Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Okay, I withdraw. 'Go away,' he was told. So there you go. He wasn't able to pursue that any further. Another fellow, Luke Zhou, who is a UniSuper member, said that due to provisions in the University of New South Wales enterprise agreement:

… casual staff employed by the university are unable to exercise choice of fund, being compelled to contribute into UniSuper. This is highly detrimental to my peers, as they are often confused as to why they are defaulted in two superannuation funds, which automatically deduct two sets of fees and insurance premiums.

Mr Zhou and Mr Bracegirdle are rare beasts; they are whistleblowers and they have sought to try to break the monopoly on these ridiculous anti-choice provisions, but they haven't really had any success, because the IR system has been against them for—it is now effectively 30 years that we've had this system. This is now an opportunity to right these wrongs.

The returns in a lot of these funds, which are compulsory for workers, have often been far less good than those of some of the more widely used funds. The TWU super fund, which has been ruthlessly put into these enterprise agreements, as we saw in the case of Toll and Mr Bracegirdle, has returned far less than the average industry super fund, like AustralianSuper. You've got to ask yourself why they are trying to stop people from choosing their own funds.

The payments to the unions from these large industry super funds are significant. TWUSUPER has paid TWU $8.6 million over the last 10 years and the Cbus fund has paid $14 million to the CFMEU over the last 10 years. These are some very significant contributions. The super funds are on track to pay $31 million a year by 2030 to the unions, which is an extraordinary sum of money. You've got to come to the conclusion that this is all about money, power and patronage. It can't be about anything else, because if unions are there for workers and the super funds are there for workers, then why aren't they letting them choose their own fund? So, it has to be about the cash—it has to be.

The Labor Party's positions on this has been absolute intellectual rust-bucket stuff. Andrew Leigh, who is one of the shadow Treasury spokespersons, has said:

… Labor will reserve our position on these proposed choice of fund changes until the Senate committee has reported.

The Senate committee has reported and the Labor senators said in their report:

Superannuation remains an evolving industry, and Labor Senators believe that careful consideration should be given to how opening up choice of fund might preclude other innovative product offerings if the risk pooling of membership cannot be achieved.

So, we're going to have less competition and then we are going to have more innovation! That sound great, doesn't it? The Soviet Union is back in business and they are writing the economic policies of the Labor Party.

In fact, if only it were a fair comparison. The fact is that this is all about money and ideology. We come in here and listen to these absurd contributions from the other side, saying that we are being ideological. We just want to give people their choices. We want to let people choose their own fund. It's 2020 and the whole idea of being able to choose a consumer product has been well and truly made. Across the board, our government is prosecuting openness and competition, open banking, open energy, open telecommunications. We want people to choose to get a better deal, because that is the way that the market needs to go. We don't think that people have been getting a great deal from their super funds. We've had the same view about banking, about telcos and about energy. We are moving into open super, open banking, open telcos. The idea that a product like super, which is compulsory, would be a product where people have their choice of fund rights stolen by big unions and big businesses working in the shadows is absolutely absurd.

People don't understand super very well. It is an opaque and darkened industry. It is worked on the basis that people don't have the time or the energy to understand all its intricacies. That is a real sickness, when you think about the amount of money at stake here. Yes, we spend $36 billion a year in forgone tax revenue. This system costs a bomb and it gets basically no-one off the pension. Perhaps the most insidious numbers are the fees charged—$32 billion a year in fees. People in this country spend more on super fees than they do on power bills. It is just ridiculous.

I just want to conclude on this point. If only people understood super better, then I don't think Labor would be arguing against people choosing. I think they're using the cover of people not really engaging with super to argue this ridiculous position that, for some reason, people should not be allowed to choose their own fund. I urge the Labor Party to reconsider their ridiculous and unsustainable position on this issue. I want to finish on the example of John Berger, the TWU fellow. He went before the royal commission, and it was put to him that he had charged the TWUSUPER fund 50 per cent of his $190,000 salary for five days of consulting. He was questioned about this by the commission, and he said, 'Well, that's the maths.' That is $93,000 for five days work. So this is a great scheme if you can get into it. Labor are running a racket for their mates and the unions so they can charge high fees, they can lock in the workers and they can rort the system and pay people like Mr Berger 93 grand for five days work. It is just ridiculous.

One of the things that our government is trying to do is to encourage all parties to work in the national interest, which is why we've invited the ACTU to come to the table and look at some of the intractable changes in the industrial system. I urge the Labor Party to look at this in the same spirit that we are looking to engage the ACTU in it. If you look beyond your own narrow self-interest and the interests of McKell, the unions and industry super—all the people that Senator McAllister mentioned before—and you look at the national interest, you will see very clearly that there is no possible reason for you to deny the workers of Australia their own choices. There is no possible basis for that, so I commend this bill to the House.