Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice asked by Senators Payne, Chandler, Davey and Liddle today relating to taxation, the cost of living and health care.

We once again heard today from the government that they were going to make a modest change to superannuation. They didn't understand why everyone's knickers were getting in a twist, because it's a modest change. I thought, 'Well, we keep hearing this.' It's obviously being featured throughout the focus groups that they have been conducting on how to best sell these broken promises to the electorate, because before the election you didn't say 'modest change'. Mr Albanese said 'no change', very clearly.

So I had a look at what the word 'modest' means in the dictionary, because I thought it might be helpful for those opposite to understand that 'modest' means 'relatively small, moderate or limited'. Then, if you look up what 'no' means when you talk about 'no change to superannuation' or 'no change to franking credits', 'no' means 'not at all', 'not any' or 'to no extent'. So what we have from those opposite is a litany of broken promises, one after the other. The one on superannuation is attacking the retirement savings and investments of people who have made long-term strategies, and we now know it's going to impact not 0.5 per cent of Australians but 10 per cent of Australians, because the broken promises continue. They're also going to stop allowing companies from offering franking credits. We all remember the election when Chris Bowen said, 'If you don't like the policy, don't vote for us.'

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hughes, I remind you to refer to others in the other place by their correct title.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I really should have written down what seat he is the member for. Mr Bowen said, 'If you don't like our policies, don't vote for us.' The Australian electorate very kindly took his advice and chose not to vote for those opposite and ended Bill Shorten's long-held ambition to be Prime Minister.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hughes, once again I remind you to refer to people—

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Maribyrnong's long-held ambition to become Prime Minister, which I understand has not faded. However, he may have to deal with the member for Sydney, who apparently has the support of all her colleagues.

Minister Bowen, said back then as the member: 'Don't like the policy? Don't vote for us.' The lesson that was learnt by the Labor Party was: Don't tell the electorate. Don't tell them the policies to let them make a decision on whether or not they vote for you. Their decision was not to tell them the policies. As Senator O'Sullivan was saying, they jumped on the me-too movement. Every time they saw a policy from the coalition they said, 'That's us too. Don't worry, we're a safe pair of hands.' Dr Chalmers, did the work on his PhD, saying he absolutely looks up to Paul Keating, the former Prime Minister, and his and Prime Minister Hawke's attempt to make sure the Australian economy modernised. But as soon as Dr Chalmers has got in he has been unwinding those economic gains, taking the Labor Party back to the good old days of left-wing socialism and the redistribution of wealth. But they knew that if they told the Australian electorate that, they weren't going to like it. They weren't going to back your superannuation changes, they weren't going to support you on changes to franking credits

As Senator O'Sullivan said, some of the questions being asked are really quite serious questions that are just about the policy detail: how are everyday Australians going to be affected by this? There is a really reasonable question about how unrealised gains are going to be taxed. If you have a farm worth $2 million in your self-managed super fund and you get a couple of land value increases, all of a sudden your farm is valued at over $3 million one year. It's not a realised asset. It's not sold. It's still part of the family farm. We cannot get an answer about what sort of modelling was done or how many families are going to be impacted. We asked where else in the world this had ever been implemented, been successfully implemented and had a positive impact. The only place we can find is one African country which had its economy collapse. That is a really great model for those opposite to be trying to copy. These are simple questions and it shows that you are continuing to lie to the Australian people, you are breaking promises or you simply just not don't know the answers. (Time expired)

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

President, thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate. Can I remind those listening and those on the opposition benches that those opposite were in government for almost a decade. One has to ask why they were booted out of government. The Australian people lost confidence in them. Why? Because of the rorting, the dysfunction of the government and the mismanagement. Senator Liddle asked a question today in relation to health and access to GPs, One has to remember that the former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, had such little faith in his health minister that he actually took control of the health portfolio as well as being Prime Minister and four other ministries. That is how dysfunctional that government was.

The Australian people understand that those opposite cannot accept that a new government has come in. I think we are a very good government, but even we can't fix the mess that was left behind by those opposite after the last decade. We all know, and my home state of Tasmania knows, only too well of the crisis in health. There's a lack of access to GPs and hospitals under enormous stress. The good senator from Tasmania here understands the issues that the Royal Hobart Hospital, the Launceston General Hospital, the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie and other hospitals face with ambulance ramping. The issues facing our health system are chronic.

It's been a Labor government that has built the nation when it comes to skills. We've built the nation around Medicare and ensuring people have access to their GPs. We invest in mental health. We invest in housing. We are very aware of the homeless crisis in this country. Then we have the opposition that now wants us to rewrite history and forget about the trillion dollars of debt that they left the Australian community. We're the government that now has to manage that debt. We have to begin to start paying that down.

We've introduced a very, very modest change to superannuation. All this week we've had people come into every question time, taking note, bleating about the impact that it's going to have on people who have $3 million plus in their superannuation fund—that they're still going to get a concession but not as great a concession as the rest of the people. Let's face it, most Australians have a balance of $120,000 in their superannuation fund. So we have a trillion dollars of debt on the one hand, and the Australian taxpayer is going to have to pay for that, and there's 0.5 per cent of people who have $3 million plus in their superannuation, and that is very modest. It seems to be another attempt by those opposite, the 'no-alition', where it doesn't matter what this government puts forward, they're not going to support it. They talk about homelessness and health, but when it comes to addressing those issues, like providing a housing Future Fund so that we can assist people in getting into affordable housing, particularly when it comes to women and children, what do we get from the Liberal coalition? No! They won't support it.

So don't come into the chamber rewriting history and bleating about your concerns. When you were in government, if we look at skills and training and manufacturing, you let all those companies go offshore. The only way that you're going to provide manufacturing in this country is to support the TAFE system, which is why we've introduced 180,000 fee-free TAFE places. (Time expired)

Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor is really all talk and no action. Labor said they would strengthen Medicare, but so far they have only weakened our health system. They've slashed Medicare mental health support in half. They've cut 70 telehealth items. They've cut hospital funding in the budget. And bulk billing is plummeting. This is particularly concerning for rural and regional Australia, and in South Australia, where we know workforce shortages are hitting the hardest, and this government has only made it worse. They ripped doctors out of country towns through their distribution priority areas for overseas trained doctors. I hear it in South Australia. Now they're relegating international doctors and nurses working in regional Australia to the bottom of the visa pile by failing to prioritise 887 regional skilled visas.

On the eve of the election, the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, promised Australians that an elected Labor government would have 50 urgent care clinics up and running within the first 12 months. But it's clear they have broken this promise too as they cannot even confirm whether one clinic will be up and running by July, along with 50 promised across the country. Labor went to the election with a promise to reduce the cost of medicines. But now the Albanese Labor government has decided to remove from the PBS an innovative, life-changing form of insulin, Fiasp, seeing the price soaring to unaffordable levels for 15,000 Australians with diabetes who rely on it.

Now let's talk about mental health access. As part of our response to support Australians in tough times, the former coalition government doubled the number of Medicare subsidised psychology sessions available through the Better Access initiative from 10 to 20. Given the significant pressures that Australians are facing right now with the cost of living and energy bills skyrocketing, mental health support could not be more important. But despite these pressures still impacting our communities, the Labor government has decided that now is the right time to slash access to psychology sessions in half. Serious mental health issues are often at their highest two or three years after a crisis, pandemic or natural disaster, which is why it is absolutely vital that vulnerable Australians have continued access to the psychology sessions they need. The independent evaluation of the Better Access initiative even recommended that the additional 10 sessions should continue to be made available and should be targeted towards those with complex mental health needs.

This government needs to stop its irresponsible attacks on the mental health services Australians are relying on and explain why it has gone against recommendation 12 of the review and the needs of vulnerable Australians by cutting this support. That is why the coalition has organised a petition calling on the government to urgently reinstate these critical Medicare subsidised psychology sessions until such time as they put in place an alternative to ensure adequate access to mental health support for all Australians who need it.

Talking about the broken promises, before the election the Prime Minister and Treasurer made many promises. Remember the promise to cut your electricity bill by $275? Broken. Remember the promises of cheaper mortgages? Broken. Remember the promise of no changes to super? Also broken. Remember the promise of lower inflation? Well, that's definitely broken. Remember the promise that we are not touching franking credits? Broken. Remember the promise that industrywide bargaining is not part of our policy? Definitely broken. Remember the promise that we will be doing our bit to assist real wage increases? Broken. Remember the promise that we are not about raising taxes? Broken, too. Remember the promise to cut the cost of consultants and contractors? Broken—and we look forward to seeing just how broken that one is. These are all broken promises from what is a tricky government, and they just go to prove that on promises you just can't trust the Albanese government.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

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

That'll be me!

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

Yes, hello, Senator Rennick. I do know about your opposition to that. But it was a number of Liberal and Nationals senators and members in the other place who were opposed to super guarantee increases and today remain opposed to superannuation even existing.

Since coming to government, we have been upfront about the challenges in the economy and the budget. We've inherited $1 trillion in debt and the $50 billion structural deficit that we are now trying to fix. This is about responsible budget management, and the government has to make these choices so that we can continue to invest in defence, in health and aged care and in the NDIS. But something about the coalition's priorities has really got me today, and I want to place on the record, in the last minute I have, a speech that former Assistant Treasurer, Senator Rod Kemp gave in Brisbane on 28 May 1999, titled 'The government's approach to super'. In his speech he said:

On coming to Government, it was clear that the existing tax concessions for superannuation were unfairly skewed to high income earners. To address this inequity, the Government—

that is, the Howard government—

introduced the superannuation surcharge.

While this measure has been criticised by some people, there is no question that it meets its equity objective. Nor have I heard any justification of why high income earners should have continued to receive the disproportionately large tax advantages that were available before the introduction of the surcharge.

(Time expired)

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

I'm glad Senator Ciccone quoted former Assistant Treasurer Rod Kemp. He didn't really have to go back that far, because I've said that all along, ever since I got into this chamber—that superannuation is a rort and that it was only a matter of time before Labor would try to get their hands on the money. But also, given that it is International Women's Day, we should talk about how inequitable superannuation really is for women. If we look at the mean balance of superannuation for women aged 60 to 64, it is $280,000, whereas for men it is $360,000. So, there's about a 30 per cent higher mean balance for men when they retire than there is for women. What could be better, on International Women's Day, than to decide to abolish super and let women keep their superannuation so they can own a house? At the end of the day, if there's a man and a woman in a house, they share it 50 per cent. What better way could there be of sharing the debt than that?

I would also like to follow up on Senator Liddle's questions, which I thought were very relevant. I commented earlier this week on the Labor Party abolishing the PBS subsidy for the 15,000 people with diabetes. I find it incredible that you would make it harder for these people by abolishing a drug that actually does work.

I note that the Labor Party continues to push a fifth shot of a vaccine that hasn't stopped transmission or infection. Maybe they should stop spending money on vaccines that don't work and put it back into measures for mental health and diabetes, which, mind you, is up by 10 per cent since the rollout of the COVID vaccine. This isn't surprising, because diabetes is an autoimmune disease and, as we know, the vaccine induces an autoimmune response. Surprise, surprise. Are we surprised that we get an increase in diabetes? No, we aren't—if I can answer my own rhetorical question.

I'd also like to pick up on Senator Ciccone's claim that we have $1 trillion in debt. We don't have $1 trillion in debt. I looked it up just then through the Australian Office of Financial Management, and we are currently at $900 billion. Can I say: a lot of that debt was incurred throughout COVID, in response to the hysteria driven by Labor premiers who got up there every day, day after day—one at nine o'clock; one at 10 o'clock; one at 11 o'clock—giving us the numbers of COVID cases. When there weren't COVID cases they'd tell us that there was COVID in the sewage. Then we'd go for three months without COVID, we'd get one case and we'd shut down the entire state over one case.

Finally, when COVID did break out last year, we were told not to go to the hospital. Rather, if you had a case of COVID, you were told to stay at home and take Panadol. After all the hoo-ha and being told how we had to shut down and lock down and how the federal government was basically blackmailed into throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the state governments, which were just generating fear—that was the real pandemic: fear—we found out in the end that the hospitals still weren't ready.

They're still not ready today, mind you. Our ambulance waiting times are through the roof. The ambulance ramping is out of control. We have record waitlists across all the states. We overinvested in hysteria and didn't actually invest in good, solid, long-term health infrastructure like beds, like more doctors and like nurses. We didn't put more money on the front line for services, instead of fearmongering. Of course, that is what we get with this side of the government.

To get back to some of this original super stuff, personally, I've always been on the record as saying superannuation is a tax rort and it does favour the wealthy. But, can I say: this proposed rule that we're going to tax unrealised gains is totally unworkable. I'm not saying that as a politician. I'm saying that as a person who spent 30 years in finance, reconciling balance sheets.

I can assure you that, if you think you're going to be able to calculate unrealised gains in any equitable manner, you are kidding yourself. What's going to happen is that you're going to add compliance costs, so you're going to have to pay for an auditor or a valuer to value these assets. Then you're going to have liquidity problems because you're going to have to sell an asset to actually pay the tax. Then, the third problem is that you're going to generate uncertainty, because people aren't going to know what the value of an asset will be deemed to be before June 30. I would ask that you at least reconsider that unrealised gains proposition, because it's unworkable. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.