Keating: ‘better super’ is too good to last

Paul Keating

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has expressed strong doubts about whether future Federal Governments — either Labor or Liberal — will be able to sustain the ‘better super’ regime, which has been supported by both major political parties.

Keating expressed particular doubt about the sustainability of the generous tax concessions to over 60s and the transition to retirement elements and suggested they might not be there for the long haul, particularly if future Budgets come under pressure.

Keating told a Pensions and Investment Industry Summit on the Gold Coast that he doubted the generous treatment could be maintained by future Governments and he believed this was a very big issue.

“It remains to be seen whether the concessionality introduced by the Coalition for retirees over 60 can, in monetary terms, be sustained. It is one thing introducing these things, but if you look at the long-run cost to the Budget, it is another thing sustaining them,” he said.

“You know the way Cabinets put Budgets together, they’re always under pressure, and Treasury comes along with a silly proposal, and it always happens at 11 o’clock at night, and that is to go back to the more equitable treatment of the over 60s,” Keating said.

“So the idea that it is there forever — well, you’d believe there were pixies at the bottom of your garden if you believed that,” he said.