Rowan Holzberger (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Bill 2025. As a relatively new member, I was a bit surprised to see that there were other measures in this bill that deal with our tax arrangements with Portugal and the Rugby World Cup. I'll concentrate, though, on the thing that I know a little bit more about and that I feel in my bones, just like every Labor member in this place, which is superannuation. We feel it because it has been a Labor scheme right from its inception.

At every point along the way, the coalition has really been dragged kicking and screaming along to it. Who knows what plans they have for its future. Let's not forget that, while it stands at 12 per cent today, which was achieved in 2025, originally it was Labor's plan that superannuation would be at that point in 2019. It is quite an easy mathematical exercise to see that that delay cost Australian workers billions of dollars and a healthy retirement. It's a real revelation of what the coalition feels about superannuation.

Superannuation is something that I'm familiar with and that I feel in my bones, like other Labor members. But, within the Labor Party itself for many years, from our inception until our latter days, there might have been some sort of perceived hostility between workers and capital. At its formation, over a 100 years ago, I think there was a lot of scepticism. What I'm trying to say here is that there was a realisation, in the eighties, that it wasn't good enough for working people to just be reliant on an income. At some point, we wanted to create a system in which working people could become financially free. I think that is something which I hope—which I know—unites both sides of this chamber. Sometimes we disagree on how we're going to get there, but I think financial freedom is one of the core economic objectives of an individual and I think is a core objective that we try to facilitate as a parliament.

It is very much a reflection of my own personal story as well. When I first became interested in politics and economics at about the age of 14, I really thought that they were about achieving better wages and better working conditions on the shop floor. I didn't realise really how important it was that workers invest in assets to create that sense of financial freedom. It probably wasn't until years later, when I became really interested in business myself, that I came to appreciate how important it is to have that goal of financial freedom—so much so that it's something that I talked about in my first speech. But there's something which I didn't really get time to talk about then, which I want to take the opportunity to talk about today, when we talk about superannuation.

I became really fascinated in business, so much so that I probably read something like 160 business books. I came to believe that a pursuit of entrepreneurialism, a sense of finding one's own individual destiny, could be one driver in life to give satisfaction. As part of that, I came to appreciate how important it is to be careful with your money, as silly as that may sound. I came to appreciate how important it is to be frugal, to reject materialism, and to use your money, steward it properly and put it into productive assets which create a return for yourself and benefits for the economy. Of those 160 books or so, there are a couple that really stand out in my mind. One of them was very much about that careful approach to saving.

The approach—and it was a book written in America—is something which I'm sure would be familiar to a lot of people who have read these books. The approach is that you pay yourself first. You put 10 per cent away of whatever you earn so that you can then build that up to be something for the future. No matter what, pay it before anything else, and then carefully—and this is a theory of this book, written in America—invest in an index; nothing particularly risky or groundbreaking, but a simple index that might return whatever was in that book, three or four per cent or something similar. Over time, it was easy; it was just a matter of arithmetic. You could track at which point your savings, your investments, would pay for the essential services that you needed to pay for, whether that was your housing, your food, your energy. Once you worked out how much you actually needed to survive, you could then track how long it would take saving that money before you actually reached a point at which you could then become financially free. It was not a 'get rich quick' scheme. There was nothing flashy to it. It was just hard work, hard savings and a plan. That was in America, where they don't have a superannuation system.

It's amazing that here, in Australia, we have something that really helps us to do that. It helps everybody to do that. In fact it takes more than 10 per cent—it takes 12 per cent, and puts it away in something which actually does better than an index fund. And there is a point at which it does create financial freedom for all Australian workers. The other book that I read was a revelation into how, I think, most businesspeople operate, which is with that sense of frugality and being careful, carefully stewarding the resources that you're given to invest in productive capital. One of the things I came across was that good businesspeople—as I believe the second deputy speaker is, and I'm sure he would know this and would be able to teach me some things on this too—really good businesspeople, are the ones least likely to take a foreign holiday, the ones least likely to drive a new car and the ones least likely to eat out. They are the ones who are most careful with their resources and who know that, ultimately, this money is not something which has been given to us, to those involved in business, but has, in some ways, been given to us to carefully steward.

So it is that our superannuation system in Australia does that for every worker—every single worker. It is a revolution in finance that has not only provided a standard of living for Australian retirees that would have been completely unimaginable 50 years ago but provided a pool of national savings somewhere around—what is it now?—$4 trillion, which is the envy of the world. It has also given a seat at the table to Australian workers, some of the biggest businesses in Australia and some of the most important businesses in the world.

The measures in this bill are not only building on Labor's superannuation from the Hawke-Keating era and the increase to 12 per cent that was legislated under the Rudd government but building on the actions of this government as well. For instance, it might seem amazing that it took us took us this long to get here, but, because superannuation is under attack, we as a government have had to define what superannuation actually means. It is 'to preserve savings to deliver income for a dignified retirement, alongside government support, in an equitable and sustainable way'. Again, it's 'to preserve savings to deliver income for a dignified retirement, alongside government support, in an equitable and sustainable way'. It is about helping Australian workers and Australian retirees build up their savings of money to give them financial freedom. We've had to do that, to set that as a baseline, because we want people on the other side of this House who are thinking about changes to superannuation to really reflect on what superannuation is there for and what it really is meant to achieve for Australian workers.

Another measure this government has taken is payday super. I'm sure that, as MPs, we are all in contact with constituents who have been ripped off by an unscrupulous employer. There's one very short email that I received a little while ago from a constituent, which I'd like to read out here. This constituent said: 'My daughter worked for a company for about five years. That company chose not to contribute to her superannuation account. When my daughter resigned, and moved on to another position, she realised her guaranteed superannuation contributions from her employer had not been paid. She then had to put the hard work in to try to recover what is rightfully hers for her future. To date, none of those contributions have reached my daughter's superannuation account. She's given up, actually, because it wasn't on her payslip—as simple as that—because she thought that the employer was doing the right thing. The employer wasn't doing the right thing.' One very simple change, one very practical change, could have fixed that problem, just as it will fix problems for people in the future.

We have made reforms to the LISTO to ensure that lower income earners who make a contribution to superannuation are paid at a tax rate comparable to their income tax rate. We've taken measures to ensure that superannuation is paid on government parental leave. That's because one of the most telling statistics about gender inequality in Australia is the amount of superannuation which is held by women compared to men. Something like 30 per cent of the nation's superannuation balance is held by women. That is because, as always, it seems to be that it is women taking the time off to have children, women taking time off to look after a disabled child and women taking time off to look after an aged parent. And so there is something that this government can do, apart from trying to address gender inequality in the workforce and in pay separate to superannuation—at least we are able to pay superannuation on parental leave. That is something which is going to have an enormous benefit over the longer term.

Finally, as I've said before, we're increasing the superannuation guarantee charge to 12 per cent. It is really inconceivable that the previous Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government thought that they could cheat Australian workers out of what was truly deserved. Remember that superannuation is not something which has fallen out of the sky or that is out of the goodness of the heart of government or even necessarily employers. Superannuation is what workers gave up as a tax cut and what workers gave up as a pay rise. This is workers' money. It is our own money that is going into this. It is no gift. For the previous government to delay that increase to 12 per cent really did highlight their approach to what I and other people on this side of the House believe is a practical way to help people achieve financial freedom. Ultimately, that is what it's about. For me, personally, from being involved in the Labor Party I have realised that that is what we want to achieve—financial freedom for people so that they can really follow their passions, so they can do things and make the contribution to the society that we live in that you can't make if you're focused on just paying your bills and getting through day by day. Financial freedom is what superannuation is about, and it is why I can't understand why those on the other side aren't wholeheartedly in favour of it. The measures in this bill will go further towards making sure it's protected.

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