The Coalition will never increase taxes on superannuation, Tony Abbott has pledged, after it emerged the government was considering changes to the scheme up until Labor announced its policy.
The treasurer, Joe Hockey, received four submissions on the matter from the treasury department before the budget, the documents – requested by Labor and originally published by the Australian Financial Review – show.
Abbott on Wednesday dismissed the changes outright. “We made a very clear commitment prior to the last election that there would be no adverse changes in superannuation under this government in this parliament and we have made a very clear decision that we aren’t ever going to increase the taxes on super, we aren’t ever going to increase the restrictions on super because super belongs to the people,” he said.
A bid to have the Treasury submissions released was shot down on the premise this would “adversely impact the policy development process”.
“One of the documents was prepared for possible consideration by a committee of cabinet in the lead up to the 2015-16 budget,” the FOI letter by Ian Beckett from the Department of Treasury said. “I therefore consider that it is of close contextual proximity to cabinet and that release could potentially impair the confidentiality of cabinet processes.”
The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, wants the documents released.
“Labor is calling for these documents to be released because it goes to the credibility of the Abbott government’s claims that it has no intention to make changes to Australia’s system of superannuation tax concessions,” he said. “If the Abbott government truly has nothing to hide on plans to super tax concessions then there should be no problems releasing these documents.”
Hockey was open to changing tax concessions for wealthy Australians as recently as March.
“It is now a much broader issue than just focusing on superannuation or just focusing on the pension. This is something we have under very active consideration at the moment,” Hockey told ABC radio on 31 March. “I would love to have a bipartisan approach in all these issues.”
“If there’s a bipartisan approach to fixing it then we can actually have some long-term stability, which I’m really keen for,” he said.
But the treasurer backtracked as soon as the opposition presented its own policy in April, instead opting to differentiate between the major parties on the issue.
“The last thing you would want to do to people relying on investment income is to hit them with a new tax, which is what Labor is proposing. Hit them with a new tax when they’re getting already lower returns than they would have expected,” Hockey told Sky News last month.
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has criticised the Coalition for being closed off to superannuation reform.
“This is a government who, given a choice between policy and politics, always chooses politics,” Shorten told reporters on Wednesday. “The government needs to learn not to just oppose ideas that the opposition puts forward especially when our ideas are in the national interest.”
Labor’s policy would tax retirees who earn more than $75,000 from superannuation in the retirement phase at 15%, and lower the high income superannuation contribution threshold from $300,000 to $250,000. People earning over that figure would have their contribution taxed at the higher rate of 30%.
The government’s tax discussion paper released earlier in the year advocated for an overhaul of the superannuation system, saying the current system will put pressure on the economy in the long run.
