Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Two weeks ago the Prime Minister said:

There will be no changes to super.

But last night in a discussion about changes to superannuation, the Treasurer said:

I don't subscribe to never-ever.

So, Prime Minister, who is really always right? The Prime Minister or the Treasurer?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I will tell you who is always wrong, and it is the Leader of the Opposition. One of the reasons he is invariably wrong is that he invariably verbals people—whether it is NATSEM, whether it is the Treasurer, whether it is what was said by coalition frontbenchers a week or a fortnight ago.

Let me make the position of this government absolutely crystal clear. We said before the last election that there would be no adverse changes to superannuation in this term of parliament and we have absolutely kept that commitment. I have said, and let me repeat it to the parliament, that we have no plans—no plans whatsoever—for any future changes to superannuation. Let me go further and say that superannuation money does not belong to the government; it belongs to the people. The money that the Australian people put into their superannuation accounts is not a piggy bank for government to raid, it belongs to them. It is their hard-earned assets. We respect that what belongs to the people stays in the pockets of the people.

We do not believe that people's hard-earned superannuation savings are something to be raided by government whenever it has a problem. That is what the Leader of the Opposition believes. He has already said that he wants to tax people's superannuation savings more. And he has form, Madam Speaker, because the government, in which he was a senior minister, nine separate times raided the superannuation savings of Australians. Some $9 billion was ripped out of superannuation by members opposite when they were in government. Then, of course, there was the stealth tax on bank accounts. They were not just stealing money from the cookie jars of the widows, they were also stealing what was in the piggy banks of the children. They have form! The Leader of the Opposition has form when it comes to putting his clammy fingers into the pockets of the Australian people—when he comes raiding with his hammer, smashing the piggy banks of Australians. The Leader of the Opposition has form. I have a very simple message to the people of Australia: 'Your superannuation savings are safe under this government. No savings are safe under members opposite because they think your money belongs to them.'