The requirement that super funds act in the best financial interests of their members is up for review, as is the nature of the performance test that weeds out poorly-performing funds.
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Articles on retirement income review
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Australian retirees die with most of the super they had when they finished work. There’s a measure in the budget that threatens to entrench that.
Putting more of each pay packet into super would widen the gap between high earners and low earners; between men and women.
The increase will come at the expense of wages, and in the view of two inquiries - a decade apart - is something we don’t need.
Most retired renters are in poverty, very few home owners are.
More older Australians are carrying housing debt later in life, or not owning homes at all, but lack suitable alternatives to the family home. The result is lower incomes in retirement.
All that would be needed is to adjust retiree tax scales and tax their super fund earnings at their marginal rate.
Super is inefficient, costly and directs money where it isn’t needed. There’s a way out.
An examination of 80,000 enterprise bargaining agreements finds that on average 80% of each increase in compulsory super has been at the expense of wages.
Josh Frydenberg’s review of the retirement income system will have to consider the growing hole caused by our decisions to delay buying homes for longer and longer.
Top contributors
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Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
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Senior Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), UNSW Sydney
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Senior Associate, Grattan Institute
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Professorial fellow, Monash University
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Research Fellow - Henry Halloran Trust, University of Sydney
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Professor, Curtin Law School and Curtin Business School, Curtin University
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Director, Grassroots Research Studio, La Trobe University
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Emeritus Professor of Finance, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Associate, Grattan Institute
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Honorary Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
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Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan Institute
