Budget 2017: Coalition is ‘wrecking’ public trust in super system

The Australian

11 May 2017

Pia Ackerman

The Turnbull government has “wrecked” Australians’ trust in superannuation, with changes announced in the budget failing to restore faith in it or in the responsible minister Kelly O’Dwyer, according to a group targeting the Victorian frontbencher.

Melbourne QC Jack Hammond, who founded the Save Our Super group in response to super changes last year, said the new tax on the major banks’ profits would flow to customers who also faced uncertainty over super conditions.

“Banks will pass back to whoever they can,” he said. “Any cost to any business always runs the risk of going back to the customers. Eventually it will be felt by the community at large.”

A proposal to allow $300,000 from the sale of a family home to be shifted tax-free into superannuation, ostensibly lifting the super balance cap from $1.6 million to

$1.9m, needed further clarity.

“The trust and certainty that was present in superannuation has been wrecked by this government,” Mr Hammond said. “This just further complicates it.’’

Save Our Super has attracted mostly Liberal voters outraged by the super changes, with many living in Ms O’Dwyer’s seat of Higgins in Melbourne’s inner south- eastern suburbs. Ms O’Dwyer, the Revenue and Financial Services Minister, is on maternity leave.

Mr Hammond said the budget had not addressed the group’s concerns about superannuation.

“There is no evidence that Kelly has sought or succeeded in making any changes which many of her constituents would like to see,” he said. “Who would now put any money into superannuation with any sense of security that the rules when you’re putting it in now will be the same in 10, 20, 30, 40 years when you’re pulling it out?”