QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Dr MULINO (Fraser—Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services) (14:37): I thank the honourable member for her question. I know the member, like every member on this side of the House, believes Australians deserve a strong superannuation system and dignity in retirement, as she has championed over many years. That is exactly what this government is delivering.
Labor built compulsory superannuation and we're making it stronger. We've delivered payday super, ensuring workers receive super with their wages, and I pay tribute to the work of the Treasurer on this. This was a gaping $6 billion hole before those reforms.
We've included super on paid parental leave so that parents can continue building their retirement savings while raising a family. We've strengthened the low-income super tax offset, helping about 1.3 million Australians build their retirement balances. But I'm also asked about risks to this approach.
While Labor is strengthening super, those opposite are trying to tear it down. This is about a government that is on the side of ordinary people and an opposition that is focused on relentless ideological crusades. We have a shadow Treasurer who has described super as 'a form of economic insanity', all while his leader says that, in principle, he supports it; and a Liberal senator who called superannuation 'one of the biggest public policy failures since federation' and a form of communism, that it's an ideological obsession against dignity and security in retirement.
And their friends in One Nation are even worse. Their latest proposals would allow Australians to divert a quarter of their super contributions away from retirement, because they don't provide them enough alternative supports. On Friday, new modelling from the Super Members Council estimated that One Nation's policy would leave Australian taxpayers facing a long-term bill of $190 billion in today's dollars.
That's because less super today means more reliance on the pension in the future. According to Super Members Council, today's 20-year olds could end up paying an additional $3,700 in tax. But, of course, that's entirely consistent with those opposite.
They went to the last election with a higher tax policy. We know those opposite love lifting taxes, and so it's no surprise that Mr Frydenberg has recently penned a book on higher GST. The bigger question, though, is we know that the shadow treasurer advocates for a 20 per cent GST, and we know that the former treasurer advocates a higher GST.
What we need is clarity between the shadow treasurer and the potential future leader as to how their two GSTs are going to apply to birthday cakes. We need a lot more clarity from those opposite as to their future tax agenda. Labor is building on retirement savings.
The coalition and One Nation are focused on ways to spend those savings. Australians deserve stronger superannuation, not political games, and they deserve a government that helps them retire with more, not an opposition that will leave them with less.