Bipartisan accord needed on super
Three senior superannuation fund executives have called on the major political parties to adopt a bipartisan approach to superannuation policy in the interests of restoring member confidence.
A roundtable conducted by Money Management's sister publication, Super Review, saw Club Plus chief executive Paul Cahill and EIS Super chief executive Alex Hutchison both lament the Government's mixed signals around superannuation tax arrangements and call for a bipartisan policy approach.
NGS Super chairman Richard Shearman said he believed the less tinkering that occurred to superannuation the better.
However it was Hutchison and Cahill who signaled their strong concern at the fall-out being generated amongst members by statements from the Government on superannuation policy and possible changes to super taxation in the May Budget.
"The best approach, and the approach that our members have, is that they don't want to pay any more tax, ‘hands off' and have a consistent bipartisan approach, because if you don't have that I can only echo what other people have said in the last month or so: it's going to drive uncertainty into the system so that people then won't contribute into superannuation," Hutchison said.
Cahill agreed with Hutchison and said the uncertainty to which he referred was "live" in the Club Plus membership.
"We see it in our members. We've seen quite a few of our members just get spooked at the smell of a new, well I hate to say it, an almost rehashed RBL [Reasonable Benefits Limit] coming back in a different form," he said.
"A lot of people have just said, ‘what's going on here, I thought this was the understanding', and just this new process that they want to introduce has really frightened a lot of people," Cahill said.
"I was just thinking how we need to go back to the Hawke/Keating era of having an Accord. We need to have both sides of the Government, doesn't matter what political flavour you are, agree to leave us alone — because it just does so much damage in so many areas having people tinkering with the edges," he said.
"They might think it's a little adjustment of one point, but the ramifications are massive and in terms of the ripple effect — I don't think people understand how far it goes."
The full roundtable will be published in the March edition of Super Review.
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