Federal Labor are a shemozzle. After opposing nearly all savings from the Budget, leader Bill Shorten has flagged that it would oppose muted reforms to superannuation as well. From The Guardian:
Joe Hockey has called for a national conversation on increasing the age at which people can have access to their superannuation.
Speaking on the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night, the treasurer said there needed to be a national conversation on retirement savings and the “preservation age”, which is currently 55 for people born before June 1960 and rises incrementally to 60 for people born after June 1964.
“It is on my mind, and it’s on Tony Abbott’s mind,” Hockey said…
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Hockey, “in a breathtaking act of arrogance”, was contemplating making people wait longer to access their own money.
“Get your hands off people’s superannuation,” Shorten said.
Treasurer Joe Hockey last month noted that reforms to superannuation concessions and the preservation age would be considered by the Murray inquiry into financial services and taken to the next Federal Election.
I won’t outline the reasons why the current superannuation set-up is an expensive rort benefiting high income earners and the wealthy, since I have explained these many times before (for example, here and here).
All I will say is that Australia’s ineffective and poorly targeted superannuation system is a major and growing problem, and reform is desperately required – both in the interests of restoring the Budget back to long-term health, as well as improving equity.
It is, therefore, very disappointing that Shorten continues to place political expediency over the longer-term interests of the nation, in the process stifling the prospect of genuine superannuation reform.
