Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Another day; another broken promise. Fourteen times before the last election the Prime Minister promised no adverse changes to superannuation. He must have a case of 'abbnesia' because yesterday he broke that promise. As the result of a dodgy deal in the Senate, they have scrapped superannuation increases for 8½ million Australians for the next seven years. That means millions of Australians will retire with thousands of dollars less.

As The Australian newspaper said today, if you are 40 and you are and $70,000 a year then you will retire with $19,000 less. If you are 30 and you are on $100 grand a year you will retire with about $39,000 less. Welcome to Tony Abbott's Australia, where you work longer and you retire with less—less in the pension and less in superannuation.

Superannuation is one of the biggest and most important economic reforms in this country in the last hundred years. It was created by Paul Keating and Bill Kelty. This mob voted against it at the time and they still do not believe in superannuation. It shows how out of touch they are and it shows the people of Australia that at the next election, if they vote Liberal, not only are they voting for a $7 tax to go to the doctor, to double cost of university degrees or to cut indexation to pensions; they will also be voting to have less money when they retire.