STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr FRENCH (Moore) (13:49): I've been rereading Donald Horne's 1964 book The Lucky Country. In it he wrote: The greatest single disaster in Australia is to grow old. He went on to describe Australians being left to fend for themselves, relying on the kindness of others and facing old age with loneliness and financial insecurity.

Now, here's what makes that observation extraordinary. When he wrote those words 62 years ago, the Liberal Party had been in government for 15 years. This was the Australia of Robert Menzies—the Liberal Party's supposed golden age.

But, by the time the coalition finally lost government in 1972, when they'd been in power for 23 years, retirement security was still out of reach for millions of working Australians. It took the trade union movement and the Hawke Labor government to begin changing that. In 1992, the Keating Labor government introduced compulsory superannuation.

Compulsory superannuation made retirement savings a widespread entitlement for working Australians, not just the fortunate few. And what did the Liberals do? They opposed it and, when they returned to government, froze the increases to superannuation.

Today, they're again entertaining proposals to let workers draw down their retirement savings to pay for housing. Labor helped build a system that gives working Australians greater financial security. They opposed it then, they oppose it now and what unites those three right-wing parties over there is their hatred of working Australians.