Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I can tell you that, unfortunately, what is broken is that the coalition continue in their persistence of undermining the working people of this country. They are a broken record. That is what is broken—those opposite—and the reason that they don't want to talk about the benefits of the superannuation scheme is that those opposite are embarrassed about the $1 trillion that they racked up in debt when they were last in government, not too long ago. They racked up $1 trillion in debt and did not put forward any solutions about how this government will fix the structural deficit that we have inherited and we are now trying to fix. But yet they come into this place and, instead of defending the workers of the country, are defending the 0.5 per cent of people who are very well off and who can afford to pay a bit more tax in order for us to fix the budget's structural deficit that we have inherited. Before you come in here and accuse us of trying to break any promises, I think you should look at yourselves and think about the mess that they have left us, and us cleaning up that mess, which the majority of Australians have actually said yes to. Two-thirds of Australians, in the latest news poll, agreed with the government's position of fixing the budget bottom line. In fact, the majority of coalition voters have agreed with the policy that the Labor Party has recently announced.

So it is extraordinary to see the coalition continue to attack the government's steps to repair the budget. The government is making modest changes. But as for allowing the very wealthy to still receive a tax concession, the only difference is that instead of paying 15 per cent they'll pay 30 per cent, and these are people who would be paying around 45 per cent tax on their income, so they are still much better off. But unfortunately governments have to make these tough decisions to fix the budget bottom line.

It was Labor that built this system of superannuation, back in the 1980s, under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. And we'll always continue to make sure we protect it so that it is stronger and it is sustainable into the future for working people so that when they retire the workers and the families of these workers can have a retirement that is comfortable and they are not reliant on government in the future. That was the whole point of setting up the superannuation scheme as part of the accord with the industry, with business, with government and with the unions.

But it's also important to remember that it was those opposite, in the last government—many backbenchers, some of them in this place today—who were opposed to the super guarantee increasing from 9½ per cent. There was further opposition around those 0.5 per cent incremental increases.