Senator CHERRY (12:19 PM) —In returning to the amendments we were discussing, I want to note the response from the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer to my question about reports and to thank her for her commitment that there will be consultation with interested parties on those regulations before they are released. I would note for the record that the Democrats are very keen to see the information gathered by income groups, income brackets, and matched against spouse incomes. There has been a lot of speculation in this debate as to how many spouses of low-income earners and how many spouses of high-income earners will receive the co-contribution.

That is an important issue, but I am not too worried about it. There has been a lot of debate in this place over a very long period of time about the extent to which superannuation discriminates against women, particularly when they are in and out of the work force. The whole notion of allowing women when they return to the work force in a part-time position to actually accelerate their superannuation, regardless of what their husband is earning, is something that I think has been understated in this debate. There has been a lot of talk about the equity of whether this measure will be picked up only by spouses of high-income earners. I think what is more likely is that it is going to be picked up by spouses of a whole range of income earners. As I said in my opening comments, I would expect women who are returning to the work force to be one of the key categories of people picking up this particular measure. It is important to collect that information. I suspect the figures will disprove the concerns raised by ACOSS and by other people in this debate that this measure will mostly go to spouses of high-income earners, and I look forward to seeing those figures reported to the parliament in due course.