Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

No-one on our side of the House would have been surprised when one of the very first acts of the Abbott government was to abolish Labor's low-income superannuation contribution and to decide to further delay the lifting of superannuation contributions from nine per cent through to 12 per cent, extending it, at least, through to 2025. Despite the pre-election promises by those opposite, particularly by their leader the Prime Minister, that there would be no changes to superannuation arrangements in Australia, the Prime Minister did not waste any time before making an assault on superannuation and the provisions that are enjoyed by workers in this country.

This backflip did not surprise many of us. Those on the government benches at the moment should know their history, that they have been enemies of superannuation for workers in this country right from the start. On the other hand, superannuation is one of Labor's key achievements. We on this side of the House can be proud of our history when it comes to superannuation and looking after workers. Labor had the guts to do the right thing more than 30 years ago, at a time when the only people who had superannuation were, in the main, public servants and those in white-collar management positions in the private sector. It did not apply to workers generally and it certainly did not apply to blue-collar workers. I know that the trade union movement pursued superannuation throughout the mid-eighties. It was then being developed and was known as award based superannuation. But it was contained to those organisations or those workers who were covered solely by awards.

It took a Labor government to legislate to provide for compulsory superannuation to all Australian workers. Those opposite were opposed to this. They actually voted against it. They opposed the notion of compulsory superannuation. The idea of saying no to workers' savings and to compulsory retirement provision for workers is not totally foreign to those opposite. Remember that it was Labor again that legislated to put in place a gradual increase of employer contributions to superannuation from nine to 12 per cent, with the 12 per cent to come in at 2019. That was to give rise to the initial intent of the provisioning of retirement savings to all Australian workers when it was first developed almost 30 years ago, and that was to lift it to 12 per cent.

As a result of what has occurred under this government, we saw superannuation rise to 9.25 per cent in 2013 and it has now risen to 9.5 per cent, and there it is going to pause. As a result of the Prime Minister's broken promise, it will stay now at 9.5 per cent until 2021, and that is going to put back the reaching of the intended 12 per cent to at least 2025.

The decision to freeze the superannuation guarantee will make it increasingly tough for those that are going to be retiring, particularly those that are low-income workers. There are 3½ million that would be classified in this country as being low-income workers, many of whom reside in my electorate. This is of particular concern for women, and with the continuing gender pay gap women will simply not have enough money to retire. In fact, as many as two-thirds of those affected by this government's decision are women. Everyone knows that, unfortunately, because of the nature of women moving in and out of the workforce, mainly due to having a family, this is going to leave them significantly worse off than any other group.

When you consider that in relation to the withdrawal of the low income superannuation contribution, it further compounds the position of women. Superannuation is a vital scheme that provides benefits for all people retiring, and it should allow people to retire with dignity.

What this government is choosing to do is abhorrent.

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