The AFR’s Michael Roddan has done a terrific job exposing the many superannuation lies spouted by Paul Keating.
First, Roddan attacks Keating’s claim that the Morrison Government’s early superannuation release policy will cost young people up to $500,000 in retirement savings:
In a recent four-night ABC series, Keating criticised the early release scheme for causing “young people” who had accessed “$25,000 or $30,000” of their savings to lose “half a million 30 years down the track”…
The early release scheme did no such thing. Extractions were capped at $20,000… Even Industry Super Australia could only manage to concoct an estimated $97,214 earnings loss from a $20,000 withdrawal (ASIC reckoned it would be just $43,032, Choice said $49,823 and Grattan said $58,000). And after the regulator and Treasury last year questioned ISA’s absurd figure, it was reduced to $79,393. Keating obviously missed the memo.
Second, Roddan debunks Keating’s claim that lifting the superannuation guarantee (SG) to 12% will “lead to a much fairer and more equal economic society”:
Logic alone will conclude that a higher superannuation guarantee rate will exacerbate the savings gap between men and women, even if one ignores the mountains of analysis on the topic. For middle Australia, meanwhile, a higher contribution rate will only result in a lower part-pension payment because of a slightly higher super balance. It’s robbing Peter to pay Treasury.
Finally, Roddan debunks Keating’s repeated claim that take-home wages won’t be impacted by increasing the SG to 12%:
Only in 2007, Keating still believed in economic gravity, stating that “had employers not paid nine percentage points of wages, as superannuation contributions, they would have paid it in cash as wages”. The cost of superannuation “was never borne by employers”, he said.
MB has spent years debunking Paul Keating’s superannuation lies, which have also flied in the face of the recommendations and findings of the Henry Tax Review, the Treasury’s Retirement Income Review, the Grattan Institute, and elsewhere.
Yet despite being debunked over and over again, the media continues to provide Paul Keating with a pulpit to spread disinformation.
