Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I was! I see that there has to be balance, and I appreciate the role unions do play, Member for Bowman. I do, but it's all in moderation and in balance.

What we saw during COVID was a period of time where people were desperate, and the coalition had their back. I would hate to think what would have happened during those dark days had Labor been in power. They wanted us to spend more money. They go on about a trillion dollars worth of Liberal Party debt, which is not true at all—also it was the Liberals and Nationals; I should throw the Nationals into any discussion about who was actually in power—but it was money that kept business doors open. It was money that kept Australians safe. It was money that kept people alive. No Labor member should ever downplay the role that was played by the coalition government, led by Scott Morrison. The Johns Hopkins centre said that Australia was the second-best in the world for COVID preparedness, and part of that was allowing people to access their own money—that is, superannuation.

The member for Moreton talked about the title of the bill. I admire whoever it is in the Labor Party who writes the titles of their bills, and I'm being genuine here. It's always rainbows and fairy floss and unicorns; it always seems like, 'Why hadn't we thought of this before?' They are always beautifully scripted, 'building a stronger and fairer' insert word here 'system' or 'program' or whatever the case might be.

The member for Moreton talked about this being a core Labor value. She talked about equity and fairness, and every other Labor member will come in here will repeat the same dogma. They will repeat the same lines because that's what they are told to do. It's got to be fairer because it's a core Labor Party value, as if nobody else cares. And here we have the modern-day Robin Hoods taking from the rich to give to the poor. Well, this isn't Sherwood Forest. This is the House of Representatives and there are people on both sides of parliament—I'm sure even on the crossbench too—who care about people in retirement having a dignified quality of life because they have their own money and they can access it. That's important. It is.

This is a government which, as I said at the start, has been found out and it is very much waving the white flag of retreat under pressure when it comes to the unrealised capital gains issue and the indexation issue. This was not a proposal that was in any way, shape or form about fairness when it came to the unrealised capital gains. It was not. And certainly I would really like to hear what is being done by the government to help those investors in Shield and First Guardian, those investors who now face a very bleak, certainly not a dignified, quality of life in retirement.

Australia needs a good superannuation system. And I would agree with the Labor members opposite who say we have a country that is the envy of the world. It is. But it's not for those poor Shield and First Guardian investors. They are faced with the prospect of not seeing money that was theirs because of what happened with the collapse of those two super schemes. We don't, and we won't, hear Labor members talking about that.

Equally concerning as the unrealised capital gains was the government's refusal to index the $3 million threshold. We have an inflationary situation at the moment that is being made worse by this Treasurer, the member for Rankin, and his willingness to pour debt petrol on the inflation fire. I'm not against spending; I never have been. I was in charge of $110 billion worth of spending when I was the infrastructure minister. There's good spending and there's bad spending, and, at the moment, unfortunately, we're seeing too much of the latter on this treasurer's watch. Failing to index thresholds was a silent tax hike. It was. Thankfully, he has acknowledged that with the concessions made in this particular bill.

Over time, more Australians would have been captured, not because they were wealthier in real terms but because inflation eroded the value of the threshold. It's bracket creep by design and a flawed policy, and Labor, through taking that aspect out, has admitted that. But you won't hear Labor members mentioning it. You'll just hear them talking about fairness, equity and core Labor values while reading out the title of the bill as though asking, 'Why hadn't the coalition thought about this?' They'll regurgitate history, as Labor members always do, and they're very good at that. But I'll tell you what. They might be good at the politics—Labor members always are—but, I have to say, they're not very good at the policy, and this shows it once again.

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