STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr HOLZBERGER (Forde) (13:44): Paul Keating is not only the architect of compulsory superannuation; he's also the person I first heard say that good policy is good politics. The corollary of that is that bad policy is bad politics, so I can't believe that, for the next election, we're going to be able to have the chance to fight one of the worst policies that we've heard of for a long time, which is to wind back compulsory superannuation.

One thing that I haven't had a chance to talk about enough in this place, yet is really one of the things that really motivated me to get involved back in politics, is to help people achieve financial freedom. It's something that I discovered when I went on a bit of a journey through self-improvement and read a lot of those books. One of the key things from those books was that you pay yourself first.

By that, it means that you take 10 per cent of your income before you pay your tax or pay any of your bills and put it aside for yourself for your retirement, because, at one point, you don't want to be a wage slave any more. The reality though is that it just doesn't happen. Compulsory superannuation has been able to step in and make that happen.

We are putting aside not only 10 per cent. In fact, it's 12 per cent. People are paying themselves 12 per cent first so that they're going to be able to retire at 60—7 years before they're going to be able to get to the aged pension.

This is about giving people financial freedom and freedom over their lives. What I can't believe is that we've been given the opportunity to go to the next election to defend that freedom and to defend superannuation. I relish that fight.