More Turnbull Government confusion over retrospective super changes

10 May 2016

The Liberals are in disarray again today over superannuation, with Julie Bishop admitting there may be “unintended consequences” of their retrospective policy.

Unfortunately, while siding with internal critics of the policy, Julie Bishop still persisted with Scott Morrison’s lie that their changes to superannuation are “not retrospective”.

This was the same lie told by Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer last night on Q&A.

The reality is that the Turnbull Government’s policy forces superannuants to divest their existing superannuation assets into other higher taxing funds or investments, and last week the Treasury confirmed that in doing so they may face significant tax penalties.

This is the very definition of retrospective.

The Treasurer needs to admit to Australians that he lied to Neil Mitchell on 3AW in February when he made this promise:

MITCHELL: Would you guarantee no retrospectivity?

TREASURER: Well of course.

Labor wants to better target superannuation tax breaks which flow disproportionately to high-income earners, but we have grave concerns about changes which are retrospective.