Retirement incomes
21 May 2019
Why super could be part of the fallout from Election 2019
Rethinking the scheduled increase to the Superannuation Guarantee is now a distinct possibility. There’s no obvious reason to increase compulsory contributions — and workers would be the winners if compulsory super contributions were not increased.
3 May 2019
Increasing superannuation will take $20 billion a year from wages
Stagnant wages are a big issue in the 2019 federal election campaign. So it is odd that both major parties are hanging onto a policy that will take more out of workers’ pockets.
12 April 2019
Our latest retirement income projections show most Australians will still have enough
The latest Grattan Institute projections show that most Australians can expect an adequate retirement income. But pensioners that rent will continue to struggle.
12 April 2019
Fewer retirees will own their home in future, and that has big implications for policy
Australia’s retirement incomes system has been built on the assumption that most will own their own home. But new Grattan modelling suggests that’s no longer valid.
3 April 2019
Budget 2019: the super change that helps the wealthy at the expense of the young
Another federal budget, and yet more tinkering to superannuation tax breaks. But the latest changes will only help older wealthier Australians. The losers are younger workers and taxpayers.
19 February 2019
This time it’s Labor and the Greens standing in the way of cheaper super
The Federal Government’s Protecting Your Super Package Bill was designed to cut the unnecessary costs in superannuation, significantly boosting balances when workers retire. Yet it’s been gutted in parliament by Labor and the Greens.
12 February 2019
Now’s the time to legislate repairs to our deeply flawed super system
Just weeks after the Productivity Commission and the Hayne royal commission shone a spotlight on the outrageous rorts in superannuation, we get to see whether federal parliament has the resolve to start fixing them.
5 February 2019
We need generational change on retirement incomes
It’s been a quarter of a century since the Keating government introduced a retirement-income package in 1992 and Vince Fitzgerald reported on national savings in 1993. For a generation, Australian retirement incomes policy has been dominated by their assumptions. Public policy should be based on the best evidence we have. As time goes by, the evidence gets better, and we can test long-held assumptions. If they turn out to be wrong, then we should change the policy accordingly.
10 January 2019
Productivity Commission finds super a bad deal. And yes, it comes out of wages
Want more to retire on? In its long-awaited final report on the efficiency and competitiveness of Australia’s leaky superannuation system, Australia’s Productivity Commission provides a roadmap.
20 November 2018
Raising superannuation won’t help your retirement — unless you’re already wealthy
A couple of weeks ago, we published a report that showed that most retirees today are financially comfortable, and have enough money to fund a lifestyle in retirement better than they had when working. And we showed that this was likely to be true for future retirees as well. So what did we do wrong?