Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to make Australia's super system fairer and more sustainable, and how does this compare to other approaches?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Brisbane is an absolute champion for superannuation and also for her local community and is particularly focused on young people and some of the intergenerational issues in our economy. So I appreciate her question today. Whether it's our approach to wages or tax cuts or superannuation, this government is all about helping Australians earn more, keep more of what they earn and retire with more as well. Today is a really important day in that regard because we welcomed the news that our Superannuation (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Imposition Bill 2026 is likely to pass the parliament tonight without amendment. We want to thank the Greens for taking a far more constructive approach to this legislation than the approach taken by those opposite.

The passage of this bill means a fairer super system from top to bottom. It means we are delivering more super for people with low balances and more sustainable tax breaks for people with the biggest balances. This is what intergenerational tax reform looks like—a fairer system which maintains concessional treatment across the board but makes those concessions more affordable and more sustainable.

A really important part of this legislation is the boost to the low-income super tax offset. It means more super for 1.3 million Australians, mostly women and mostly young people. It means more super for 100,000 sales assistants and 50,000 aged-care workers. It could mean a potential benefit of around $15,000 at retirement by one calculation. So this is a test for the Liberals and the Nationals tonight in the Senate. If they vote no to these changes again, they'll be voting for less super for people on low incomes and bigger tax breaks for people with tens of millions of dollars in super. They'll also be voting for bigger deficits, or they'll be a couple of billion dollars short a year, and they'll try and find that with cuts to Medicare like they always do. They haven't changed a bit, and they haven't learned a thing, and they will fail the same test that they failed under the last two opposition leaders. Whether it's wages, tax cuts or super, they are still the same old Liberals trying to hack away at the pay and retirement incomes of ordinary working people.

On this side of the House, we created superannuation, and we have spent the last 3½ years strengthening superannuation. The new shadow Treasurer says that he wants to dismantle compulsory superannuation. We are delivering more super in a stronger, more sustainable system, and the passage of this legislation in the Senate will make that very clear.