E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

BRISBANE

SUNDAY, 17 JULY 2016

SUBJECTS: Superannuation; Divisions in the Turnbull Government; The Lodge function 

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES AND SUPERANNUATION: Well, it will be champagne flutes at twenty paces tonight at The Lodge as the members of the Turnbull Government gather to brawl about their superannuation changes. No amount of taxpayer-funded champagne and prawns will fix the deep divisions in the Liberal Party, in the Turnbull Government, over the mess they've made of superannuation. 

We've had David Johnston out there today from the Liberal Party flagging the same concerns that Labor has about the retrospective nature of some of these changes. The Liberal Party are hopelessly divided when it comes to superannuation and they've made a mess of these changes from the very beginning. 

One of the defining features of the campaign that has just finished was that the Liberal Party and the Turnbull Government was asking the Australian people to sign up to changes that the Government itself couldn't defend, couldn't explain and couldn't guarantee would even survive after the first party room meeting after the election. 

It was only last month that the Prime Minister was asked whether the changes to super were locked in and he said, and I quote, that they are "absolutely ironclad". Now he's already flagging a humiliating backdown on superannuation changes. By breaking that "absolutely ironclad" promise, before he's even sworn in as Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull is making Tony Abbott, impossibly, look like a safe pair of hands when it comes to keeping election commitments, in comparison. When they gather at The Lodge tonight to clink the champagne flutes and to eat the taxpayer-funded prawns, the Liberal Party will not be able to paper over the deep divisions, the deep dysfunction that they have over superannuation. 

We call on them again to do what Labor would do, which is to thoroughly and independently and comprehensively review these changes to make sure that they're in the national interest so that when we do tackle these poorly-targeted superannuation tax concessions, particularly at the top end, it's done in a careful and considered and consultative way, not the haphazard and hopeless way that the Government has gone about it which has revealed these deep divisions in the Liberal Party already.

When they gather tonight to clink the champagne flutes and eat those taxpayer-funded prawns, a lot of Australians around the country will be wondering what exactly are they celebrating and whether they have learned any of the lessons from this election whatsoever. 

JOURNALIST: Jim, how is this a backdown? Aren't all significant pieces of legislation reviewed anyway?

CHALMERS: Well the Prime Minister said on the first of June that these changes were "absolutely ironclad", now he's flagging changes to their superannuation policy. We put our cards on the table more than a year ago. We said we wanted to tackle these poorly-targeted tax concessions. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer said these are the changes, take them or leave them, and now he's flagging this pretty humiliating backdown after what is some very loud and very persistent criticism from within his own ranks.

JOURNALIST: Didn't Arthur Sinodinos flag there was going to be a review anyway?

CHALMERS: Whether it's Arthur Sinodinos, Kelly O'Dwyer, Scott Morrison or the Prime Minister, everyone seems to have had a different view in the Liberal Party about these superannuation changes. A defining feature of the campaign was their inability to explain the changes or defend them or guarantee they would survive the first party room meeting after the election. They don't have a clue about superannuation, they are all over the shop when it comes to super and no amount of champagne and prawns will fix the deep divisions in the Liberal Party over superannuation.

JOURNALIST: What about Labor? Wasn't Labor going to bank superannuation savings if it won power anyway?

CHALMERS: Labor put our changes on the table in April 2015 because when you make changes to superannuation, they need to be carefully considered. You need to give the public the opportunity to examine them properly and to work out the implications of those policies. When the Government came up with their own alternatives on the eve of an election, big drastic changes that they dropped on the table on the eve of calling an election, we tried to be constructive and open-minded about those changes and said that they would examine them. Every Australian knows that the Labor Party wants to tackle those poorly-targeted tax concessions. We want to make savings in superannuation. We have put on the table how we would go about it, but we've also said that we would carefully examine the Turnbull Government's changes, as they now should, when they should independently and comprehensively review their policy so that what ends up on the table at the end of that process is in the national interest.

JOURNALIST: So are you saying that exemptions for divorcees (inaudible) are a bad idea?

CHALMERS: I read that report today about some of the exemptions that are being flagged by a hopelessly divided Turnbull Government when it comes to superannuation. It's very difficult for Labor to say whether we would support or oppose things that haven't made it through the Liberal Party's own process. There's a lot of disagreement in the Turnbull Government over superannuation. It's impossible for the Australian people or the Labor Party or indeed any of the parties in the Parliament to come to a final view on superannuation policy when the Government itself seems all over the shop.

JOURNALIST: What about exemptions to the $500,000 cap which is reportedly being considered by the Treasurer?

CHALMERS: Yeah, those are the changes which have been flagged in the newspapers today. As far as we know they have just been flagged as part of this effort to paper over and fix up and fill in some of the cracks in the Liberal Party over superannuation. We'll wait to see what comes out of the Liberal Party room tomorrow, what changes they intend to make after the Prime Minister has made an "absolutely ironclad" commitment that there would be no changes. If there are changes made at some later point, we will examine them. We will come at them as we always have in this process, in a constructive and open-minded way. But until those changes are announced, it's only a hypothetical question whether or not Labor would support them.

JOURNALIST: It is such a tricky issue though, superannuation. Is it such a bad thing if there's a sort of revision process happening before the laws are actually proposed to the Parliament?

CHALMERS: Well superannuation is a very complex area and has big consequences for people's retirement incomes. That's why changes do need to be made in a careful and consultative way. The way that the Liberal Party and the Turnbull Government have gone about this has been hopeless, it has been haphazard. They dropped big, dramatic, drastic changes on the table without warning on the eve of an election. They couldn't then explain or defend those changes, they couldn't guarantee they would survive. That's exactly the wrong way to go about making superannuation policy. The right way is to go about it the way that Labor has, and Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen and others in our team, more than a year ago, putting those changes on the table, defending them in the public sphere, defending them in the Parliament and in the public, so that the Australian people knows where Labor stands when it comes to targeting superannuation tax concessions which are currently unfair and need to be addressed, but which need to be addressed in the right way.

ENDS