Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the Government's work to make the super system fairer from top to bottom, helping workers earn more, keep more of what they earn, and retire with more;

(2) notes the passage of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Bill 2026, securing more super for around 1.3 million Australians, including around 750,000 women and 550,000 young people under the age of 30, through boosting the low income superannuation tax offset and better targeting tax concessions for large balances; and

(3) further notes that the superannuation system was built by a former Labor Government and this Government has fought to protect and strengthen it, including by:

(a) lifting the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent;

(b) paying super on paid parental leave; and

(c) legislating payday super.

Labor built the superannuation system, and I believe it's one of our crowning achievements. Created in 1992, it's one of the greatest economic success stories of our country. Our superannuation system is designed to help workers earn more, keep more of what they earn and, importantly, have a dignified retirement. Our core belief here is that superannuation should always be fair and accessible to every Australian, and that it needs to be sustainable. For that to happen for a system created way back in the nineties, it needs care and it needs a bit of reform, and that's what we've done since coming to government.

That dignified retirement for all Australians means that we finally increased the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent after decades of delays from the Liberals; we've made changes so that new parents are paid super on government funded paid parental leave; and, this term, we've legislated payday super, which will require employers to pay their employees' super at the same time as their salary and wages. But we're not stopping there.

With the recent passage of the building a stronger and fairer super system bill, we are providing more help to low-income workers and delivering on making superannuation stronger, fairer and more sustainable. From 1 July next year we are boosting the low-income superannuation tax offset, which I love to call LISTO. We are increasing it from $310 to $810 and, importantly, raising the eligibility threshold from $37,000 to $45,000. These changes will benefit over 1.3 million Australians through either being eligible for LISTO or receiving a higher LISTO payment. What this means is that low-income workers will receive a fairer tax concession on their super contributions. This, combined with our third round of tax cuts, will deliver for every worker. It will make a huge difference to what low-income workers get in their pay packet and what they get at retirement.

I'd like to focus on some of the gender impacts of our stewardship of superannuation. Because of our changes to LISTO, 450,000 women with income between $37,000 and $45,000 are now eligible, boosting their superannuation tax concession to $810 per year. Three hundred thousand women with income below $37,000 will of course also receive this higher LISTO payment. Women make up to 60 per cent of low-earning Australians and are likely to retire with 25 per cent less super than men. The median super balance of women aged between 60 and 64 is $51,000 lower than that for men of the same age, and around 10 per cent are more likely to have even less. Modelling shows that our changes to LISTO could leave up to $15,000 more in someone's superannuation account upon retirement. You've then got changes to super on paid parental leave as well; 180,000 mothers each year will benefit from this important measure, with a median earner's superannuation balance for a female about $4,250 higher at retirement.

This is all about improving gender pay equality and closing that huge difference between what men and women have in their superannuation balance at their retirement. Not only do we want everyone to earn more and keep more of what they earn but we want to close this gender pay gap—because we need to. We've invested in increased wages in highly feminised industries, particularly aged care and early childhood education. We've consistently supported increases to the minimum wage. We're delivering tax breaks for every taxpayer, including sole traders. Through our reforms to super, making it fairer and more sustainable, we're addressing the gender and superannuation pay gap.

Contrast this record on super to that of the Liberals. They opposed and delayed compulsory increases. Super should have been at 12 per cent years ago, but it only happened under Labor. They had or still have—no-one really knows—that disastrous super-for-housing policy and they consistently target industry super funds although they overperform. The Liberals just don't get super.

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for your motion?

Zhi Soon (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've spoken on a few motions today, and this one is yet another example of this Labor government putting forward motions to congratulate themselves on things that they think are achievements. I had the opportunity to speak on the super legislation when it was before the House. Let me say this. The member for Bennelong spoke about the fact that—and we've heard this rhetoric because the Labor Party sings it out in chorus in the chamber—they want people to keep more of what they earn. This is actually inconsistent with their actions and policies.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're working harder for less.

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're working harder for less—absolutely right, Member for Page. This motion exposes a fundamental difference between the values and ideology of the Labor Party and of us on the coalition side. This is something that is creeping into politics in this country at a federal level, and it is, quite frankly, dangerous. What it exposes is that those on the other side would much rather—and this is all we're talking about now—ask, 'How can we redistribute what we've already got? How can we reallocate the wealth in this country that is already there? How can we do that better?' Those on this side of the House—and this is a fundamental difference with the coalition—believe in growing this economy. We believe in generating more wealth, because you won't generate wealth for this country and for Australians unless you have that growth attitude.

Now, the coalition supports super. That is not in question at all. What we've actually been speaking about is where this government has taken this debate. It started with the Treasurer, who put forward a notion of wanting to tax unrealised gains, which are paper increases in asset values that exist only on a spreadsheet. We on this side of the House, the coalition, came out strongly against it. The community raised some really serious concerns, and even voices within the Labor Party itself spoke up and began to question it. It would have decimated individuals, small businesses and farmers across the country.

What the government did instead was put up this alternative version of a super tax, which was rushed through parliament. We've never seen that happen before under this Albanese government! We seem to get legislation being rushed through every single day. The government rushed the legislation through, and it's not something that Australians appreciate—because we never heard about this before the election. If you don't have trust within taxation policy or within superannuation policy, you have absolutely nothing.

There are parts of the super legislation that we did agree with. We supported the changes to the low-income superannuation tax offset and we support payday super, but we're actually scrutinising and doing the effective job of an opposition. While the government may take credit for it, let me remind this chamber and the government who actually pays payday super. Who delivers it?

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Small businesses.

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's small businesses. That's right, Shadow Treasurer. It is not the government that delivers it. As we know, government doesn't create wealth; businesses do. It's the businesses that create wealth.

I'll end my contribution by saying that we in the coalition support super. We support Australians saving for retirement because we believe in reward for effort. We believe that, if you have contributed to this country, you've worked hard and you've saved effectively, you have every right to enjoy the fruits of your labour. We support workers being paid what they're owed. But something that we on this side of the parliament just cannot stand for is more taxes. We cannot stand for rushed implementation. We cannot stand for a situation where the Australian people cannot trust their politicians and their political leaders because they say one thing before the election and they do something else after the election. We will never support policies that treat superannuation as some sort of revenue grab because we don't have a government that can operate within the true fiscal guardrails that the people it governs expect.

So I say that super belongs to Australians. It's money for your retirement. The coalition will never support it becoming this Labor Party's piggy bank.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Superannuation is not just a financial mechanism; it is a promise when an Australian starts work that, after a lifetime of work, they can retire with some security and peace of mind. That is the goal of superannuation, and at its best, superannuation reflects the values of fairness, responsibility and opportunity. It's important to strengthen that system to make sure that it works for everyone—not only for a section of the community but for everyone. It's one of the most important challenges that we face, and one of the most important pieces of legislation that was brought in by the Hawke-Keating government. Over the past few years, meaningful steps have been taken by this government to strengthen it, to ensure that it's fair and to ensure that superannuation delivers on that foundational purpose of providing income for Australians in retirement, not just for the fortunate few that perhaps many years ago could afford superannuation or had the privileges of superannuation.

I have been listening to those opposite. Just recently the member for McPherson spoke about an ideology that we have. Yes, we certainly do have an ideology. We believe that working people should be able to retire in dignity, and that's what superannuation was all about. It was about putting in place a mechanism for people who previously could not put money aside for whatever reason. Maybe they were low-income workers. Maybe there was a whole range of reasons. Superannuation, through the superannuation guarantee levy, ensures that money is put aside from the beginning of your working life right through to the end of your working life, ensuring that there's a sum there to help you retire with.

That's what it was about, and if that's about ideology then, yes, I'll cop that: it is about ideology. It's about giving working people a better retirement than they had before superannuation came in.

In every way, this superannuation journey, from the late eighties, when the Hawke-Keating government brought it in, has been constantly opposed by the opposition. No matter what we on this side of the House do to strengthen superannuation, to make it better and to make it fairer, it has been opposed continuously from the other side, and I don't understand why, because superannuation is no different than receiving your wage. Superannuation—the 12 per cent or whatever it is that the employer agrees to pay the employee—is about money in return for work done. It's not a gift. It's not a promise. It's not something that's done just out of their goodwill. It is for the work that's been done by that worker. It's not something that we should take for granted and should not have laws in place for to strengthen it and ensure that everyone gets that superannuation. As I said, it's not an abstract. This is money that's paid later in life and provides security later on in life.

The introduction, for example, of clearer reporting frameworks and best-practice principles gives Australians the information, guidance and product choices they need to retire with. They need that information so they can retire in confidence. They know what they're putting in place. Transparency drives better outcomes. It challenges the trustees to innovate in the interests of members, not margins.

A fair superannuation system must do more than grow balances; it must close those gaps. The gender superannuation gap remains one of the most persistent and unfair inequities in our economy, and that is why paying superannuation on government funded paid parental leave matters so deeply. Since last July, parents who are welcoming children into the world through birth or adoption have had super paid on that leave, and around 180,000 parents each year benefit from this change. Because around 95 per cent of paid parental leave is received by women, this reform goes directly to where the need is greatest. It also recognises that caring should never come at the cost of security and that fairness cannot stop there. Low-income workers deserve superannuation tax concessions that actually benefit them. Therefore, the reforms that have been brought in by this government are very important, and they secure superannuation for the future— (Time expired)

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Superannuation is absolutely one of my favourite topics, and I want to follow the member who just spoke about how this is not a topic that's abstract. I couldn't agree with him more. He wanted to talk about how superannuation is money in return for work. I couldn't agree more. Every time the superannuation guarantee goes up, it means workers' wages go down, and that's why we've always believed in our heart of hearts that superannuation is workers' money.

The problem with the Labor Party is that they do not see the trillion dollars of money in superannuation as workers' money; they see it as a honey pot—a honey pot to extract extreme amounts of fees to be able to fund the ALP itself. You can just go and look. When I was the chair of the House economics committee, we went through step by step how superannuation funds expended marketing expenses to trade unions, who then organised campaigns for the Australian Labor Party so that they could be in government and garnish more of Australians' wages towards superannuation, which could then be harvested for fees. And so the superannuation cycle of life continued to go on.

But fear not, because you just need to look at what the state governments did. They said, 'We can get in on that act.' What they started doing was commissioning projects and using the superannuation system as a way to finance projects so that then they too could get in and suck off the teat of Australian superannuation. And, in the process, they used it as a vehicle to increase the wages of a select few, and, even worse than that, they used it as a facilitation device to get public money to organised crime, like through the CFMEU-Labor cartel.

That is the fundamental challenge with superannuation. We see it as workers' money that they should control. The Labor Party sees it as a pathway to launder money to organised crime. We make no apology for standing up for Australians controlling their superannuation. We make no apologies for standing up and believing that Australians should be able to control their own destiny, and we make no apologies for saying people's money should be able to work for them on their priorities consistent with their stages of life. That's why we've always been very open to having a conversation about the importance of homeownership as a principle before retirement savings. This is not because we don't fundamentally believe in retirement savings but because you get the benefits of homeownership during your working life and your retirement.

But we know that is not good enough for the Labor Party. They want to rig the system in favour of their mates in the superannuation industry at the expense of young Australians owning their own home. It's hilarious because what they actually say is that it's outrageous that we couldn't have a public support system for incomes in retirement, but the government should come along and increase its equity and its stake in the first homes of Australians.

Every time you look for logical consistency from the Australian Labor Party around superannuation and homeownership, what you find is their attempt to take the maximum take over Australians futures. What they actually want to do is control Australians' futures. The last line of political defence in standing up for Australians to buy their own home, to determine their own destiny, to get a good education, to own their own capital and to go on and save for retirement with dignity is the coalition parties. That's why it's so important to stand up. We believe in superannuation, but I can sure as hell bet you we do not believe in a system designed to launder money to organised crime, and that is why the Labor Party's approach to superannuation is so bad—because they would rather have people die with 97 per cent of principal intact, which is currently the statistic of what's happening, but deny young Australians the chance to get their first home.

In 1992, the age at which young Australians bought their first home was their mid-20s. It's now increasingly in their late 30s, trending towards their 40s. And with buying their home later goes family formation. So, rather than support Australians to control their own destiny, Labor would literally prefer to break down the social family unit and break down the very structures of which our society is built so they can control Australians and how they live their lives through the superannuation system.

We want people to retire with dignity. We want them to be able to control their own destiny. We support Australians to own their own home. But what we don't support is a system where it's used to launder money to the corrupt CFMEU.

Zhi Soon (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to support the motion of my very good friend the member for Bennelong recognising the enormous progress this government is making in improving our superannuation system. As everybody in this place knows, Labor is the party that built superannuation and Labor is the only party that will protect it. This Labor government promised to strengthen the super system when we were elected, and we are delivering on that promise so that superannuation continues to serve its foundational purpose of providing a dignified retirement for all Australians.

This government has made massive strides. In the last term of the parliament, Labor legislated the purpose of superannuation and lifted the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent. And, this term, we legislated payday super. Payday super is a fantastic landmark reform for our country. This reform will protect workers by tackling the issue of unpaid superannuation, which cost workers across our country more than $5 billion in the 2021-2022 financial year, according to ATO estimates. In a typical ATO investigation, a worker has lost nearly two years worth of contributions. For an average 35-year-old income earner, that equates to $32,000 less in retirement. This government's legislation requires employers to pay superannuation at the same time as the rest of an employee's salary and wages from 1 July this year, making it easier for employers and the ATO to track their payments and take action before they become unrecoverable.

Another significant reform is the government's move to pay superannuation on Commonwealth paid parental leave. Since 1 July last year, parents of newborn and adopted children have been eligible to have super paid on their parental leave. Around 95 per cent of Commonwealth paid parental leave flows to women, and the scheme is benefiting 180,000 Australian mothers each year, providing meaningful support to reduce the gender superannuation gap for women across a diverse range of circumstances and household arrangements. As the Super Members Council CEO, Misha Schubert, said of this reform, we're not taking baby steps here. This is a huge stride forward to tackle women's retirement inequality. The experts know this is a reform that will make millions of women thousands of dollars better off in their retirement and be particularly beneficial to low-paid and vulnerable workers.

Just a few weeks ago now, the government's Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Bill passed this parliament, providing more help to low-income workers. As a result of this government's ambitious agenda, the low-income superannuation tax offset will be raised from $310 to $810, and the eligibility threshold raised to $45,000 from 1 July next year. The timing of this change is deliberate, aligning with the third round of the government's cost-of-living tax cuts for every taxpayer. In fact, a recent analysis, again by the Super Members Council, shows that the changes to the LISTO would benefit more than 1.2 million Australians, including 9,321 hardworking constituents in my own electorate of Banks, making them an average of $438 better off, for a total estimated benefit of $4.1 million per year.

Not everyone in this place sees superannuation the same way. While those opposite continue to tell young people to raid their super and rob future selves as the solution to all the problems they've created, this government—this Labor government—sees super as the key to a secure and dignified retirement for millions of Australians. We will continue making reforms that will deliver on this deal for Australians and for communities across our great country.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's a sad fact about every Labor MP in this chamber. If you listen to them, you would think nothing good ever happened when any coalition government existed and that every cathartic good idea that happened in the Australian parliament since 1901 was on the Labor side of politics. There's one thing that no speaker, just with this motion, has mentioned with regard to superannuation. It's really quite bizarre. I often hear my coalition colleagues talk about some of the reforms of the Hawke and Keating era that were pretty good. They say: 'Look, Hawke and Keating did some good reforms during that period. Some of the privatisation was helpful for the economy.' There was a lowering of taxes. The member for Lyne remembers. Productivity actually grew under some of the Hawke and Keating years, and there were obviously some of these super reforms. But not one of the Labor MPs has spoken on this. They obviously don't care. No Labor MP cares about public servants' superannuation. And do you know what none of them have mentioned? The Future Fund. They can't mention the Future Fund—no Labor MP will let the words Future Fund come out of their partisan mouths, because it wasn't their idea. We can talk about the superannuation industry; we can talk about some of the things that Hawke and Keating did that were a good idea, but no-one mentions the Future Fund. It's pathetic! It's pathetic that not once has a Labor MP ever talked positively about a coalition policy.

Let me tell you where the Future Fund came from. It came from the Howard-Costello years and the John Anderson years. Do you know what the coalition government was doing then? Productivity was increasing. Productivity was going through the roof. Do you know what else we had? We had surpluses. We had government surpluses. And rather than just splurge the government surpluses, the Liberal-National parties said, 'We have a whole lot right here; don't mention it.' We won't mention the poor public servants who had unfunded superannuation liabilities. You won't hear them mention that. That won't come out of their mouths ever! The coalition government said, 'We need to fund public servants' superannuation liabilities.' From that time, the coalition government ceded between 50 to 60 billion bucks. They invested in what was then our first sovereign fund of that size to invest and get returns to fund public servants' superannuation. It was a really important reform, Labor MPs. What has it done since then? It's grown to about 250 to 260 billion bucks. The returns on it in a year can be around $30 billion, which is now nearly as much as what was initially ceded by the then coalition government that established this fund.

I encourage—I dare almost any Labor MP in your future careers in this chamber or in the House of Representatives to one day mention the Future Fund and one day mention the public servants whom you say you have a lot of respect for. I encourage the member for Bean, a Canberra MP who has a lot of respect for public servants, to mention the Future Fund as a coalition initiative. It was so important for their superannuation. It's lovely always to get up and talk about, and I do acknowledge the reforms of the Hawke-Keating years in establishing parts of our superannuation fund industry. I'm gracious enough to do that. Labor aren't. They never are, but I will acknowledge that. But I will also acknowledge the very important part that a coalition government had. One of the most important things—there were many achievements of coalition governments, but, certainly of the Howard-Costello and John Anderson years, I would say it is one of the most important things that was done, besides broadening the tax base with the GST and some of the other productivity reforms. As I said, the productivity of the country back then was enormous, but also it was the last time where we had a string of surpluses that were put to good use for the future of this country.

The Future Fund is a very important part of our super fund industry. It's a very important of the sovereign capability and the sovereign investments that we have in this country. I applaud the coalition government that brought that in. It was a great achievement.

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.