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

They'd be fooled because, once again, those opposite are going to oppose this very sensible reform that rebalances the taxation system in favour of workers. Once again they are going to side with the wealthiest Australians to protect a system that has led to Australians feeling left behind and workers feeling like they are struggling to make ends meet, like they can't keep up and that the system is stacked against them. Those opposite want to protect the existing system that has ensured that $22 billion worth of tax concessions go to the wealthiest 10 per cent of Australians, a system that is unfair and has gone on for too long, and we are committed to ensuring that we rebalance it.

These changes will ensure the distribution of the most generous concessions, ensuring that they are not disproportionately absorbed by a very small number of individuals with balances far beyond what is needed for a comfortable retirement. This is about sustainability, it's about fairness, and it's about ensuring that the system continues to serve the people that it was established for, the average Australian worker, and to provide dignity in retirement. It wasn't a system that was established to ensure that the wealthy could divert income into superannuation to avoid paying their fair share of tax.

These reforms are coupled with other reforms that our government is making to ensure that the system is rebalanced in favour of workers. We've legislated the objective of superannuation so it's clear about what the superannuation system was intended to do—to provide that dignity for workers in retirement. We've lifted the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent. We're ensuring that super is paid on government paid parental leave so that parents—particularly women, who generally retire with a third of the retirement savings of men—ensure that they get a fairer deal, because they have to take breaks from the workforce to raise children.

We're finally recognising in Australia, through a Labor government, that if parents, particularly women, are going to have that dignity in retirement, then they deserve to ensure that their superannuation continues to grow whilst they do that important unpaid work of raising children and taking a break from work. We're expanding the performance test to cover hundreds more products, we're strengthening financial reporting obligations for funds, and we've begun reforming the retirement phase to ensure members get better outcomes.

All of these sensible reforms are aimed at ensuring that we rebalance our superannuation system to ensure that it provides sustainability and that it works for the average low-to-middle-income Australian worker. But, once again, we're seeing the coalition, the Liberal Party and the National Party—and, let's face it, some of the lowest income workers in this country, some of the lowest socio-economic geographical areas in this country, are in National Party seats—continue to come in here and vote against the interests of working Australians and vote to prop up a system that is delivering $22 billion in tax concessions for the wealthiest 10 per cent of Australians. They ought to be ashamed of themselves when they go back to their electorates and say that they are supporting workers, when they come in here and vote against the interests of Australian workers on every occasion and try and prop up a system that has ensured that workers feel that they can't make ends meet any more and that they are struggling. The Albanese government is determined to make sure that we rebalance the superannuation system so that it meets its original intention and works in favour of the workers of Australia.

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