we might actually need some money from the Reserve Bank to pay some of this out. You how we've been telling you for years and years on end that we don't have a liquidity problem? Well, it turns out that we weren't expecting Australian workers to actually want some of their money back, so now we do have a liquidity problem. By the way, we didn't mean to mention it, but, now that you're kind of asking us, you know how we told you that we've really allocated our assets and we've matched our risk profiles to our members' profiles really well? Well, it turns out that we actually did put a bit too much in unlisted funds and we do have a liquidity issue now.'

This bill will give APRA the capacity to look deep under the hood and make sure that that never happens. It's on the basis of the radical assumption that this parliament should ensure the retirement funds of hardworking Australian workers. I know the member for Paterson stands up for Australian workers in her seat, so she should be over on this side making this argument, not listening to the member for Whitlam's siren song: 'Oh, no, let's not hurt the good old fund managers. How will they be able to afford their second Ferrari for Christmas this year?' What we need to do is ensure that Australian workers' retirement funds are not in any—and I mean any—danger of not being able to survive retirement. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

See this speech in context