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

I will quote from a speech by the father of modern superannuation, Paul Keating. It's from a speech he gave in 2007. He said:

In other words, had employers not paid nine percentage points of wages, as superannuation contributions to employee superannuation accounts, they would have paid it in cash as wages.

In other words, the founder of superannuation has admitted that had that money not been paid into superannuation it would have been paid as wages. That is the problem with superannuation in this country. It takes money from the working class through their working life, when they need it, in order to subsidise the wealthy in their retirement. I hardly call that equitable.

Superannuation is not just wage theft; it's also infrastructure theft. Who funded the privatisation of infrastructure in this country? It was superannuation funds in joint ventures with foreign owned organisations. You cannot support infrastructure in this country and superannuation at the same time, because superannuation is the theft of infrastructure that belongs to our children. It should not be in the hands of unelected industry funds and retail funds—I don't want to discriminate between the two. Furthermore, it's about time that industry funds and unions in particular were seen for what they are, which is nothing more than financial brokers for the industry funds. As such, like financial brokers, who are taxed, unions should be taxed. We've got $3 trillion in funds under management. We need to democratise the board positions of superannuation. No more jobs for mates on the boards. It's about time people got elected to boards and were accountable to their members.