Alan Jones has challenged Malcolm Turnbull on superannuation changes and the Safe Schools anti-bullying program in a largely friendly encounter on 2GB radio.
The interview on Wednesday was the first time Turnbull has appeared on Jones’ program since a bruising encounter in June 2014 in which Turnbull refused to “take dictation” from Jones, who had asked him to back the 2014 budget.
Turnbull praised Jones’ eloquence in earlier statements pointing out the generosity of superannuation tax concessions and highlighted the need to “live within our means”. It followed appeals from senior Liberals for Turnbull to make peace with Jones.
Jones asked Turnbull about elements of the Safe Schools program, and whether it was appropriate for 15-year-olds to role play characters including a lesbian or a bisexual girl who rarely practises safe sex.
Turnbull said he was not familiar with that element of the program but the government had made changes to the Labor program to require parental involvement and consent.
He said the program was “no substitute for very active, engaged and involved parents ... We believe parents should be right into it.”
Jones suggested the Coalition and Labor both appeared to support the role play elements, which should be “wiped out of the curriculum”.
Jones also peppered Turnbull with questions about the $25,000 annual limit on concessional contributions to superannuation introduced by the 2016 budget. Jones warned the measure would make it more difficulty for a hypothetical 40-year-old to build up their super balance to $1m before retirement.
Turnbull explained a person earning $100,000 a year would have about $9,000 automatically put into super, allowing them to contribute an extra $16,000 a year taxed at the concessional rate of 15%.
“This is one of the things we’ve done to make super fairer and more flexible,” he said.
Turnbull defended taxing income from super balances over $1.6m as the “most administratively straightforward” way to trim the generosity of super tax concessions.
“We’re talking about less than 1% of the population, the vast majority of the population don’t have anything like this [amount],” he said.
“We believe our changes to superannuation are fair and well targeted. The reality is we have to live within our means. The super concessions are very generous, they remain very generous. What we’ve done is dialled them back a bit for people on very high incomes and with very high super balances, people like you and me for example.”
Jones quipped, “I’m not in your league [prime minister]”, to which Turnbull chuckled and replied, “Well, who knows?”
“Yes there are people who are unhappy about it,” Turnbull said. He said a person with a super balance of $4m would be pay no tax on earnings from the balance up to $1.6m, and just 15% on the balance, which he noted was lower than the lowest rate of personal income tax.
Turnbull defended the requirement for superannuants to draw down their balances by explaining the idea of super was to achieve financial independence in retirement not to amass wealth.
“The idea of super is not to be a wealth creation exercise, to build up a large capital amount,” he said. “The idea is you get big tax incentives to put money into super ... the idea is that people live off that and consume both the income and a portion of the capital.”
Turnbull said the draw-down rates, which Jones described as “steep”, would be reviewed every five years.
The interview also included Turnbull’s explanation of the government’s agenda for “jobs and growth” and the planned trajectory to surplus in 2020.
Turnbull blamed housing unaffordability on constraints on supply, which he said were caused by state and local governments.
He said the federal government would not be a “passive ATM that hands out money willy-nilly” but would encourage increased supply of housing with its cities policy linking land release to funding.
Turnbull criticised Labor’s negative gearing policy by claiming “rich people” who earn income from rent and shares would still be able to lower their tax on that income with negatively geared property. By contrast people who earned income from “personal exertion” and “the sweat of their brow” would not be able to reduce their tax with negative gearing, he said.
