Ted O’Brien is back and he has a very Steven Hamilton question (those who know, know)

Treasurer, former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating has reportedly described Labor’s unfair super tax as” unconscionable”, Mr Keating said that young people entering the workforce today stop they will see their super balances rise, the same threshold in which the unfair tax kicks in, are these views of Mr Keating wrong?

Jim Chalmers who did his PhD on Keating and is on the record as seeing Keating as a bit of a hero internally appears to roll his eyes somewhere up near Cairns, and answers:

I was beginning to wonder where the shadow treasurer had gotten to, so I welcome his question today about these changes.

His question has a number of important elements.

First of all, I want to remind the house that when it comes to the changes that we are proposing to superannuation, this side of the house is cutting taxes for 100% of the 14 million Australian workers in income tax system, that side of the house wants to go to the wall for half a percent of people who already have $3 million in superannuation so there is a difference here Mr Speaker between this side of the house on that side of the house they want to jack up taxes on every single Australian taxpaying worker but they will go to the wall for some of whom have hundreds of million dollars already in superannuation and what that tells us is they have not listened, they have not learned and they have not changed, they were not listening to what the Australian people told them on the 3 May and when it comes to Paul Keating, as the Minister for energy reminds her, she should hear about what Paul Keating thinks about you lot.

That is the first point.

The second point is, it is a matter of public record that I value my relationship with Paul Keating, someone I have known for a long time and somebody who I continue to admire. It is possible to admire Paul Keating and respect him and to occasionally have a different view to Paul Keating and this is what has happened on this occasion and I have said that publicly on a number of occasions, no disrespect to Paul when I say it, we speak about this matter from time to time and we speak about a whole range of matters from time to time and I value the engagement and the reason that this is so important, the reason why this wreck question from the shadow treasurer is so unfortunate, is because the reason that Paul put out a statement talking about the balance that people have in their superannuation is because he was rightly celebrating the fact that this side of the house is delivering 12% superannuation guarantees and the reason that is so important Mr Speaker is because at every single term those opposite have tried to diminish and undermine superannuation and it is one of the great public policy triumphs of this country and we are very proud of it, Mr Speaker, it took three Labor governments to get superannuation to deny to 12. — from nine to 12.

I pay tribute to former Treasurer Swan and former Assistant Treasurer Bowen for legislating the increase in superannuation guarantees and this government oversaw 12% superannuation guarantee, that is what Paul was talking about when he put that statement out Mr Speaker. I will not be taking lectures on superannuation from those opposite, they hate superannuation, from John Howard on, we believe in superannuation and that includes making sure that the concessions are sustainable.