Labor loves an idea everyone can cheer, especially one that costs the party nothing. This time, it’s business owners picking up the tab.
Labor has come up with another two good ideas, but the big question is who’s going to pay for one of them? And while the party’s members at the triennial ALP national conference in Adelaide cheered the ideas, no one seemed to care that this would be another impost on business owners.
The first good idea is to reduce the retirement age from age 67 to 65 for those who have worked in manual labour jobs for a long period of time. This was acknowledging that these workers might find their day-to-day tasks harder as they get into their 60s.
The next good idea is to allow the super industry to share data with Centrelink and other government agencies to effectively make pensions easier to get and to make the pension adjustments as income changes because of super, easier to adjust.
The AFR’s Phillip Coorey and Lucas Baird pointed to former PM Paul Keating’s view on the subject.
“You’ve got to fill in 45 pages to get a pension (45 pages) and then you have to work out what to do with it all,” said Keating, who argued that Australians would benefit from a simplified system managed largely by the super funds. “What we could do is have the super funds build it all.”
The information from super funds to Centrelink might also give pension recipients a clearer picture of how their super will affect their pension and it might stop some pensioners living on the minimum pension because they fear that their super might run out. Others fear how good super returns can reduce the pension because annual income from elsewhere directly affects the pension received each year.
The third ‘good’ idea is that all workers, regardless of their age or how long they work, will get the 12% super which is compulsorily paid to workers aged 18 years or older. Right now, younger workers receive paid super only if they work more than 30 hours a week.
But given the Albanese Government’s spectacular win at last year’s federal election and how much of this Labor team’s policy ideas are driven by what existing and potential voters would like about any new idea they dream up, this super-for-all has vote for me all over it.
So, what do I think about this ‘good’ idea? Well, I’d point to the single inverted commas around the word ‘good’.
You see, I’m a fan of super as a social policy that will deliver economic benefits for workers for when they retire and our super industry is best of breed, globally.
However, it is effectively a pay rise paid by employers and so this is a carrot dangled in front of young potential voters/workers, which small and medium businesses will bankroll. Big businesses will too but this Government doesn’t have a healthy respect for what businesses do for the economy and the material benefits they deliver for their employees.
By the way, unsurprisingly, the Greens have been backing this measure, which means it looks like a done deal that will be well in place for the 2028 election.
