QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:14): Thank you very much to the fantastic member for Griffith. She's the best member that Griffith have had for some time—since Kevin Rudd—it must be said. It's fantastic.

Labor built universal superannuation. Labor has strengthened it, and Labor will always defend it. In our first term, we legislated the objective of super because we believe that Australians deserve dignity in their retirement.

Then we took the superannuation guarantee all the way up to 12 per cent. You will recall that that was the policy, but it was paused when the coalition won government. We made sure that low-income workers and young Australians can retire with bigger super balances.

We delivered a full six months of paid parental leave, and then we made sure that superannuation gets paid on top of it. That was part of addressing the gender gap which was there in retirement incomes between women and men. And we changed the law so that superannuation gets paid on payday.

This will make an enormous difference over time for the young people who are in the gallery today. The difference that that will make in building up year after year after year will mean that they retire with much stronger balances than they would have otherwise. We know also that superannuation has assisted the economy, because it provides an investment pool as well, making sure that superannuation is used to maximise the benefits for superannuants, but it also, of course, provides a really important investment vehicle.

This is, of course, part of the real change that Labor is delivering. But we know that it is at risk because the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation all want to decimate universal super. Not only do they want to drag Australians back to the past; they want to damage their future as well.

And they've made that very clear. Senator Bragg was talking about superannuation and said: That's communism. … there'll be superannuation for cats and dogs soon. Then he called it 'one of the biggest public policy failures since Federation'.

Of course, the shadow treasurer has called it 'a form of economic insanity' and went on, at a different time, to call it 'a form of economic social engineering'. Well, Senator Hanson has joined in. She said, just yesterday: I think the whole system is broken.

She has made it very clear—wants to make it easier to sack workers but also wants to make it harder— (Time expired)