Portability shot down in Senate

The Federal Government’s superannuation portability regulations have been shot down in the Senate this morning after being disallowed due to Assistant Treasurer, Senator Helen Coonan’s refusal to back away from the Government’s recently-gazetted regulations on the issue.

This follows the Senate Committee on Superannuation unanimously finding that “the portability out of active superannuation accounts could lead to an increase in superannuation members in Australia due to the need for multiple accounts”.

Despite the Committee (which included members of Coonan’s own party) rejecting the Government’s proposals and calling for amendments to the regulations, the Senator had used question-time in the Senate to signal that she would not back down.

The Government’s proposal was defeated by 31 votes to 27.

According to Shadow Minister for Retirement Incomes and Savings, Senator Nick Sherry, the proposed regulations would have led to an increase in the current 25 million accounts for 9 million fund members.

Instead Sherry says he has “had overwhelming support from ordinary people out there in the community who would like to have the freedom of being able to move money in their superannuation accounts into one account”.

According to Sherry most fund members at present do have the right to consolidate or roll together multiple accounts, but they fail to do so because they either can’t find them, don’t know they can consolidate, or because of the red tape and form filling involved.