The debate about super is heating up again.
Pauline Hanson announced in September that One Nation’s policy is to allow renters or mortgage holders to keep 3% of their salary out of superannuation to spend now, making them put away 9% instead of 12% in their retirement account.
With regular co-host Jonathan Gadir, we discuss all the arguments put forward by the panicking media mob about why letting people spend their money when they earn it is bad.
For a longer deep dive into the economic arguments against superannation, try this FET article.
I referenced a Super Members Council (SMC) report in the podcast which, despite being a lobby group report in favour of super, notes that the system costs the federal budget becase the tax breaks are higher than the age pension savings. There is a copy below to download.
I also recently asked Grok AI about whether there are any organised interest groups looking out for the workers who actually want to spend their money when they earn it to take all their wages as income rather than park 12% in superannuation.
Its answer was shocking.
The honest answer is that almost nobody with deep pockets wants the whole compulsory system abolished.
The $4.4–4.5 trillion pool and ~$30 billion a year in fees create one of the most organised and well-resourced interest groups in the country.
Industry funds, retail funds, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, unions, and a large slice of the financial advice industry all have strong reasons to keep the architecture intact and just tinker at the edges.
We have dug an enormous financial and political hole with the superannuation system.
It is technically easy to unwind superannuation—just require all income to be paid into a worker’s bank account, adjust tax settings slightly so that it all doesn’t get taxed at full marginal rates, and allow people to spend a small amount out of their super balance for an adjustment period of about five years (say $10,000 per year), and then any remaining funds will roll into non-tax advantaged investment funds.
But to do that needs an organised group standing up for workers.
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