Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It should be a source of strength, but these guys can't wait to wreck it. Their MO from the minister to Senators Bragg and Rennick, the thought leaders over there, is to attack it and then retreat and say, 'We're just trying to help.' If it was up to the Liberals, super wouldn't exist for most Australians. It would be the preserve of the very wealthy. It would be the preserve of the elite. It would be the preserve of big business. They opposed its formation. They opposed every single increase in the superannuation guarantee and the contribution rate.

What happened over when the pandemic hit and the economy was faced with the prospect of millions of people losing their jobs is that most Australians saw a crisis. These guys saw an opportunity. Most Australians reacted in horror to the prospect of losing jobs. Most Australians reacted in horror to the loss of gross national product. But these guys saw an opportunity. In JobKeeper, $35 billion has been spent so far. Through the early access scheme, almost $32 billion has been stripped out of low-income Australians' super funds—600,000 ordinary, low-income, low-balance account holders have emptied their accounts in total. I don't begrudge any of them. The criticism is of you lot. Those individuals knew they couldn't rely on Scott Morrison. They had to go to their own low-balance accounts and strip them out because they—casual workers, low-income workers and women—knew they couldn't rely on this government. Twenty-five-year-olds will be $80,000 to $100,000 worse off because of your policy framework and because you couldn't deliver. The government couldn't deliver.

Government senators interjecting—