The Coalition is eyeing a pretty decent electoral wedge.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This should be a doddle, right?
Labor promised it wouldn't touch your retirement nest-egg, and has gone back on its word within its first year.
No further questions, Your Honour.
Except, wait, there are mitigating factors, not least being that you are a 99.5 per cent chance to be a net beneficiary.
Taken as a whole, super concessions cost around $50 billion per year.
This change will clip a modest $2 billion over 4 years.
It will only affect super balances exceeding $3 million, the average account of which is actually $5.8 million. There are several exceeding $100 million and one has $400 million in it.
Given the central point of superannuation (whole of working life saving to fund a dignified retirement), it is abundantly clear these Australians are directing far more money into super accounts than could be needed for retirement.
To the rest of us, that means budget revenue forgone. It is tax-payer subsidised private saving.
There's nothing wrong with amassing wealth of course, it's just that these surplus dollars can be invested in any number of other vehicles like equities, term deposits, art and real-estate.
The fact they are not has nothing to do with retirement and everything to do with lower tax rates when everyone pretends it is for retirement.
The government says the adjustment will affect just half of 1 per cent of taxpayers and that even then, these individuals will still enjoy concessional tax, just not the very low 15 per cent rate.
And finally, in mitigation, it does not commence until July 1, 2025, allowing scope for high-net-worth individuals to restructure their affairs.
Crucially this prospective operation also means voters will go to the polls first.
But of course, these are mere bullet points in Labor's defence argument and as we know, bullets don't make a sound under heavy artillery fire.
Presumably, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers have calculated these risks. If so, they must know they can afford no more blatant backflips lest the cumulative weight of "broken promises" comes to define this government.
As it did fatally to Tony Abbott's.
Still, Labor has a few howitzers too.
"They (the Coalition) can explain to people why they're not prepared to back energy bill relief for pensioners, that they aren't prepared to back people fleeing domestic violence with more affordable homes, they're not prepared to back manufacturing jobs and a broader, deeper industrial base in this country, but they are prepared to go to war for the one half of 1 per cent of people with more than $3 million of superannuation in their accounts," Chalmers said.
That's a reverse wedgie. And a pretty good one at that.
Mark Kenny
Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.
Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.
