Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Reuniting More Superannuation) Bill 2020. This bill reminds me of one of my favourite movies—I got to see it again last year during COVID—called The Untouchables. There's a scene whereby the great Jim Malone played by Sean Connery was pulled out of retirement and he was going to crack down on corruption and gangsters. In the scene where he gets killed—it's a fantastic scene; one of the best death scenes of all time—he's listening to music and cooking dinner. This gangster walks along the hallway, and it's all quiet. Jim Malone turns around and he's got a big shotgun. He goes, 'You're just like a wop. You bring a knife to a gunfight. Now get out you dago bastard.' He walks out along the hallway and, as he steps out the door, he's gunned down machine gun style—rat-tat-tat. Then he crawls back along, as he's bleeding out, and he calls Kevin Costner to let him know that the gangsters have got him.

This bit of legislation is pretty much like bringing a knife to a gunfight, because effectively it doesn't do enough to crack down on superannuation. What we really need to do is just get rid of the whole thing. I want to be like Eliot Ness, one of the world's most famous accountants, who cracked down. Superannuation is like a whole bunch of white-collar gangsters, Eliot Ness style, who are ripping $40 billion in fees off each year. This is gangsterism, legalised by white-collar corporates, and I don't know why we allow it to happen.

If Paul Keating had said to the Australian public—back in 1991 when he passed it in the August budget and then it was introduced July 1992—'In 25 years time, I'm going to take 10 per cent of your income and give it to someone you've never met and you may or may not get it back when you're 60,' do you think they would've voted for it? We don't know and we'll never know because there was never a mandate. There was never a referendum on this. What we do know, however, is that New Zealand had a referendum on it and they voted 92 to eight per cent against compulsory super.

You've got to ask yourself: what is it about Labor? Why are they so afraid to have a referendum on compulsory super? I'll tell you why: it's all about command and control. These guys don't want the workers to have their money—

Debate interrupted.