The 'Core' Of One Nation's Super Proposal Is Sound, Says Former Grattan Institute Chief John Daley

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Former head of the Grattan Institute John Daley has backed“the core” of One Nation's controversial superannuation plan to allow people to withdraw part of their future contributions.

Daley, now a private consultant, worked extensively with colleagues at the Grattan Institute, a non-partisan policy think tank that he headed from 2009 to 2020.

He told The Conversation on Tuesday:“The core of [the One Nation] plan is right. The idea that people don't need to save 12% [of their wages for retirement] is true for the vast majority”.

Under Pauline Hanson's proposal, renters and mortgage holders would be able to withdraw up to 3% of future superannuation contributions for up to three years. This money would continue to attract the present concessional tax rate, while employers would continue to put in the current 12% contribution.

Daley said 12% exceeded what was needed for an adequate retirement income. It meant that either people had a higher standard of living in retirement than in pre-retirement, or that they left a material inheritance.

Daley said the“break even” point, where someone had a similar standard of living before and after retirement, was a contribution rate of about 9%.

But Daley said he would“part company” with some aspects of the One Nation plan.

He said to allow everyone to withdraw 3% at once would be inflationary, so such a change should be phased in to minimise the inflationary impact.

Also, the money withdrawn should not receive the concessional tax treatment, he said. The tax concession was given because the superannuation contribution reduced future government spending on the age pension. Allowing people access to a portion would increase the later cost of pensions, so the government should apply a person's usual tax rate to the early withdrawal.

Daley said when considering the superannuation contribution, there was a“trade off”, between a better standard of living pre or post retirement.

Allowing people to withdraw some money early would“of course” mean they would have less in retirement, but a large majority of people would get a top-up from a part-pension.

Daley said there was nothing wrong with the current superannuation model, of which former Labor treasurer and prime minister Paul Keating and former union leader Bill Kelty were principal architects. It was just a question of“how far is too far” in terms of the levy.“Around 9% to 9.5% is about right.”

Daley said a treasury analysis some years ago came to similar conclusions to the work he and others had done at the Grattan Institute.

One Nation treasury spokesman Barnaby Joyce rejected calls for One Nation to model its proposal.

“When people say you've got to model it, you're saying, 'So I have to model whether someone gets access to their own money'. I mean, I can understand that's conceptualised by socialism, but we believe that the money is your money,” he told the ABC.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers denounced the One Nation policy as“an absolute shambles” and claimed, following comments from opposition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg, that the Coalition wanted to copy it.

Bragg, who has taken a more conciliatory public position on the One Nation super policy than other senior Liberals, was asked on the ABC on Tuesday whether the One Nation policy was a good idea.

Bragg said:“Well, it's a short-term factor that would help with cost-of-living relief, I imagine. But I don't think it addresses that long-term structural challenge.

"So 30 years ago, you had about 20% of retirees renting, now you've got about 30%, and in 20 years it'll be about 40%. That is going to change the character of retirement, it's going to change the country. And so that's why having the debate about how the retirement system intersects with housing is crucial.”

The Australian Financial Review reported that it had seen documents showing former Liberal leader Sussan Ley had planned to announce“an almost identical version” of the One Nation policy in her reply to the May budget – a speech she never got to give because she was thrown out of the leadership.

It is understood the Morrison government looked at a proposal along the lines of One Nation's, which was modelled by the treasury but it did not go ahead with it.

Chalmers told a Tuesday news conference the Liberal, National and One Nation parties were“all anti-superannuation because they are all anti-worker”.

“When most people would run a mile from this absolute madness which is the One Nation superannuation policy, we now hear that Andrew Bragg wants to copy it.

"Andrew Bragg, the Coalition spokesman, today has made it really clear that instead of rejecting One Nation's superannuation madness, they want to photocopy it,” Chalmers said.

One Nation on Tuesday deployed Hanson's recently-recruited chief-of-staff Chris Taylor to argue the case for the superannuation plan. Taylor previously worked for then prime minister Scott Morrison and most recently was at the Australian Banking Association.

Questioned about the inflationary impact of the policy, Taylor told News24:“The short answer is there's other ways that we can deal with inflation.

"If you're saying whether or not people should get access to a small amount of money or do we have an academic discussion about inflation, I think the answer is we need to help people now. They're crying out for it, and we've got to do something.”

'One Nation is not AfD': Joyce

Barnaby Joyce has gone out of his way to distance One Nation from the far right German party AfD, which has just won an overwhelming vote in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt

Joyce told News24:“One Nation is not AfD. We are a very good and diligent and proper participant in the democratic process, giving the Australian people a fair alternative, and they're responding as such.

"We are not AFD, and I've watched that. My concerns are probably the same as the Christian Democratic [Union] party in Germany. I've got concerns about where that's off to.”

“It's not like [Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni in Italy, which is fine. Even [the leader of the French National Rally party, Marine] Le Pen, maybe a bit on the edge, but fine. [Leader of Reform UK, Nigel] Farage, he's got his other problems, but fine. The MAGA movement, fine.”

He said his family fought fascism.“We have no truck with anything that gets close to fascism. Can't stand it.”

Joyce said One Nation was“undoubtedly the most conservative party in parliament, but not ratbags”.

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