Govt must get electoral mandate for super changes
The Federal Opposition has called on the Government to take any changes to Australia's superannuation tax settings to an election before they are implemented.
The Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Senator Mathias Cormann, last night used a speech to the Senate to challenge the Government to seek electoral endorsement for any changes to the superannuation tax regime.
Pointing to signals from the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, that the Government would be looking at the super tax settings for higher income earners, Cormann said such a move would represent a breach of faith on the part of the Government and a recanting of an undertaken given by the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, in 2010.
"If, despite previous promises to the contrary, Labor decide to proceed with yet another tax increase targeting Australian super savers to plug the Treasurer's various budget black holes, this must be put to the Australian people at the election before it is legislated by the Parliament," Cormann told the Senate.
He said super savers across Australia "deserve the opportunity to pass judgement on yet another Labor Party tax increase targeting superannuation, before it is enshrined in legislation".
"Australians doing the right thing by saving for their retirement deserve certainty and stability in the rules and tax arrangements governing superannuation," Cormann said. "Labor spin doctors are already working flat out behind the scenes to pre-emptively demonise those Australians the Gillard government is about to hit with massive additional taxes."
He claimed this was "exactly the same modus operandi as on previous tax-grabbing occasions".
"For example, when the Treasurer increased the luxury car tax, he suggested that he was only targeting the very rich: Australia's Maserati and Ferrari drivers, he said. However, since then, the increased revenue from the luxury car tax has overwhelmingly come from families buying a new family station wagon, or the like."
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