Bill Shorten backs higher super payments to build aged care fund

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/24/labor-debate-shorten-albanese-aged-care

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The Labor leadership candidate Bill Shorten has backed the idea of higher superannuation payments to build a sovereign wealth fund to help pay for the care of the increasing numbers of Australians living into their 80s and 90s.

Referring to a plan floated by the former prime minister Paul Keating, Shorten said Labor should consider "big" new ideas, like "encouraging people to save for a sovereign wealth fund that enables people to draw down on that resource when they need it in their 80s and 90s".

In a speech last year Keating floated the idea of a government-administered longevity fund to ensure the adequacy of retirement incomes for the increasing numbers of Australians living past 80, possibly paid for by an increase in compulsory superannuation.

Shorten's comments came in the first of three head-to-head encounters between him and fellow leadership candidate Anthony Albanese, on Tuesday night in Sydney. The debates are part of Labor's historic reform which gives members a 50% say in the election of the party leader.

The ballot gives the 43,000 grassroots Labor party members an equal say with the parliamentary party.

The debate was polite and civilised.

"I have the greatest respect for Anthony and I believe if you choose him the party will be well served," Shorten said. "He is a very good fellow and if you pick him I will understand."

Said Albanese of Shorten: "Bill would make a great leader of the Labor party and one who I would be proud to serve."

Both insisted to the party faithful that despite Labor's thumping defeat in the federal election on September 7, opposition could last just three years with the right combination of brave new ideas, collective responsibility, the end of leadership in-fighting and a determination to hold the new Coalition government to account.

"We mustn't let [Tony Abbott's] bleak world view dictate our strategy over the next three years," Shorten said, adding to applause from the crowd that if he was selected, "you'll hear less about I and more about we. The era of the messiah is over. No more messiahs."

Albanese emphasised his longer experience as a cabinet minister, and his experience in opposition in 1996 under the Howard government, saying, "We see this process as giving us a running start in our first term in opposition and we hope it will be just one term."

He added: "We should not be negative for negative's sake ... Labor is better than that ... we need to use this period to develop the next big ideas."

Both espoused the need for the Labor party to attract a wider range of followers.

"We can reach out to the bush, the region, small business, women and Indigenous Australians more than we do, people with disabilities – we need to become an even broader church than we already are," Shorten said.

Albanese said: "We need to reach out to small business, the self-employed … make sure we expand Labor's base."

Albanese is widely thought to have stronger support in the party rank and file, but Shorten appeared to enthuse the Sydney crowd with his passionate advocacy of Labor ideals.

Asked what they would like to be known for if they managed to become prime minister, Albanese cited his experience as infrastructure minister, while Shorten said: "I would like to be known as the prime minister for the powerless, the disempowered" – referring to his work setting up the disability insurance policy and his recent statements about the need for uniform laws against domestic violence.

Another debate is scheduled to be held in Melbourne on Friday and both will appear on the ABC's Q&A programme on Monday.

Factional leaders have long opposed attempts to democratise the Labor party in recent years, but Shorten now advocates that grassroots involvement in the leadership ballot should be extended to wider use of "primary style" pre-selections for Labor candidates.

He also says Labor should consider a wider use of quotas for pre-selecting a diverse range of candidates – extending pre-determined targets for female candidates to Indigenous candidates as well.

The result of the Labor leadership ballot will be announced on October 13.

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