Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people of Kooyong voted for integrity of every sort in every circumstance. That is the promise I made to them and it is the promise I commit to keep. I believe that if you care about integrity you care about it all of the time. You can't pick and choose when it matters to you. You can't call for transparency for your opponents and then dismiss it for yourself. It is in that context that I want to put on record my concerns about the Labor government's proposed changes to superannuation regulations which will make it harder, virtually impossible, to know how super funds are spending members' money. Sure there are broad categories of total spending, but transparency about who this money is actually going to will be lost.

It has been reported that super funds have paid $85 million to political parties in the last few years. That is an extraordinary amount of money, with the power to decide election results. We need more transparency over it, and Labor is promising less. Voters sent a message to all of us in May. They asked for sunlight in politics, for transparency. This makes money darker. This takes us backwards. This is not promoting integrity; it is the opposite.