Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Leader of the Opposition) (16:47): You've just heard all the arguments in favour of this legislation! There it is, from this minister. To be fair, there are some on the other side who are honest about what their view of superannuation is. The Liberal Party's Senator Rennick said in the debate about this legislation across on the other side:

… if we want to be serious about protecting the battlers in this country, it's time to kill superannuation stone, cold dead.

That's the view of the Liberal and National parties when it comes to workers having decent retirements and having dignity in their later years. They're not content to trash the aged-care system. They want people to also, before they get to aged care, have a pretty bad retirement. They can't stand the idea that anyone other than their mates can own capital. They can't stand the idea that Australia can have, in our economic system as one of our ballasts, $3 trillion in superannuation funds. The fact is that that is in our national interest, and it's also in the interests of working people. That is why we on this side of the House will always defend superannuation, and why those opposite will always take every opportunity to undermine it. Remember the royal commission aimed at industry funds? What did it find? It found that industry funds were the most effective form of superannuation. It found that self-managed funds and the retail funds just don't stack up in terms of returns and in terms of the costs to superannuants.

The flaws in this bill are multiple. One is that it staples members to dud funds. What we can see will happen is that some people will have an advantage—the retailers, the banks and the mates of those opposite selling their products rather than industry super funds. That's really what it's aimed at here. That has real implications, because workers could be stapled to their first fund. Those opposite mightn't have this experience, but certainly I did: the first job that I had was in retail. And many people will do that. I worked at Maccas, I worked at Grace Brothers, I worked at Pancakes On The Rocks and I worked at various other jobs.

A government member interjecting—

Mr ALBANESE: No, your bloke was the one that was sacked from jobs, mate. There was the idea that you would then go on to have a profession. You might be a plumber or in construction. You'd have different priorities. You need different insurance in terms of your job. The fact is this will staple people to funds that aren't appropriate for them. It will staple them to underperforming funds for life. It is bad policy.

There's no level playing field in terms of performance and monitoring. We agree that all funds should be subject to performance assessments. The government doesn't believe this. They're excluding funds that some three million Australians are members of. They're some of the for-profit funds. They're some of the funds with the highest fees. They're some of the worst performing funds. How surprising! And this is in contrast to the recommendation of the financial services royal commission. It's in direct contravention of it. But they're prepared to stand up for these funds because they don't actually want a level playing field—because, when you look at a level playing field, industry super wins every time as the best performers. This exposes the ideological agenda of this government. They've gone to every election, like in 2013 and 2016, and said they wouldn't interfere with the super guarantee, but then afterwards they did. They wanted to interfere with this one as well. It's only because, like a whole range of other changes, they're just waiting until after the election and you get Liberal and National parties 'unplugged'. The Liberal and National parties unplugged is killing superannuation stone-cold dead. They said it the other night. It's what they believe. It's what they do at every single opportunity that they have to undermine our superannuation system, while Labor— (Time expired)