Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) | Hansard source

I realise what I was saying was extremely funny, Senator Steele-John!

These measures were actually introduced in the 2018-19 budget, 16 months ago, and not only that, but the measures contained in this bill have been to a previous inquiry. I say this for your benefit, Senator Ciccone, because I don't want you to get up and repeat the same errors that your colleagues have just made. These identical measures were considered in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Protecting Your Superannuation Package) Bill, which was looked at by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee last year, including—surprise, surprise—at a public hearing. Who did we hear from at that public hearing? We heard from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, CHOICE, the Financial Rights Legal Centre, corporate super association Rice Warner, ClearView Wealth, the Financial Services Council—who's this one?—the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia and the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees. So not only have these measures been around for 16 months; they have been considered before by the Senate economics committee, which is the reason that I and my fellow members of the committee decided that an inquiry off the papers was appropriate in these circumstances. Because the Senate economics committee takes its role very seriously, one of the things that I quizzed the secretariat about is whether the provisions in this bill were identical to the provisions considered in the previous inquiry, and the answer was: yes, they were.

I will let the minister respond to some of the other falsehoods we've been hearing from those opposite, who were talking about people being stripped of their insurance and about hazardous occupations not being adequately covered in this bill. Senator Ayres was quoting AustralianSuper data in his arguments when AustralianSuper, of its own volition, was one of the first superannuation funds to move to this system for under-25s. Yet he is quoting AustralianSuper data. So I just want to put on the record that the Senate economics committee did look at this bill. We looked at it in detail. We made two recommendations, which have been considered by the government, and I thank the minister for doing so. I certainly commend this bill to the House.