Letter to the Editor: Treasurer’s reform agenda

DEAR News Of The Area,

IN NOTA on 27 June 2025 our local federal Member Mr Pat Conaghan wrote a very critical condemnation of the Treasurer’s proposed summit meeting with employers, unions, government policy authorities and representatives from the broader Australian public.

The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers’, agenda for this summit is for “modernising our economy and maximizing our advantages”.

He is convening a relatively small reform round table as an advisory group, with a particular focus on budget sustainability and productivity.

This is an initiative that I thought would be lauded by most Australians, as there has been a lack of policy activity on issues of tax reform and deregulation for many years.

However, in what we have come to expect from the LNP we received a very derisive retort from our federal member to this reform initiative and for the Treasurer’s performance in general.

Even though John Hewson, ex-leader of the Liberal Party, proclaimed that the reform agenda “may well be the envy of the Coalition. He has filled the vacuum that their policy inactivity has left”.

Ken Henry, who is known as the guru of tax reform, commented “its visionary, its ambitious and its overdue”.

We did not receive a tax policy from the Coalition at the last election and we are still waiting.

In the decade between the global financial crisis and the pandemic, labour productivity growth steadily declined from just four percent to almost zero.

However, all we ever heard during Labor’s last term in office was negativity and obstructionism and apparently things have not changed in this new term.

We are confronted with greater demands on our budget for increased defence spending, better medical services (some politicians are seeking dental services to be included in Medicare), higher costs for NDIS and Aged Care, the need for more housing, the containment of climate change, etc. The money has to come from somewhere, but no-one wants to suffer, no-one wants to pay.

The Treasurer’s proposed initiative to increase the tax on super funds over $3m (tax increases from 15 percent to 30 percent) is attacked by Mr Conaghan as the Treasurer’s “raid on Self Managed Super Funds of producers and small businesses”.

What Mr Conaghan fails to accept is that the superannuation scheme was established to fund our retirement, so that we do not need to rely on the age pension.

It was not established so that we can fund the inheritance of our children, or for our wealth creation, or as a tax shelter.

The Superannuation Fund of Australia maintains that a single person with $595,000 super or a couple with $690,000 can generate a comfortable lifestyle in retirement.

This is well less than the $3m which is affected by the proposed changes.

The revenue which is expected to be raised by this tax is $2.3b per year.

The number of Australians most likely affected by this policy is 80,000, just 0.5 percent of the population.

I have two daughters (“inner city dwellers”) who are struggling to pay their mortgages; one is paying 37 percent tax on her income, while the other is paying 45 percent.

They have a minuscule proportion of super, compared to those with super over $3m, who are projected to receive a tax increase to 30 percent.

Is Mr Conaghan really serious about his criticism of the tax super change?

Who does Mr Conaghan believe should help in meeting our budget burden?

I suggest we start with the large polluters.

The Nationals do not accept global warming and reject zero percent emissions by 2050.

They maintain that to achieve this target is too costly.

I suggest that it is too costly if we don’t achieve this target.

Look at our record this year.

We spent over $1b to recover from cyclone Alfred, then over $2b from the later floods, no doubt similar costs from the storm “bomb” this week and the year is only half over.

We just need to look at the current heat wave in the UK and Europe and the resultant lives that have been lost from the resultant high temperatures.

Future costs would include the significant medical and hospital costs of heat affected citizens, food shortages and further natural disasters.

We have to accept that we need to be taxed more and we need to target those that can most afford it. It is not a matter of how much, but how we spend it and this is where we hold our politicians to account (no more sports rorts, or expensive railway car parks).

Mr Chalmers asked “everyone with any power or privileges to set aside their self interest so that we can achieve an effective outcome”.

I am assuming that he was referring to Opposition politicians, as well, in this statement.

But based on previous performance (rejection of negative gearing, capital gains tax, franking credits on investments) I have little expectation anything will change.

We seem unable to implement any creative and radically constructive initiatives in our political system.

Any new, innovative idea is jumped on immediately.

Pieter DE VISSER,
Korora.