Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 1) Bill 2010. As many speakers have alluded to on this side, the bill introduces a number of measures, the majority of which are supported by the coalition. However, as has become a hallmark of the Rudd Labor government, as history since Rudd Labor have been in power now dictates, everything that this government does you need to look very carefully at. You need to carefully review the details of their legislation. In reviewing the detail of this legislation, we find incorporated quietly into the provisions of this bill, in the hope no-one will see them, provisions that are of real concern to the coalition. These provisions relate to the government’s policy to implement a superannuation clearing house for small business. Surprise, surprise: the provisions that are of concern to the coalition relate to yet another broken promise by the Rudd Labor government. But nothing is new in that regard. Those on the other side continue to mismanage and waste taxpayers’ money. They are chronically incapable of delivering sound government to the Australian people. And we are going to see in question time today the shaking and the quivering when they are made to answer questions in relation to their proposed super tax.

Kevin Rudd Labor is all talk and no action. This is yet another broken promise. The government promised to protect our borders; they failed on that. They have monumentally and tragically failed on the Home Insulation Program. They have failed to deliver value for money to taxpayers with the so-called Building the Education Revolution. They have failed in relation to the creation of their GP superclinics. The list goes on and on. The question that the Australian people are entitled to be asking this government is: what exactly does Mr Rudd stand for? The only thing on this side we can see him standing for is short-term political opportunism. Everything he does ends up in a policy backflip, a backdown or a disaster. The only thing Kevin Rudd is prepared to fight for is himself, especially in light of the rumours circulating regarding the new Labor leadership team—and the bad news for Mr Rudd is that his name is not on it. Julia Gillard and Craig Emerson must be very happy at the moment. What do we have with this legislation? Yet another broken promise by the Australian Labor Party.

Why do we say it is a broken promise? During the 2007 election the Labor Party promised to the people of Australia that they would establish a superannuation clearing house by 1 July 2009. The question that we now need to consider is: did the Labor Party deliver on that promise? The answer is a resounding no. The Labor Party failed to deliver on an election commitment to the Australian people. However, there was of course, in typical Labor style, a flurry of action in relation to this now broken promise. What did the Labor Party do? An amount of $16 million was allocated to the clearing house in the 2008-09 federal budget to form what the government called an election promise to reduce the superannuation red-tape burden on employers. What did they then do? They issued a discussion paper for the clearing house, which was released in November 2008, seeking submissions by 19 December 2008. Then what happened? Absolutely nothing. There was a deafening silence from the Rudd Labor government. We did not hear one word from them, which may be okay for those sitting on the other side, but the industry was left guessing as to what may happen in relation to the potential changes to its regulatory environment. But, again, as is the history of the government, you expect nothing more and nothing less.

I said that this legislation represented two broken promises by the Rudd Labor government, the first being their blatant failure to actually deliver on a commitment that they gave to the people of Australia prior to the 2007 election. What was the second? On 26 November 2009, after they had failed to deliver on their election commitment and realised that they had to do something because the industry were saying, ‘We’re up in arms. What are we going to do? We actually don’t know what is going on,’ they released an exposure draft on the superannuation clearing house legislation. What did they quietly do through the exposure draft? They announced that the Labor government would not tender the clearing house to the private sector and had decided to fund Medicare to deliver the service rather than the private sector. What do we have by that announcement? Another broken promise by Rudd Labor because, in 2007, when Mr Rudd was the opposition leader, he issued a media release. On 10 May 2007, Mr Rudd stated very clearly that the clearing house would be contracted to none other than—no, not Medicare—the private sector. Mr Rudd, as a potential leader of this country, said to the people of Australia, ‘If I am elected, the clearing house will be tendered to the private sector.’ One has to ask: did Mr Rudd ever have any desire to actually deliver on that promise? It is a blatant election breach, so the answer to that is a clear and resounding no.

What do we now have? We have the legislation before us, which represents part of a broken promise to the Australian people. But, in November last year, without any warning, without any explanation, the Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law announced that the clearing house would be awarded to Medicare. One has to ask: where did that decision come from? How can the minister go from, in 2007, a pre-election commitment that the clearing house would be awarded to the private sector to, in 2009, saying, ‘We’ve awarded the superannuation clearing house to Medicare’?

What we do know, though, is that there are leaked Treasury minutes from the working group on the issue that indicate that Treasury consider that clearing house operations under Medicare will lack functionality when compared to that offered by the private sector and, in particular, that BPAY is to be the only payment method supported, not direct credit or direct debit—something that people often use—and that industry standard data formats will not be used. How is that for efficiency? But I tell you what: based on the government’s reputation, I would prefer the evidence from the leaked Treasury documents as opposed to believing any statement from those opposite. The government is clearly vulnerable in deciding to award the clearing house contract to Medicare and, in so doing, it refuses to answer the question: why did the government award the contract to Medicare? It is a very simple question.

Treasury, during a recent estimates sitting, refused to answer any questions. In the explanatory memorandum on this bill the decision is mentioned only once. Then we had Medicare claiming that they had completed costings on this proposal but then they refused to publicly release what those costings were. I would have thought that the public are entitled to know just how much this funding of Medicare will cost them. Medicare have also admitted that they have not finalised their system for data processing and the types of payments to be accepted. That is in stark contrast to what could have been occurring in the private sector. Contrast Medicare’s situation to that of Australia’s largest superannuation clearing house, SuperChoice. They made a detailed submission to the government. They stated in their submission that they would be able to implement the government’s policy at a fraction of the government’s anticipated cost of $16 million. I thought Mr Rudd was all about savings. That is all the spin that he gives to the Australian people, but what is the substance? It is absolutely lacking. SuperChoice’s submission refers to $1.57 million in start-up costs, $200,000 per month in operating costs and between a $15 and $60 per month cost for each employer using the scheme, depending on the take-up. That is a stark difference to the $16 million under Medicare, which has been quoted by Rudd Labor.

So what do we have again, in contrast? SuperChoice and other private providers have detailed computer systems already in place and could easily incorporate additional employers under the government’s plan. Instead, what do the government do? They say: ‘No, no, no. Forget about functionality, forget about operational efficiency, Medicare can do it even if they are required to create and implement a processing system from scratch.’ Talk about reinventing the wheel at taxpayers’ expense! There has been no justification provided by the Rudd Labor government as to why it awarded the contract to Medicare. If I were a member of the Australian public—and I am—I would be very, very worried. I would have thought it more appropriate for Medicare to be discharging its core responsibility of delivering services to the Australian public than designing a computer system from scratch and doing something that, quite frankly, it should not be doing. The questions the Australian public should be asking—and which those on the other side should be answering—are: how will Medicare deal with the quarterly massive peaks in workload created by the operation of the clearing house? How are they going to staff this? Are there going to be additional staff provided to Medicare—again, at additional cost to the Australian public? The public are entitled to know the answers to these questions. Medicare’s preparation to operate the clearing house is an example of a government agency getting involved in a sector where private companies have been operating efficiently for many, many years. Giving any government—let alone a Labor government—control over millions of dollars of superannuation payments is a very, very dangerous thing.

So what have the coalition done? The coalition have proposed an amendment to the legislation. That is right, the coalition want to assist the government in meeting its 2007 election commitment. We support the superannuation clearing house for small business. We believe it will lower compliance costs associated with the SuperChoice system. However, the coalition have a responsibility to hold the Rudd Labor government to account in relation to its political waste and management of taxpayers’ money. Our amendment to this legislation is therefore a very, very simple one. The amendment will merely force the government to have Medicare compete for the private tender. That is it. It is all about choice—nothing more and nothing less—which is something those on the other side are fundamentally opposed to. The amendment does not actually tell the government how it will achieve this choice; it simply requests that the decision to name Medicare as the operator over private sector clearing houses be made transparently and with good reason.

‘Transparently’—isn’t that a word that Mr Rudd used prior to the 2007 election? Has Mr Rudd come clean with the Australian people on the issue of transparency? This legislation continues to affirm that he has not. Unlike Medicare, private superannuation clearing houses have already invested millions and millions of dollars in designing efficient systems that process millions of transactions every year. Why is the government so insistent upon reinventing the wheel? Our amendment does not give the project to the private sector; it merely ensures that the private sector has a chance to compete for it. What we want the government to do is to ensure that it chooses the most effective and most efficient option for delivering clearing houses to small business. The question I ask those on the other side is: given the very, very clear election promise that Mr Rudd made to the people of Australia in 2007, are those on the other side going to stand here today and vote down the coalition’s amendment, which effectively means they will be voting against their own election commitment? This is the commitment Mr Rudd made prior to the November 2007 election.

As I said at the beginning of my contribution, the opposition support many elements of this bill. However, we have major reservations about the impact of the proposed government clearing house. This part of the legislation is nothing more and nothing less than a backward step by the Rudd Labor government. To depart from a very, very clear and explicit election promise to have a service that is provided on a contestable basis is a failure by the Rudd Labor government. In his speech on this legislation my esteemed colleague Luke Hartsuyker, the member for Cowper, said:

We have no problem with the allocation of the job of the government funded clearing house to Medicare if Medicare is able to compete with private sector operators and put in a bid that is price and service competitive and offers the same degree of amenity or better amenity than is being offered by private operators. But there is a very distinct possibility that we are going to squander large amounts of government money and see a more expensive solution and a less customer orientated outcome.

It is the Australian taxpayers who will lose out in the end if this legislation goes through in its current form. It is their money that is going to be squandered by the Rudd Labor government. To ensure that taxpayers are getting value for money, to ensure that private businesses do not suffer, to ensure that life insurance is protected and to ensure that this exercise does not turn into yet another of the bungled Rudd Labor government’s exercises, I urge those on the other side to support the coalition’s amendment.