The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) has urged policy makers to take a long-term, holistic approach when it comes to policies which dictate the future of Australia's superannuation system.
Responding to the Coalition's announcement that if elected it will move to delay the increase in the Superannuation Guarantee (SG), Pauline Vamos, CEO of ASFA, said that it was vitally important that all policy decisions were made with the overarching goal of ensuring every Australian has adequate income for a comfortable retirement.
"Increasing the Superannuation Guarantee is a crucial step towards achieving this," she said.
"We have long been strong supporters of the increase to 12 per cent and will continue to advocate for the guarantee to proceed as legislated."
"However discussions and debate about the future of Australia's retirement incomes policy need to be had in a much broader context and with input from industry, stakeholders and the broader community," Vamos continued.
"This is why we have launched a White Paper to start a conversation with all Australians about how they want their retirement to look in the future and the policies required to achieve it."
Yet according to Vamos, superannuation is just one part of the puzzle.
"The role of other factors such as aged care, health care and access to the Age Pension must also be considered when contemplating the system's design," she said.
"Pulling one or two levers in the system will not deliver people the lifestyle in retirement that they deserve.
"Instead we need to take a holistic approach aimed at future-proofing the system against the challenges posed by the changing nature of Australia's population."
Vamos said that the last thing the community wanted to see was more and more short-term tweaks to the system, which would ultimately undermine confidence and make it difficult for people to plan for retirement.
"The policy decisions made today will have an impact on the lifestyle of all Australians in retirement, so this is not a conversation industry and government can have just with themselves," she said.
"We need to build a national consensus on how Australia's superannuation system will look in the future, drawing on feedback and ideas from a broad range of stakeholders in the community.
"Let's take the politics out of super and move towards a bipartisan approach to delivering comfort and dignity to all Australians in retirement."
