Government’s super clearing house plan confirms Minister Bowen’s fetish for waste and mismanagement of taxpayer’s dollars

April 29, 2010

Superannuation Minister Chris Bowen has been left with egg on his face over his plan to spend $16 million establishing a superannuation clearing house, when the same service will be provided by the private sector free of charge, Shadow Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Luke Hartsuyker said today.

Private clearing house SuperChoice has announced a free new service for small businesses with up to 20 employees. Small businesses will be able to make superannuation deposits to the clearing house which will ensure money is deposited into the employee’s superannuation fund.

Mr Hartsuyker said the service provided by SuperChoice showed the government’s policy to establish a government run clearing house was simply a waste of taxpayer’s money.  “When it comes to wasting taxpayer’s money Minister Bowen spares no expense.  FuelWatch was exposed as a fraud and GroceryChoice cost the taxpayer more than $8 million.

“Now Mr Bowen wants to spend $16 million of taxpayer’s money on a service that can be delivered free of charge by the private sector.  Minister Bowen is representative of what is wrong about the Rudd Government. They are very good at grabbing a headline but when you scratch below the surface they are short on policy detail and big on broken promises.

“Labor’s clearing house policy has been a debacle from day one. Originally the Government said they would tender out the work to the private sector and have it operational by 1 July 2009. After the deadline passed, Minister Bowen then announced last November a clearing house would be established and operated under Medicare and it therefore would not be put out to private tender.  Private sector operators of clearing houses and payroll services gave expert opinion that the costs for the project would blow out under Medicare and that the Government did not understand the complexity of what it was getting itself into.

“Australians have every right to be sceptical about the Rudd Government’s capacity to deliver this service. Everything they try to manage ends up a debacle. Even the Australian Taxation Office has put a stop on tax return payments and super co-contributions.  The Coalition has offered to help the Government improve their clearing house policy by suggesting amendments to make it more efficient and less disruptive to the market. But with the announcement today, I would be surprised if demand will still exist for Medicare’s Clearing House by the time Labor manages to actually get the legislation into the Senate.”

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