Keating urges compulsion
Paul Keating
Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has advocated a new Labor Government embrace compulsion with respect to lifting the superannuation guarantee.
Keating told a pensions and investment industry seminar on the Gold Coast that in the event a Labor Government gained power he hoped it would move to lift the level of the superannuation guarantee.
Referring to the Coalition Government’s decision not to proceed with the previous Government’s policy to lift the guarantee to 15 per cent, he said: “By the Coalition refusing to impose the last 6 per cent, the country lost a decade of accumulated earnings on those funds through a huge equities boom.
“The fact is this Government hates superannuation. If they could have got rid of the superannuation surcharge they would have.”
However, the former Prime Minister said that at least Australians were salary sacrificing and topping up the existing 9 per cent superannuation guarantee, and that this represented a good thing.
“But I do think the mandatory contribution should rise,” he said.
“In the current election campaign we have not heard a great deal about this but I do hope in respect to what Wayne Swan has said in the past, we will start to see some rationality where superannuation is concerned.”
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