Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I'm speaking in support of the amendment moved by the member for Whitlam to the Superannuation Amendment (PSSAP Membership) Bill. Members of the government should come into this chamber and explain to the Australian people who elected them why they don't support increasing compulsory superannuation contributions, as was promised by the Prime Minister and this government. They should explain to the Australian people why the Australian people don't deserve that increase in their compulsory superannuation contributions, particularly when the hypocrites on the other side are very happy to pocket 15 per cent in their superannuation contributions under the scheme that we're privileged to enjoy in this place.

Compulsory superannuation is about providing Australians with dignity in retirement. It's about the government really saying to Australian workers, 'Thank you for your contribution, for all your hard work over your working life in building the economic wealth of this country. We will provide you with support through a savings tax concession for you to be able to save and to be able to have dignity in retirement, to buy your own home,' as the member for Goldstein pointed out. The problem with his argument is that it is premised on the notion that if the money doesn't go into compulsory superannuation contributions it will go into wage increases for workers. We know that is not the case. We know that the last time the conservatives in this country stopped an increase in the compulsory rate of superannuation, which was under the Howard government, the money didn't go into the pockets of workers. It didn't go into wages. It went into the pockets of employers, and profits went up. It didn't go to the workers, who deserved the money that was deferred from superannuation contributions. That is the problem with the member for Goldstein's argument and with the rabble of backbenchers on that side who are now claiming that the government should abandon their promised, their committed to, their guaranteed increase in superannuation for Australian workers. People who have worked hard for our nation and have worked all of their lives deserve a commitment from the government to support them in retirement.

The Australian superannuation scheme has been remarkably successful in achieving the dignity that Australian workers deserve in retirement. The evidence of that is in the fact that although Australia is the 16th-largest economy in the world we have the fourth-largest pool of investment savings of any nation in the world—the fourth-largest pool of retirement savings for our workers. That in itself is evidence that our superannuation system has been remarkably successful. But you don't need to worry about the statistics. All you need to do is ask the average Australian worker who has benefited from superannuation contributions throughout their life, when they get to retirement. Someone, perhaps, who is retiring now may have had the benefit of voluntary contributions through an enterprise bargaining agreement, before they became compulsory, and then benefited from the government's compulsory scheme, retiring with a decent nest egg so that they can pay off their home and own it, as the member for Goldstein has suggested, so they do have some money for a holiday each year, to spend on their kids and their grandkids, as they so wish. That is the promise. That is the commitment of superannuation that was delivered by Labor when we implemented this scheme under the Keating government.

It's a scheme that has been remarkably successful and one that Labor is very proud of because of its success and because it achieves those goals of providing dignity for people in retirement. We will defend it to the hilt, because it works. It works better than any other scheme in the world and that's evidenced by the fact that we have the fourth-largest pool of retirement savings of any country in the world.

We all know that those opposite have never supported the notion of compulsory superannuation. They vote against it at every opportunity. When it was first introduced by the Hawke government, they voted against it. When there have been legislated compulsory increases in the rate, they weaselled their way out of the commitment to the Australian people that they made during election campaigns, and then, later on, they removed those compulsory increases that are legislated and built into the system. We know that they have always opposed superannuation and they don't provide the support that Australian workers deserve.

Now they're at it again. There's a campaign by backbenchers to again stop the government from increasing compulsory superannuation contributions in Australia. But this isn't an ordinary attack. This is a double-barrelled attack, because they have recently introduced the early release super scheme, where they're encouraging Australians to raid their superannuation and their retirement savings. We've all seen the likes of the member for Goldstein get up and encourage people to raid their super accounts. It was a hastily put together scheme that didn't work. We know that because it was shut down by the Australian Federal Police while they investigated fraud into what was going on with people accessing their superannuation early. We know from studies of the bank transactions of people who have accessed their superannuation that 40 per cent didn't need to access their super. They had no reduction in their actual incomes, yet they raided their super accounts. What's worse, 10 per cent of those who did spent a lot of the money on gambling and on alcohol and tobacco.

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