Page 3019 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 2013
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In fact, the Commonwealth Superannuated Officers Association appeared before the estimates committee and they made that point—you can read it in Hansard—that for older Canberrans living in their own homes this tax change is not fair. It is hurting them disproportionately. So there might be winners out of Mr Barr’s tax reform, but there are definitely losers, and certainly self-funded retirees are losers.
The other issue, of course, is that of superannuation and the federal government’s hit to superannuation. There is no doubt that that is, again, yet another layer of burden and of reduced income coming on a group that is already suffering in terms of reductions in their savings and an increase in their cost of living and their outgoings.
I reflect on an article from the Financial Review headed “Labor goes after super tax breaks” by Laura Tingle:
The federal government is considering cutting billions in superannuation tax concessions to pay for expensive new policies … For the first time, the government is also focusing on super tax benefits after people retire, when pensions paid by superannuation are tax free.
When Labor commissioned the Henry review of the taxation system in 2008, it excluded any discussion of ending the tax-free status of superannuation pension payments.
This is the same government that is trying to run a scare campaign federally about GST. This is the Labor government that excluded any talk about superannuation from the Henry tax review and then did exactly that. At some stage many superannuants probably voted Labor because they had been told: “We’re not going to touch your super. We’re not going to have this in the Henry tax review. Your super’s safe with us.” No doubt many of them did vote Labor, but I imagine that, this time around, having seen the deceit, having seen that they were hoodwinked and having seen that they are now, as a result of this government’s backflip on this issue, subject to a significant increase in their cost of living, they will probably be once bitten, twice shy on this issue.
This issue affects so many Canberrans—20,000 or so self-funded retirees. We are disproportionately over-represented by self-funded retirees in the ACT. Because of that, I have asked Mr Doszpot to liaise with our federal colleagues to take this up as a key issue in this forthcoming election. It is vital that people understand Labor’s deceit on this issue. It is important that people understand they were told one thing before an election and the government did the opposite and just how many thousands of dollars this will rip out of the pockets of many thousands of older Canberrans who have worked all their lives to set up their retirement savings and are now seeing that diminished by a Labor government.
I commend this motion to the Assembly. I commend Mr Doszpot for the work he is doing. It is not over yet. This will be a very important issue in the forthcoming weeks. I commend Mr Doszpot for the work he is yet to do in making sure this issue is put front and centre before the Canberra community in the upcoming election.
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