Rowan Holzberger
Forde · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“… … … "Right at the beginning, it was thought that there was an intrusion in the relationship between the doctor and their patient," AMA president Tony Bartone said. … … … At the time Medicare was introduced in 1984, the AMA was heavily influenced by developments in the United Kingdom, particularly the National Health Service.”
“During my preparation for my contribution tonight I came across an article written in 2019, at the death of Bob Hawke, by ABC journalist Norman Hermant, and I'd like to read out a bit from it. The article was titled, 'Before Bob Hawke's Medicare, a visit to hospital forced many Australians into bankruptcy'.”
“My dad met my mum in Mount Isa, and I was born in Brisbane and grew up in Broken Hill, so I'm not sure where that quite places me. I've always actually believed regional Australia should have its own state. The cities could have one state, and regional Australia could have another state—anyway.”
“Mrs Buckingham's quote on thinking twice about going to see the doctor is something that all of us in our electorates have faced and heard about from people who told us that they would choose to put food on the table and feed their kids rather than see the doctor.”
“I think that will go some way to addressing some of those shortages; 17,000 doctors is a shot in the arm to the health system. Finally, the member for Riverina talked about the NDIS, kicking the proverbial out of us.”
“Even though they gave up, I think some time after the 1993 election, realising that they couldn't do what John Howard said and stab it in the stomach, they went around and tried to stab it in the back.”
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“A fact about chemistry, which I learnt only recently, is that you can store oil longer than you can store fuel, so it is vital that Australia has that sovereign capacity. It is only because of the actions of the Labor government that we still have those two refineries left. Heaven forbid what would happen should those opposite get back into government! Another thing is the actual cost to the economy of the inaction of those opposite. As the Australian Energy Market Commission said, 'Delaying the connection of renewable generation and transmission into the market would put upward pressure on residential electricity costs.' So why do those opposite want to delay it? What is it that they have got against renewable energy so much that they want to put that at risk?”
“We saw oil prices jump from $60 to $120 yesterday. They're back down to about $80. When Australians see that, just like all of us in here, we feel it in our bones that there is something wrong with our economy. When the Abbott coalition government came to power in 2013, there were six oil refineries in this country. When the coalition government lost power, there were two. It was only because of the pressure put on the coalition by the Labor Party at the time to protect those refineries—a policy which has been continued—that we still have those two. Otherwise, the ideology that the other side continue to espouse, the total abandonment of government involvement, would have seen those refineries walk, just as those opposite encouraged the car industry to walk.”
“Now we've got a shadow Treasurer who is so fixated on this idea that the government should not be involved in health care, that superannuation shouldn't exist, that it should be all up to the individual, that people should have individualised health accounts rather than a universal scheme. And so it will be on energy that we again see this complete denial of the reality, the complete denial of the economics. We'll end up in the situation where we are at the moment, which is—just to reinforce what the energy minister has been saying, while there isn't a supply problem, I totally understand why people feel that our energy supply is precarious. COVID really showed those first shocks, that we could be exposed so openly to the international market, and the latest conflict in the Middle East has really accelerated that.”
“The only way to explain this is that they've got this ideological obsession that prevents them from supporting the cheapest model, because, somehow, if you believe in coal and nuclear, then you don't believe in climate change. That gives them the free pass. They are so obsessed with fighting the science of climate change that they would rather choose the most expensive forms of power. So it is that, through the course of the previous government, we've had this ideological fixation. So it is continuing today, I think, with the shadow Treasurer, who history will show is an even more radical shadow treasurer than John Hewson, who was bad enough in his time as shadow Treasurer.”
“We've seen at each of those points in the past—when we started digging up coal, when we started drilling for oil—that living standards across our economies went up. They shot up through the roof. So it is, I think, the promise of renewable energy to lift living standards up even higher than we could possibly have imagined in the past. Yet it is because of this ideological obsession—this is what I don't get about the opposition's policy. There is this ideological obsession with using coal—and now dangling out their promise of nuclear energy, which nobody's going to build—which is now the most expensive energy that you could want to use rather than renewable energy firmed by gas and batteries, which is the cheapest model of energy.”
“There are so many things where the former government completely vacated the field that I could be aggrieved about, but I think energy is probably the one which is both relevant and fundamental to the Australian economy. Ultimately I'd like to surprise people a little bit by quoting Peter Dutton of all people. I thought that he summed it up perfectly when he said that energy is not just part of the economy; energy is the economy. From a historical point of view, we have seen that the 19th century was very much the birth of the Industrial Revolution, where we had coal and steam fired motors. The 20th century was about oil and the internal combustion engine. And the 21st century is very much going to be about electric motors and renewable energy.”
“So I guess I'm aggrieved, in my first grievance speech, about what the member for Cowper has had to say, which incidentally is the sort of thing that I did want to talk about here. In what is my first grievance speech, there are many things which I am aggrieved about—many things which people in the communities that we represent are aggrieved about. That is because we have been left as a government with 10 years of inaction by the previous government in so many areas that it's really hard to choose one topic to be aggrieved about. What I do want to talk about is energy and energy policy, but it could easily have been about housing. It could easily have been about health care. It could easily have been about training.”
“The energy minister has been very clear that this is not a supply problem, that all of the fuel that was supposed to arrive in Australia has arrived and that all of the fuel that we expect to arrive in Australia is going to arrive. I think that the opposition should really be much more responsible in the language they're using. Ultimately there are demand pressures here, which is creating disruption, but there is enough diesel and there is enough petrol in this country. As much as we had expected there to be, there is. So there is no problem with supply. Actually the opposition would be helpful, in the national interest, if they were to help get that message out.”
“There are a couple of things in the member for Cowper's contribution that I would like to respond to. He says that maybe it's not good enough for our strategic fuel supplies to be offshore. I'll say where it's not good enough for them to be. That's Texas or Louisiana. I think that the fact that the person who's now the opposition leader, and was the former energy minister, was the person responsible for that says a lot about where this opposition is going and where they would want to take this country. The second thing he said is that it's up to the energy minister to guarantee to agricultural business—and I guess to other businesses—that there will be fuel supply.”
“Logan would probably be the biggest coalmining-commuting community in south-east Queensland. In fact, when I was looking at some of the stats, there's a suburb in Forde called Wolfstein, which has something like five per cent of the workforce directly employed in coalmining. Across the whole electorate, that is somewhere around one to two per cent of people working directly in the coalmining industry, and that's before we even start talking about the royalties that the Queensland government relies on to pay for the services that we all need and enjoy, and all of the associated industries as well. The first reason that I speak to this bill is because, coming from a mining town myself, I appreciate what it means to be in the mining industry. In fact, I worked for a short time as a contractor to a to a mining maintenance business—”
“They stick together, they work hard, they play hard and they are the most decent people that you will ever come across. These are communities where everyone has a nickname, everyone loves a joke and everyone looks after each other. The second reason is that legislation like this is at the very heart of why the Labor Party exists in the first place. Despite struggling on the shop floor to achieve fair pay and conditions, there are some things that you just cannot achieve at the workplace level and there are some things that you need control of the parliament to achieve, to see through, and fixing up coalminers' long service leave entitlements is one of those things. The third reason is that coalmining is fundamentally important to the economy of Queensland as a whole and to Logan specifically.”
“I rise in support of the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill. At the outset, I'd like to say that, while this bill is meaningful for me as a representative of an outer metropolitan seat in Forde, at first glance it may seem unusual that somebody from outside a coalmining town is passionate about this, but there's a few reasons—three reasons, in fact—why this is particularly important to me at both a personal and a political level. First of all, I come from a mining town—Broken Hill in far western New South Wales—and, while it's not a coal mining town, it has all of the features that I know exist in coalmining towns. It's not about what's dug up; it's about the people who do the digging. These communities are tight.”
“I can't believe my luck now that he actually gets to sit here—unlike the member for Monash, who has had the opportunity to sit through many of my speeches now. I'm just wondering whether the member for Monash engineers it so he's on the speaking list so he can listen to me as a political— Opposition members interjecting—”
“You're allowed to talk about a point which has absolutely nothing to do with the bill—a fantasy which is being pursued by the LNP. This is what's got the other side into trouble. They're out there pursuing fantasies, pursuing things which the public aren't one little bit interested in. They've got this ideological obsession with certain things that are completely disconnected from reality in the community. That's why they are of ever-diminishing relevance in the Australian political landscape. I'm very glad that the new shadow treasurer is here. In fact, I can't believe my luck. There are two things that I can't believe. One is that I woke up one morning and the member for Goldstein was the shadow Treasurer. I couldn't believe my luck on that one.”
“I rise in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Bill 2026 and the Superannuation (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Imposition Bill 2026. As a first-term member, I'm always happy to learn from people who've been here for a long time, and I appreciate that now we can address policies which used to exist but don't exist anymore. So I'd like to talk about Fightback former prime minister Paul Keating's dog-eared copy used to sit in that very drawer there—and John Hewson's prosecution of F ightback . Mr Hewson talked about a GST on food—here was the LNP pushing a policy of a GST on food in that F ightback document, which used to sit in that very drawer, a policy which was prosecuted by the other side. I'm glad that I can have that lesson in what's actually allowed in the parliament.”
“Somehow there is this ideological obsession that you can't have this approach; you need the most expensive approach of coal and nuclear. If you believe in coal and nuclear, therefore you don't believe in climate change, somehow. The Prime Minister talked about that. Those are exactly his words from the last election. That's when I thought that he was really nailing it, with the way he summed it up. Our energy future is renewable energy firmed by gas and batteries, yet the opposition has withdrawn from the field. I rise in support of these bills because the best indication of the values of a government is how it spends its money. I urge you to support it.”
“What I don't get is this ideological obsession against renewable energy. I just don't get it, because nobody's building coal-fired power stations any more. In fact, I think something like $3 million went into a study to build a coal-fired power station in Collinsville, but they didn't even finish the study, let alone the coal-fired power station. No-one's going to build a coal-fired power station anymore. The opposition want to dangle out there a change to our energy policy to allow nuclear energy. Who's going to do that? The Australian people aren't going to let you spend $600 billion doing it. I don't think there's any private enterprise lining up to do it. Doesn't this sound sensible? Renewable energy firmed by gas and batteries. Doesn't that actually sound sensible to those in the opposition?”
“Just to surprise people, I don't just go around quoting premiers of Australia from ancient history; I like to quote Peter Dutton, somebody who's been in the news a bit lately, in a certain report. Amongst all of the things Peter Dutton said that I would disagree with, I thought he summed up the importance of energy perfectly when he said that energy is not just part of the economy; energy is the economy. It absolutely is the economy. Australia's postwar economic miracle was built on those two foundations: cheap public housing and cheap public energy, but the ideological obsession that the opposition has had with withdrawing itself from the market has seen energy infrastructure privatised, corporatised and ultimately wither away to nothing. Coal-fired power stations closed all around the place, but they weren't replaced.”
“It wasn't just the reduction in tariffs that destroyed the car industry; it was the cost of housing going up, meaning that wages had to go up. Actually, that didn't help business in the end. The whole idea about public housing was that you could take the pressure off wages. You could then attract international manufacturing companies like the car industry to South Australia and Australia. But it wasn't just Liberal Party premiers, of course; it was the philosophy at the time. This is what I'm trying to say. There used to be this sort of agreement between Labor and Liberal that the government had a role to play in the economy for the good of the economy, not just out of the goodness of our hearts but because it was actually the economically sensible thing to do. So it was with energy. We built great public energy assets in this country.”
“There was cheap public housing not just for people that desperately needed it but for railway workers, for meat workers, for teachers, for car workers. In fact, I like to shock people a little bit by saying that one of my economic role models was Thomas Playford, who was the Premier of South Australia and Australia's longest-serving premier, who served from the 1940s to the 1970s. He was a Liberal premier who built the South Australian Housing Trust and who put into the charter of the South Australian Housing Trust that it would aid in the economic development of the state. At one point, the high point in Australia, something like 40 per cent of every rental in South Australia was for public housing for car workers. That's how they built the car industry.”
“As attractive as it might look on paper, it would not work to the extent where you would end up with the pool of savings that we have for superannuation—and it has not worked over the last 30 or so years that prime ministers such as John Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison have followed the approach of the government withdrawing itself from providing essential services like housing and energy. There are probably two things that I really want to come to this place to prosecute. There are two economic arguments that I want to come to this place to prosecute, and those are cheap public housing and cheap public energy. In many ways, that was the postwar economic miracle, the economic recipe of Australia—cheap public housing and cheap public energy.”
“There would be people retiring into poverty, just as there was prior to superannuation. In politics you have to be pragmatic. The ideological purity doesn't work. It didn't work for the Labor Party in the 1950s and 1960s, and it's not working for the Liberal and National parties today. I'm sure there are sensible people in those parties. I have a personal affinity for people from the bush; they reside mainly in the National Party. I say to them: for the sake of the country, encourage your colleagues—particularly the shadow Treasurer—to drop this ideological obsession with this personal free market approach to economics.”
“On superannuation, this week the government is building on its superannuation policy, which is very much a Labor Party policy. In those books I was reading, one of the philosophies was that you pay yourself first: you put 10 per cent of your income and you pay yourself first no matter what, because over time you can build up that pool of savings from just a pile of money—which can be there for security if you need it—to a pile of assets, effectively, that you can invest to create a passive income. I understand that argument that you should pay yourself first. But the reality is that life gets in the way. If it wasn't for a compulsory superannuation system that took 10 per cent and put that 10 per cent away for workers, there wouldn't be $4.3 trillion worth of national savings for people to retire on.”
“Anyway, that book began a journey for me where I ended up reading about 160 or so of those business books. I wanted to run my own business, and fundamentally what I wanted to do with that business was help businesses teach their workers financial responsibility and some of those things I had learned. I get where the member for Goldstein is coming from in his philosophy. He has this aggressively individualist approach to people making choices in their own lives to control their own destiny, and says government shouldn't get involved in that. I get that; I understand where he's coming from. But there's a point at which something like that becomes utterly ideological and not founded in reality, and there's a point where that becomes un-useful to the rest of society.”
“My partner gave me a book on getting from nought to $5 million in five years. I thought: 'Geez, this book's a heap of rubbish. It's one of these get-rich-quick books.' By the time I read it, I was hooked because it wasn't about getting rich; it was about this philosophy of taking personal responsibility for your own decisions and realising that the choices you make have consequences. It said that if you change the way you look at the world, you can change your environment and you can take that responsibility. I would say it rounded out a political philosophy I developed through the Labor Party, which is a bit more about that collective action—that governments can solve all the problems. Sometimes that's right, and sometimes that's not right.”
“That's why this next election is really going to be about that big difference in philosophical approaches. I went from contract mustering to running a construction company, but there was something that happened in between. This is where I get the member for Goldstein. I'd imagine the National Party would probably not sign up to his economic philosophy, being the agrarian socialists that I think many of you still are. There was a bit of time there between contract mustering and running a construction company where I got to hone my own political philosophy. We went when we had a baby—my partner wasn't going to live in the outback of New South Wales, so we moved to Tenterfield, where I worked in a service station. I was flipping burgers and serving petrol in my early 30s.”
“One thing I learnt is that there are two ways to run a business: you can strip the profits out, run the business into the ground, put off the investment and put off the maintenance; or you can invest in your plant and your people. The way that the Liberal Party and the National Party used to run their political philosophy was that they used to invest in the plant and they used to invest in their people. That is where I think we are now seeing a divergence. The member for Goldstein, the shadow Treasurer, has a fundamental philosophy which I'll get into in a second. I do understand it; I do get it. Ultimately that philosophy is about neglecting to invest in your plant, your people, your housing, your energy, your training, your infrastructure, your health system and the mental health of your people.”
“I think that where the government spends its money is really an indication of what that philosophy is. That's why I think where the government prioritises its spending in housing, energy, training, health—and mental health particularly—and infrastructure really brings to my mind that saying that you should run a country the same way that you run a business. I've also run a business. I started off as a contract musterer around Broken Hill—not the biggest business—where I had a bike, a ute, a pack of dogs and the will to win. The most important thing that you need in any business is the will to win. From there we moved to the city, when we had a little baby, and I ended up running a construction company. I really learnt some things along the way, and I want to talk about that in a second.”
“And I do want to use this speech to talk a little bit about that, because where the government spends its money is the best indication of what the government's values actually are. So this is a good opportunity to talk about values, talk about philosophy and talk about the sorts of values that I did learn growing up in Broken Hill—where you look after your community, where you look after your mate and where you work hard and expect a return on that work. In Broken Hill you've always got to remember that you are fighting as a community. You're fighting for the person next to you, and you don't want to leave that community behind. They would find the sort of philosophy that the member for Goldstein, the shadow Treasurer, professes to be a very sterile ideology.”
“He is somebody who I'm not sure would fit in particularly well in the rural electorates that many of you here represent, where I come from, and I think he would struggle in the outer metropolitan electorate that I represent today. I feel like there is a bit of an alternate universe where people on the other side see the member for Goldstein as having some economic answers. Maybe it is that there is this philosophical difference in Australian politics. I think we've really seen a divergence in that over the last 10 years or perhaps a little bit more. With the member for Goldstein I think we have one of the most radical, if not the most radical, assistant Treasurers when it comes to their personal philosophy. I sort of understand that philosophy.”
“I feel an affinity for the member for Capricornia, myself coming from the country originally. I'm a Broken Hill boy; it's where I spent many years. The member representing the great city of Broken Hill is here as well. While I share an affinity on a personal and perhaps a geographical level, I think there might be a philosophical divergence in Australian politics that we haven't seen for a long time. Some of the comments made in that speech, I think, really outline what that philosophical difference is. I feel like I woke up in an alternate universe where the member for Goldstein is somehow the alternative Treasurer of this country.”
“The Labor Party is the one that's taking the sensible position of growing our economy, of investing in our people and of investing in our infrastructure for the benefit of the whole economy.”
“Unfortunately, as I said, we missed the member for Goldstein—now the shadow Treasurer—who I think would have been able to defend some of his statements on why he doesn't believe in superannuation, why he doesn't believe in Medicare and why he is probably the most radical person to ever take the position of shadow Treasurer in the coalition. It's a shame that he is not here to explain why he thinks stripping away all of those benefits is actually going to help small business. It's a shame that he's not here to explain why he thinks that privatising Medicare would actually help small business. It's up to him to explain why he thinks taking away superannuation would ultimately help small business. So it's a shame. This debate, which he moved, has been the poorer for it; it would have really exposed where the coalition is on this.”
“Before Medicare was introduced, paying medical bills was one of the biggest causes of bankruptcy. Medicare helps small business. In the United States it's up to small business to provide those health cover costs, but in Australia we're able to provide a direct service not only to keep the workforce healthy but also to take economic pressure off an individual or off a business having to provide that health insurance themselves. It's the same with training. It's the same with tax cuts and with superannuation. It's about taking a collective approach to these things which are effectively essential services in the economy, to help the economy grow and to help businesses to succeed.”
“Running a business in Australia is dependent on so many of those infrastructure things around it. That's why, in postwar Australia, Labor and the coalition really did work together on this idea that we would build public housing, not out of the goodness of our hearts and not necessarily just to look after the people that were really battling but for railway workers, for car workers and for teachers. The whole idea was that we would provide that public housing to keep the cost of living down, to keep those rents down and to take the pressure off wages, which, in turn, would help business. It's the same as it was with public energy. We used to provide public energy as a way of keeping that cost of living down and also keeping those costs down for business—which also helped business. And it's the same with something like Medicare.”
“When I say that, it's not necessarily out of nothing; small business is about putting together all of those sort of disparate elements together into something where the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. That gave me my first taste, and then I got right into business. I really was taken by the idea of what entrepreneurialism actually meant. I ended up running a construction company for many years. What I learnt from that is that it's a bit like that saying, you should run a country in the same way that you run a business. There are two ways to run a business. One is to strip all the profits out of it and run it into the ground. And the other is to invest in your plant and your people. And I think that we know what the Labor way is. It is to invest in your people and in your infrastructure in the country.”
“I rise to speak against the motion. It's a shame that I missed the member for Goldstein being able to make a speech here, because he usually provides enormous material to respond to that the member for Venning, unfortunately, in what was essentially a very sensible speech, wasn't able to provide. I'm somebody who has run a small business. I'm somebody who came into small business in my late 20s when I had a contract mustering business around my home town of Broken Hill, which essentially was a bike, a ute, a pack of dogs and the will to win, which is the most essential part of any small business. It did give me an experience to learn what it means to create something out of nothing.”
“These are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, wives and husbands. These are people who have emailed me over the last couple of days, who have texted me over the last couple of days or who have called me over the last couple of days, desperately worried about their family overseas, living in that region. And so I do want to reinforce the message that the No. 1 priority of the Australian government in all of this is the safety of Australians. Do not travel. Follow that advice. I can only imagine what it must feel like at the moment to be disconnected from your family not only by geography but also by technology, as communication lines have gone down. I can only imagine the pain and anxiety that you feel. But hang in there. Do not travel, and know that the Australian government, myself included, are on your side.”
“As the Foreign minister has said, a regime that requires murder to maintain authority is a regime without legitimacy. Let us not also forget that the Iranian regime brought terror to Australia and was responsible for organising two firebombings on Australian soil, two terrorist acts on Australian soil, apart from the other operations that the Australian government thwarted. That's why this government has done more than any previous Australian government. We expelled the Iranian ambassador. We put sanctions on somewhere around 200 Iranian linked individuals, and we declared the revolutionary guard as a terrorist organisation. But, fundamentally, I do want to say that there are many Australians of Iranian descent living in Forde and many Afghans living in Forde whose families are in Iran.”
“I had intended today to talk about some of the really positive things that are happening in Forde and some of the really positive and essential people who work hard in our community, but it is difficult to talk about that today when the events that are happening in the world are causing a lot of concern to many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the electorate of Forde. During these constituency statements this morning, I really do want to recognise the depth of feeling in the community that I represent and really reinforce what the government has said about the situation in Iran. Fundamentally, we stand with the people of Iran. I remind you that this is a regime that has brutally suppressed its own people and, most recently, murdered thousands of its own people.”
“My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How is the Albanese Labor government lifting bulk-billing rates across Australia? Why is universal access to free GP visits so important after a decade of cuts and neglect?”
“Ultimately, that is what it's about. For me, personally, from being involved in the Labor Party I have realised that that is what we want to achieve—financial freedom for people so that they can really follow their passions, so they can do things and make the contribution to the society that we live in that you can't make if you're focused on just paying your bills and getting through day by day. Financial freedom is what superannuation is about, and it is why I can't understand why those on the other side aren't wholeheartedly in favour of it. The measures in this bill will go further towards making sure it's protected.”
“Finally, as I've said before, we're increasing the superannuation guarantee charge to 12 per cent. It is really inconceivable that the previous Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government thought that they could cheat Australian workers out of what was truly deserved. Remember that superannuation is not something which has fallen out of the sky or that is out of the goodness of the heart of government or even necessarily employers. Superannuation is what workers gave up as a tax cut and what workers gave up as a pay rise. This is workers' money. It is our own money that is going into this. It is no gift. For the previous government to delay that increase to 12 per cent really did highlight their approach to what I and other people on this side of the House believe is a practical way to help people achieve financial freedom.”
“We've taken measures to ensure that superannuation is paid on government parental leave. That's because one of the most telling statistics about gender inequality in Australia is the amount of superannuation which is held by women compared to men. Something like 30 per cent of the nation's superannuation balance is held by women. That is because, as always, it seems to be that it is women taking the time off to have children, women taking time off to look after a disabled child and women taking time off to look after an aged parent. And so there is something that this government can do, apart from trying to address gender inequality in the workforce and in pay separate to superannuation—at least we are able to pay superannuation on parental leave. That is something which is going to have an enormous benefit over the longer term.”
“When my daughter resigned, and moved on to another position, she realised her guaranteed superannuation contributions from her employer had not been paid. She then had to put the hard work in to try to recover what is rightfully hers for her future. To date, none of those contributions have reached my daughter's superannuation account. She's given up, actually, because it wasn't on her payslip—as simple as that—because she thought that the employer was doing the right thing. The employer wasn't doing the right thing.' One very simple change, one very practical change, could have fixed that problem, just as it will fix problems for people in the future. We have made reforms to the LISTO to ensure that lower income earners who make a contribution to superannuation are paid at a tax rate comparable to their income tax rate.”
“We've had to do that, to set that as a baseline, because we want people on the other side of this House who are thinking about changes to superannuation to really reflect on what superannuation is there for and what it really is meant to achieve for Australian workers. Another measure this government has taken is payday super. I'm sure that, as MPs, we are all in contact with constituents who have been ripped off by an unscrupulous employer. There's one very short email that I received a little while ago from a constituent, which I'd like to read out here. This constituent said: 'My daughter worked for a company for about five years. That company chose not to contribute to her superannuation account.”
“For instance, it might seem amazing that it took us took us this long to get here, but, because superannuation is under attack, we as a government have had to define what superannuation actually means. It is 'to preserve savings to deliver income for a dignified retirement, alongside government support, in an equitable and sustainable way'. Again, it's 'to preserve savings to deliver income for a dignified retirement, alongside government support, in an equitable and sustainable way'. It is about helping Australian workers and Australian retirees build up their savings of money to give them financial freedom.”
“It is a revolution in finance that has not only provided a standard of living for Australian retirees that would have been completely unimaginable 50 years ago but provided a pool of national savings somewhere around—what is it now?—$4 trillion, which is the envy of the world. It has also given a seat at the table to Australian workers, some of the biggest businesses in Australia and some of the most important businesses in the world. The measures in this bill are not only building on Labor's superannuation from the Hawke-Keating era and the increase to 12 per cent that was legislated under the Rudd government but building on the actions of this government as well.”
“One of the things I came across was that good businesspeople—as I believe the second deputy speaker is, and I'm sure he would know this and would be able to teach me some things on this too—really good businesspeople, are the ones least likely to take a foreign holiday, the ones least likely to drive a new car and the ones least likely to eat out. They are the ones who are most careful with their resources and who know that, ultimately, this money is not something which has been given to us, to those involved in business, but has, in some ways, been given to us to carefully steward. So it is that our superannuation system in Australia does that for every worker—every single worker.”
“It was just hard work, hard savings and a plan. That was in America, where they don't have a superannuation system. It's amazing that here, in Australia, we have something that really helps us to do that. It helps everybody to do that. In fact it takes more than 10 per cent—it takes 12 per cent, and puts it away in something which actually does better than an index fund. And there is a point at which it does create financial freedom for all Australian workers. The other book that I read was a revelation into how, I think, most businesspeople operate, which is with that sense of frugality and being careful, carefully stewarding the resources that you're given to invest in productive capital.”